ESCAPE by Pilvax Productions - WORLD PREMIER NYC
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Support Independent Theatre – Raising Funds for the Production of Escape
The Hungarian revolution of 1956 is one of the proudest, yet most traumatic moments in Hungarian history. The revolution and the subsequent, brutal Soviet retaliation has created a deep wound in the collective consciousness of Hungarians. Its casualties were enormous – thousands dead during the fights, hundreds executed for taking part in the revolution and more than 200 thousand people fleeing the country. The transgenerational trauma attached to it and the communist oppression made 1956 a taboo subject for many Hungarians – very few pieces of art have dared to deal with it in an honest way. The most recent production of Pilvax Productions is aiming to do just that with their newest stage production, “Escape” by Marika Barnett, playing four performances November 11-13th at The New Stage Theatre Company.
Hungarian-American author Marika Barnett decided to open up those wounds and examine the effects of such a traumatic event in her honest and deeply felt play, Escape. Marika sadly passed away a year ago, but her wish was to have her play performed on stage and commemorate those victimized by an unjust system. Unfortunately, we are reminded of the timelessness of all of her questions and points raised in her work – today’s situation in Ukraine still reminds us every day how stories of oppression and escape are still very much present in our society.
A Holocaust survivor, a hero of 1956 and a 1956 refugee herself, Marika has a deep understanding of the story that was inspired by her very own experiences, yet throughout her life, her deep sense of humor never left her and that goes for her play as well. Escape is the story of seven Hungarian refugees in 1956 who have to face the tough question after crossing the borders of Hungary: “Now what?”. Each of them arrives with their very own “baggage” – the earnest and funny revolutionary and Holocaust survivor Tomi, the confident and studious Vera, the always bickering intellectuals, Dr. Goldberger and his wife, the sickly and silent Ádám and the oh-so-verbal Gábor Kertész who left his family to start a new life with his mild-mannered secretary. As the story unfolds, the oftentimes inconvenient truth also comes to the surface. The characters will be brought to life by a diverse cast of Hungarian, American and Hungarian-American artists in English. We decided to perform in English in order to open up this story and its message to global audiences – with this artistic choice, we want to emphasize the universal nature of this story and include everyone in the conversations that are sure to be followed by it.
Pilvax Productions is staging this exciting play in innovative ways, with an emphasis on movements, sounds and light. The breathtaking stage design by Adam Albert & Kitti Harmati is already under production and it will serve the story in the most unexpected and creative ways. However, this is where we need your help. The design and production of these sets is estimated at $10,000, moreover, the lighting and sound is integral to our storytelling, which also makes this aspect more costly than usual. Our friends at The New Stage Theatre Company expressed their faith in the project and generously offered their space to us, but the rent price and the cost of insurance are very high in New York City and we also want to honor the work of the artists and technicians and other contributors to the production. We also plan to do a touring production of this play, with several communities already organizing the events.
Pilvax Productions is a not-for-profit organization that only works through the donations by independent individuals. We work without state funding in order to ensure our own artistic freedom and integrity. If you believe in our goals and believe in the message and importance of our play, please donate as much as you can. Donors over a certain amount will automatically receive a ticket to a performance selected by them.
Therefore, if you believe in our message and agree that telling this timely story in innovative ways is important, please consider donating to us. By that you would not only express your support to our production, but also make a statement that independent theatre matters and that understanding our present through our past is vital.
NOVEMBER 11-13 ONLY 4 SHOWS! Pilvax Productions presents ESCAPE - WORLD PREMIER in New York City. Written by Marika Barnett, directed by Timea Zsedely, set design by Adam Albert & Kitti Klaudia Harmati, costume design by Agota Hodi. Cast: Agnes Koci, Alexander Chilton, Christopher Kardos, Daniel Palinkas, David Ilku, Judit Nonoka Sipos, Viktoria Kovacs
SEATS ARE LIMITED! BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW!
YOUR DONATION WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Your donation is tax deductible (more info: [email redacted])
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
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About the playwright:
Marika Barnett
Born in 1934 in Budapest, Hungary. Survived the Holocaust by hiding with a Gentile family in the industrial section of Pest; hiding in a Roman Catholic convent, located in the Buda Hills. In the last weeks of the war (hiding in a coal-cellar) she and her family were protected by the German SS from the Hungarian Nazis. OK, OK, for money and signatures, but one of them even gave his life for the 1000 Jews he protected. Marika’s story about this has been published in the book: “Remember Us!” and later in the movie with the same title.
After the 1956 anti-Soviet Hungarian Revolution failed, Marika and about two dozen of her friends escaped to Vienna on December 3rd , 1956. A month later, on January 3rd , 1957 she arrived to the United States. Here in the states her Hungarian diploma of Clinical Psychology was evaluated to be between the Master’s Degree and PhD. After raising two wonderful boys, her background in psychology seemed to be the perfect choice to enter the computer field. In the 1970-s the computer industry was full of ex-psychologists, English and Philosophy majors. She progressed very fast at Honeywell. A Principal Software Engineer she was part of the developing team of UFT. The UFT (Unified File Transfer) program is still the basis of the current Email we all use. After working 25 years for Honeywell, Digital and Oracle, she has retired.
After retirement she started to work for two Boston area cable TV stations in different capacities. She is also a successful, published photographer. Five of her Brooklyn Bridge photographs are permanently displayed in the new World Trade Center of New York. Others are at several different public places. Her photographs can be seen at: www.mbarnett.com
Her short play, “The Eleventh Minute” became one of the top three finalists in the 7th Annual New Play Competition of the Chameleon Theater of Minneapolis and the New Voices Competition in Massachusetts. In the same year it was performed at the Secret Rose Theater Festival in Los Angeles. The same play won the Audience Appreciation Award at the Playwrights’ Platform’s Festival of Boston. Heuer Publishing promptly published the play and considers it one of their best-sellers. This play and another short play of hers, “Chekhov and Pinter take a "pause” were filmed and shown on several cable TV stations. “Chekhov and Pinter takes a "pause” – was instantly published in an online magazine’s issue on avant-garde plays. It won Second Price at the 2007 Playwrights’ Platform Festival and it was performed as the final-exam for the University of Massachusetts’ course on Directing.
The world premier of Captain Filthy Fred (written by Istvan Ver & Marika Barnett) musical (composer: Alan Wurman) was presented by Pilvax Productions at the La MaMa Theater on June 21 to 24 in 2018.
About the director:
Timea Zsedely, PhD
director, producer, organizer
Born and raised in Hungary, lives in New York. Timea has been an educator since 2003 and an organizer and theatre director and producer since 2008. She is the founder and owner of 10 Thousand Steps Hungarian Books and Pilvax Art Center (in New York) and artistic director of Pilvax Productions, a Hungarian-American Independent Theater & Film Company for which she has directed and designed international productions of works by contemporary European, mostly Hungarian authors (Liselotte in May in Theater for the New City (2013), Winter Under The Table in Gene Frankel Theater (2014), The Jungle Book in La MaMa Theater (2016), California Dream in New Stage Performance Space (2017), Captain Filthy Fred in La MaMa Theater (2018), How to explain the communism to mental patients in New Stage Performance Stage (2018). As founder, artistic director and educator at Pilvax Art Center International Educational and Creative Studio since 2008, Anyanyelvmegorzes.hu since 2018 and AbsoLUTE Movement since 2019 in New York, she has been working on international creative productions and educational projects for both children and adults.
About the set designers:
Ádám Albert
Ádám Albert is an artist, educator and researcher. He is an Associate Professor and head of the Department of Artistic Anatomy, Drawing and Geometry at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts as well as director of the Art and Art Theory College for Advanced Studies.
Albert works in a variety of media, often using forgotten craftsman techniques, typically working with materials from private and institutional archives. His works are featured in the permanent collection displays at the Hungarian National Gallery and Ludwig Museum - Contemporary Art Museum Budapest.
www.albertadam.com
@mada.trebla
KITTI KLAUDIA HARMATI (born 1998)
Lives and works in Budapest
Kitti is a fresh gratuate from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, where she studied Graphic Arts. At the university she has been a coordinator and team member of the Art and Art Theory Advanced College since 2017, and a laboratory assistant in the Digital Form Creation Lab since 2019. She has also gained experience at Hochschule für Bildenke Künste Dresden and Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma during EU4ART short term mobilities, and in 2021 she was awarded a National Excellence Program research scholarship, working on the topic of data visualization of headcount data from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts.
Kitti took part in group exhibitons both in the Kunsthalle der HfBK (Dresden, Germany) and the Vasarely Museum (Budapest, Hungary). She has also been represented in an anthology titled „Now I know, daylight”, published by Pilot Press (London) in 2021. In 2022 Kitti curated „The Man Who Stepped in Paint”, a group show at MKE PROFIL (Budapest). She recently held a talk about Digital Form Creaton Lab at EU4ART_differences - Digital Rites and Embodied Memories (Monte Compatri, IT).
Our CAST:
Dániel Pálinkás (Tamás Stein) was born in Budapest. He graduated from the New York campus of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts with a degree in acting in 2019. Here, he played his most important roles in the plays The Crucible, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Letters to Sala, and The Three Sisters. He continues to develop his skills in comedy and improvisation at the Upright Citizens Brigade. He achieved success in this genre with the performances A Sketch of New York and The Hell 9000 Dance Party. A member of Pilvax Players since 2019, he has toured the entire USA with his one-man performance of the Hungarian classic, John, the Valiant. In addition to all this, he spoke in Hungarian as the narrator of the play The Danube at Columbia University. He is also member of the German-speaking Budapester Ensemble - their first performance was Clowns, a grotesque play by Hungarian-born playwright George Tabori. He dedicates this performance to W.M. and his idol, Dame Angela Lansbury.
Christopher Kardos (Ádám Tóth) started acting at age seven as he followed in the footsteps of the previous two generations in his family. Played Treplyov in Chekhov's The Seagull in his senior year. His New York theater credits include Thursdays (Director & Actor), Wait Until Dark, Liselotte in May (playing all 7 male characters) at the Theater for the New City, Winter Under the Table at the Gene Frankel Theater and playing the Prince in the world premiere of Captain Filthy Fred at the La MaMa theater. His film credits include many short & feature films, including award-winning projects. He's an actor, singer/songwriter and writer. His life goal and aim is 'The Work', as in both the method and work on the self. He would like to thank his Mother and his Grandmother for teaching him about Life, the Universe and Everything.
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” /George Orwell/
Viktoria Kovacs (Vera Szekeres) is a Hungarian-American actress based in New York City. During the past years, she worked in various "Pilvax Productions" plays, mainly in “Captain Filty Fred: The Musical” (La Mama Experimental Theatre Club). Currently she is part of a weekly improv show on Youtube, also with "Pilvax Productions". She is grateful to Timea for the opportunity to play a brave and determined woman in “Escape". Viktoria is also thankful for the cast for the endless inspiration.
David Ilku (Péter Goldberger) has worked with the New York Theater Workshop, Ogunquit Playhouse, LaMama, Drama Dept. among others. Film credits include Imagine I’m Beautiful, Love Hunter, In Our Nature, Full Grown Men, which he co-produced), Risk, Blue Steel, Godass, and Liquid Sky. He also co-wrote and performed in the short film “Salvation" for Giorgio Armani. Some TV appearances are At Home With Amy Sedaris, Difficult People, Spin City, The Cosby Show, and Comedy Central's Premium Blend. David writes and performs with the comedy trio Unitard and has a residency at Joe’s Pub, at the Public Theater. David was also an Island Records recording artist in the band, World at a Glance.
Nono Judit Sipos (Eszter Goldberger) is photographer, painter, designer and stylist. Her affinity towards the arts stems from her childhood. Her photographer dad had a great influence on her. After graduating from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts,in order to ensure continuous growth of her craft, she was awarded a Fine Art Scholarship, which brought her to Indonesia. She had an opportunity to take a peak into its Fine Arts through a program of Set-, Costume-Design, Batik painting and Painting while spending a couple of years with its wonderful culture. During her stay, she organized numerous exhibitions and fashion shows, which was sponsored by the Hungarian Embassy of Indonesia. Her proffesional successes continued in Hungary and a number of European countries. She’s worked in Baden-Baden, Munich, Kassel of Germany, London of England, Venezia of Italy and Antaya of Turkey where she organized the LOREAL Hair show. Judit currently lives in New York City, where she participated in several Pilvax Productions projects as a Scene-and Costume Designer and an actress. "To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains; to approach my work with a clean mind; to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the Ultimate Purpose toward which I am working; to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart; to be gentle, kind, and courteous through all the hours; to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the joy that comes from work well done -- this is how I desire to waste wisely my days." Thomas Decker
Alexander Chilton (Gábor Kertész) is a stage and screen actor based in New York City. He has performed in several plays Off-Broadway, including productions at The Cherry Lane Theatre, The Atlantic Theater Company, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and The American Theatre of Actors. Chilton’s most recent stage production was for The New York Theatre Festival, playing Vaclav Havel’s famed dissident character Vanek in a new play by JB Alexander. On screen, Chilton can be seen playing J.P. Morgan in the streaming series American Dynasty (episode: "The Morgans").
Agnes Koci (Anna), a Hungarian artist, was born and raised in Szabadka, Serbia. She moved to New York City in 2008. Her training began at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance followed by Peridance. She then attended the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre where she fell in love with the Meisner Technique.
Agnes was admitted to Columbia University Theatre major. Currently she is taking a break from studying yet looking forward to return to this challenging yet magical world of Columbia University.
Organizer
Timea Zsedely
Organizer
New York, NY