Lemons [Performance]
Sun, Jul 24, 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
PERFORMANCE
Bushel is pleased to present Lemons, a workshop play in development, written by Sarah Todes and directed by Sarah Hughes. Check out one of two performances at Bushel: Saturday evening, July 23, 7 pm (doors at 6:30 pm) or Sunday matinee, July 24, 2 pm (doors at 1:30 pm). Limited seating for 30; attendance is mask optional. Tickets are $20 per person. Reserve your seats here.
Exploring how social media affects our individual and collective relationship to grief, Lemons centers on an obsession with fitness guru Amanda Kloots’ instagram account. Amanda lost her husband, Broadway performer Nick Cordero, to COVID in 2020; the protagonist in the play had recently lost her mother to cancer. Lemons weaves together personal narrative and cultural criticism as the protagonist absorbs Amanda’s public grief in the context of her private one.
Featuring four performers—Marisa Caruso, David Gould, Keren Lugo, and Sarah Todes—Lemons begins as a personal narrative essay that quickly deconstructs, breaking out into scenes, being interrupted by other voices, and spiraling at the mercy of memory, imagination, and doom scrolling. Dance and movement at times accentuate, at times provide counterpoint to the rhythm of the first-person narrative.
Lemons is an examination of female strength, both physical and emotional, in the face of capitalist patriarchy. Exploring the intersection of capitalism and wellness culture/self-care, which is overwhelmingly marketed to women, Lemons looks at how societal expectations have come to inform our relationship to grief, our identities, our bodies, and each other.
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Sarah Todes (playwright/creator/ensemble) recent work includes: GAMP, a dark comedy pilot about two dysfunctional sisters who run a puppet show company, proud recipient of a NYFA MOME Women’s Fund grant; Silvia and Lucetta in Franklin Stage Company’s production of Two Gentlemen of Verona; Lifetime Supply at IRT; My Unfinished Girl at The Cell Theater; and the NEON NIGHTS performance series at The Carriage House in Stamford, NY. Sarah is also the founder of Puppetsburg, a contemporary puppet show company based in Brooklyn which recently received a rave review in the NYTimes, and Puppetsburgs nonprofit, HeartFelt, which brings Puppetsburg shows to underserved communities, most recently via the City Artist Corps grant. @gamptheseries / @neoncaviar / @puppetsburg / @spaghetticarbonsarah
Sarah Hughes (director/ creator) is a director, producer and parent based in NYC. She makes live performances of all kinds: new plays, VR pieces, devised work, virtual concerts, hybrid new media projects, and more. Recent collaborators include Julia May Jonas, MJ Kaufman, Julia Izumi, Pablo Helguera, Sunita Prasad, Eliza Bent, Zarina Shea, and Carl Holder, and her work has been programmed at The Bushwick Starr, Abrons Arts Center, and New Ohio, among others. As a producer she’s developed pieces with artists & institutions such as Sibyl Kempson, MoMA, Half Straddle, Tribeca Film Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, and The New York Times. Sarah was a longtime company member with Elevator Repair Service, is an Affiliated Artist of New Georges and Target Margin Theater, and is an alum of the WP Theater Directors Lab, the ONeill National Directors Fellowship, Clubbed Thumb’s Directing Fellowship, and The Civilians R&D Lab. She’s taught at Dartmouth College & NYU, and created the role of Director of Artistic Programming at Theatre Row, where she conceived & led the Kitchen Sink Residency, a new-work development program for emerging performance companies. www.sarahcameronhughes.com
Marisa Caruso (ensemble) has performed with a variety of theater companies across New York State, including the Irish Classical Theatre Company, Road Less Traveled Productions, 4th Wall Productions and Theatre of Youth, as well as appearing in commercials, independent films and the occasional web series. She has managed the Torn Space Theater company for six years, in addition to producing independent live events in comedy and theater. She teaches workshops in improv for the NYSTEA youth theater conference, and for fun in the community. She has a BA in Theater Arts and Arts Administration from SUNY Fredonia.
David Gould (ensemble) is a performer living in Brooklyn. He’s been a regular in New York’s experimental theater scene for many years, with such collaborators as Katie Brook, Liza Birkenmeier, Sarah Hughes, Meghan Finn, Julia May-Jonas, KatieRose McLaughlin, and Jess Barbagallo. His work has been seen at LaMaMa, The Kitchen, The New Museum, The Signature Theater, Dixon Place, The Bushwick Starr, Abrons Arts Center, and The Ontological Incubator among others.
Keren Lugo (ensemble) Off Broadway: At The Wedding (LCT3), Romeo y Julieta (Radio Play, The Public Theatre), Privacy (The Public Theatre), Actually, Were F*cked (Cherry Lane Theatre), Two Mile Hollow (Womens Project). Regional: Girls, Scenes From Court Life (Yale Repertory Theater), Water by The Spoonful (Mark Taper Forum), Men on Boats (Baltimore Center Stage), Women of Padilla (Two River Theater), Henry V, Our Town (Chautauqua Theater Festival). TV: New Amsterdam (NBC), Orange is the New Black (Netflix), The Americans (FX). Education: MFA NYU Graduate Acting.