ETHEL | CIRCUS, WANDERING CITY CONCERT BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL 2017-2018
ETHEL | CIRCUS, WANDERING CITY CONCERT | ETHEL String Quartet, BAM Harvey NYC, Hudson Opera House NY, Asolo Theater FL; Ralph Farris (viola/artistic director); Dorothy Lawson (cello/artistic director); Corin Lee (violin); Kip Jones (violin); Karen Jenkins (executive producer); Grant McDonald (director); John Narun (projection designer); Jason Ardizzone-West (set designer); Beth Goldenberg (costume designer); Oona Curley (lighting designer); Stowe Nelson (sound designer); Jenney Shamash, The Ringling (producers); Kelly Shaffer Allen (production stage manager; Lauren Barber (associate set designer).
PRESS
BROADWAY WORLD REVIEW
"ETHEL Captures the Spirit of Circus Through Soaring Strings at BAM Harvey Theater”
”…The performers are clad in vaudevillian, slightly steampunk-inspired garb (costume design by Beth Goldenberg) mirroring both the vagabond, gypsy lifestyle of the traveling entertainer and matching the decrepit charm of BAM’s Harvey Theater which lent a hefty atmospheric hand. The video and images projected (design by John Narun) onto the blank canvas are obscured, quite cleverly and poetically, by ropes (thanks to set designer Jason Ardizzone-West) — creating a textured abstraction and evoking the various “rope acts” in a circus - tightropes, aerial acrobatics and even pulling up the tents… but the real spectacle was the music and the musicians behind this masterful work… Never have four performers been so compelling and commanded the stage in such a way… this brilliant and beautiful exploration of “Circus: Wandering City” by ETHEL strips it all down to its most simple, sincere and human qualities (even when involving animals), perhaps asking audiences to view circus as something else that their initial perceptions — but to regard it as a place where the denizens of society not only gathered but were welcomed, accepted and made to feel useful (many years before the theater industry implemented color or gender-blind casting or inclusion was taken seriously by employers).
Broadway World (Cindy Sibilsky)