A unique and plugged in performance by The Builders Association titled Elements of Oz will offer a lighthearted 21st century mash-up of the classic The Wizard of Oz, featuring YouTube fanatics, heavy metal, and a heartfelt recreation of the iconic film at Peak Performances at MSU this weekend.
This is one show in which you are asked to turn your cell phone ON — the stage action will be enhanced by interactivity with viewers’ smart phones, delivering the Technicolor Land of Oz of our imaginations.
Founded in 1994 and directed by Marianne Weems, The Builders Association is a New York-based performance and media company that creates original productions based on stories drawn from contemporary life. They will bring their own brand of magic to this story.
To engage the Land of Oz in contemporary life, there’s no better place to begin than a viewer’s smartphone. Increasingly, we live our daily lives through this tiny interface and in some sense we depend upon these devices to escape our humdrum environment and to live out other fantasies.
We are developing an AR app which will instruct viewers to use their ‘smart’ devices to engage with the performance. In the theater, the audience will see a spare stage, but with the use of AR in their smartphones they will see the fantastical world of Oz, from the poppy fields to the Emerald City. These devices will be the gateway to fantasy, in much the same way the classic MGM movie The Wizard of Oz transported us from the stark black and white of Kansas to the vibrant Technicolor Land of Oz. Using a simple, almost empty stage and a few powerful performers, this project presents a double-edged sword by staging a robust dialog between the analog and the virtual.
Theater has traditionally celebrated live performance and is born from the idea that people come together to witness a live event onstage. But what happens if the performance, while live, cannot truly be ‘seen’ without Oz’s fantastical devices? We aim to provoke an awareness of our dependence on these devices – necessary to enter the “Land of Oz.”
Watch the behind the scenes trailer here.
Elements of Oz
Sep 26 8 pm; Sep 27 3 pm; Oct 1 7:30 pm; Oct 2 7:30 pm; Oct 3 8 pm; Oct 4 3 pm
Alexander Kasser Theater, MSU, 1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ, 07043
Tickets are $20 an can be purchased online here
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