SMALL AND BEDS (1982)
Two companion pieces. Small is a solo for a performer (Hurlin) and eight synchronized cassette tape recorders. Emitting everything from imagined dialogue between a naked Barbie and Ken, to a scene from “The Miracle Worker” in which Helen learns to fold her napkin, to music from the punk group “Trio,” the tape recorders and the performer celebrate the minuscule and allow each of the arts to become greater than their sum. Beds co-written with the late Laura Ernst, takes place in a giant bedroom/hospital ward, in which overwhelming inertia prevents all the inhabitant Lazy-bones from getting up. The patients split the Sunday Times among themselves (avoiding the “Help Wanted” section) while their caretaker, “Nurse Cunningham” (Hurlin in drag) appears with a 20 pound Roast Turkey and cheerfully announces “…Oh no, Don’t get up!” before serving the performers and the audience.
Performed by Billy Barnes, Laura Ernst, Patricia Henritze, Dan Hurlin, David Warren
Premiered at ReCherChez Studio for the Avant Garde, NYC
Photos: Matthew Jones
A MUSICAL SALUTE TO TOURISM (1982)
A personal reflection on emotional paralysis, A Musical Salute to Tourism is populated by Peter, (Billy Barnes) a seasoned traveler, always wearing the indigenous costumes of the many lands he’s visited, Paul (Hurlin) who is stuck both physically and psychically in one place, and Mary – a reel to Reel Tape Recorder who narrates and plays incidental music.
Performed by Billy Barnes, Sarah Durkee (voice), Dan Hurlin
Premiered at ReCherChez Studio for the Avant Garde, NYC
Performed at PS 122, NYC
Toured New England
Photo: Matthew Jones
A MUSICAL SALUTE TO TOURISM (1982)
A MUSICAL SALUTE TO TOURISM (1982)
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1985)
A movement adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel. Two performers each play all the roles, sometimes simultaneously – The Priest, the Hunchback, the Dashing soldier Phoebus, and Esmeralda, represented by a pink party dress on a hanger. The Cathedral is suggested by two ten-foot tall stepladders, the bells, upside down brandy snifters, and the angry mob, an endless rope of paper dolls. Lit entirely with bare light bulbs and candles, and set to romantic music of Chopin and Berlioz (among others), this adaptation uses language sparingly and positions it’s rough hewn, unpolished aesthetic against the story’s elegant, tender and ultimately tragic content.
Created and performed by Dan Hurlin, and George Sand
Premiered at J.A.M (Just Above Midtown), NYC
Toured Nationally
AWARD: Voted one of the ten Best Plays of the Year by the Boston Phoenix
photos: Cordelia Cammack
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1985)
ARCHAEOLOGY (1989)
Set to a solo sax score by Dan Froot, Archaeology examines the unpredictable effects of flukes and accidents on the future, and the equally unpredictable effect our own personal history has on our present. A smashed plate leads forward in time to a geological disaster, while a strange family phobia leads backward in time to a hidden family tragedy. Movement becomes evidence, and evidence is misinterpreted in this examination of lived history and archeological present.
Performed by Dan Froot, Dan Hurlin
Premiered at Home for Contemporary Theater in art, NYC
Performed at La Mama, Downtown Art Co. and PS122, NYC
Toured nationally
photo: Robert Flynt
A COOL MILLION (1990)
Adapted from Nathanael West’s 1933 short novel, A Cool Million is a savage farce of greed and political manipulation—a Depression era Candide. In a caustic take on one of Horatio Alger’s books for boys, "A Cool Million (Or the Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin)" traces the adventures of a young innocent country boy who leaves home in order to seek his fortunes under the mentorship of Shagpoke Whipple, ex-president of the United States. The work offers a vision of America beset with corrupt institutions, rampant, uncontrolled capitalism, and political leaders who control through unabashed exploitation of patriotic sentiment and traditional family values. The piece is performed as a solo, using rapid, distilled choreography and precise split second transformation within a world of some fifty-odd characters.
Performed by Dan Hurlin
Sets by John Arnone
Lights by Lori Dawson
Puppets by Janie Geiser
Premiered at Dance Theater Workshop, NYC
Toured internationally
AWARD: Village Voice Obie Award, Special Citation
Photo Credits: Matthieu Roberts
A COOL MILLION (1990)
CONSTANCE AND FERDINAND (1991)
Constance and Ferdinand is a movement theater piece that borrows text from Gertrude Stein’s 1946 play “Yes is for a Very Young Man.” Stein’s play about a young idealist Ferdinand (Marks) and his charming paramour Constance (Hurlin), was written just as America was emerging from World War II. Constance and Ferdinand was developed as America was entering the first Gulf War. The piece examines personal relationships and sexual mores and asks the question: “If we behave like this personally, is it any wonder that we behave like this globally?”
Created by Dan Hurlin and Victoria Marks
Performed by Dan Hurlin, Victoria Marks, Margie Citron, Sharon Hayes and Oliver Wadsworth
Set design by Dan Hurlin
Music composed and performed by Guy Klucevsek
Premiered at PS 122, NYC
Photo: Lois Greenfield
QUINTLAND (1992)
On May 28th, 1934, Five Identical baby girls were born to Oliva and Elzire Dionne, a working class Canadian couple. The world, exhausted by the great depression and made anxious by the news out of Europe, grasped this small miracle with a desperation that all but destroyed the lives of the parents, the girls and the Doctor who delivered them. The popularity of the “Quints” created an unprecedented media blitz that lasted for years, and resulted in lucrative contracts with Colgate Palmolive, Remington Rand typewriters, Lysol, and Quaker Oats, among many others. Quintland is a solo performance that presents a darkly comic and troubling vision of innocence and good intentions warped by unimaginable greed.
Created and performed by Dan Hurlin
Sets by Donna Dennis
Music by Dan Moses Schreier
Puppets by Janie Geiser
Lights by David Bergstein
Premiered at Dance Theater Workshop, NYC
Toured nationally
AWARD: New York Dance and Performance Award (A.K.A. “Bessie”) to Donna Dennis for visual design
photo: Tom Brazil
NO(thing so powerful as) TRUTH (1995)
NO/TRUTH is inspired by the real life story of the late William Loeb, the all-powerful, conservative publisher and editor of New Hampshire’s Manchester Union Leader newspaper. Called a “Smear” by the Union Leader itself, this solo borrows imagery from “Citizen Kane” to tell its story of power-brokering, greed, conservative demagoguery and the collateral damage that results when media moguls become drunk with their own influence.
Created an performed Dan Hurlin
Music composed and performed by Dan Froot
Set design by Dan Hurlin
Lights by Sharon Hayes
Projections designed by Bo Eriksson and Wendall Harrington
Premiered at Dance Theater Workshop, NYC
Toured nationally
A Project of MAPP International
photo: Tom Brazil
NO(thing so powerful as) TRUTH (1995)
THE DAY THE KETCHUP TURNED BLUE (1997)
This nine-sentence playlet was written by playwright John C. Russell at the age of eight. The Day The Ketchup Turned Blue is a toy theater piece whose set, a faux Wedgwood proscenium, a candle, Wedgwood dishes and a hamburger, was inspired by the English tradition of dining room table top puppet shows popular in the 19th Century. Through a system of strings and pulleys, teacups and saucers represent the Little family pursued in diminishing perspective by an evil, red hammer, Mr. Bigg. Russell’s text is projected onto the stage’s back wall during the 12-minute performance. At the end, it is revealed that the author died of AIDS at the age of 31. At that moment, in the words of Alissa Solomon of the Village Voice, “The play shifts … from a charming elaboration on childlike fantasy to a tender lament for imaginations lost.”
Performed by Dan Hurlin
Text by John C. Russell
Puppets and objects created by Dan Hurlin
Premiered in my living room in the East Village
Continues to tour internationally
photos: Dan Hurlin
THE DAY THE KETCHUP TURNED BLUE (1997)
THE SHOULDER (1998)
In 1994, a 73-year-old Iowa man failed his eye exam and was unable to renew his drivers license. But that didn’t discourage him from visiting his older brother in Wisconsin, who had suffered a stroke. Afraid of flying and unwilling to be driven, he embarked on an epic journey across the state of Iowa. On July 5, 1994 he packed a ten foot long trailer with camping supplies, extra clothes and gasoline, and hitched it to the back of his second-hand 1966 John Deere riding lawn mower. Achieving a top speed of 5mph, he proceeded to drive all 250 miles across the top of the state of Iowa on his lawn mower, and arrived at his brother’s farm fifty-one days later. The Shoulder is a chamber opera with music by Dan Moses Schreier, and visual design inspired by regionalist painter Grant Wood. The role of the farmer is sung simultaneously by a 60 year-old baritone and a 20 year old tenor highlighting the issues of aging, youthful spirit, and the passage of time that are inherent to the story. Hurlin plays the state of Iowa.
Performed by Don Chastain, Dan Hurlin, Doug Marcks
Music composed by Dan Moses Schreier
Music direction and performance by Alan Johnson
Set design by Dan Hurlin
Lights by Tyler Micoleau
Premiered at Dance Theater Workshop, NYC
Toured nationally
AWARD: American Theater Wing Design Nomination
Photos: Tyler Micoleau
THE SHOULDER (1998)
THE SHOULDER (1998)