DUKE DEPARTMENT OF THEATER STUDIES
MISTERIOSO
Wednesday through Saturday • 9/26/07 through 9/29/07, 8 pm
Smith Warehouse
$10 • $5*
Invoking the title of one of Monk’s best-known tracks, Misterioso is a site-specific theatrical experience you’ve never had before— 90 minutes of sound, video, and multiple bodies in motion that recaptures the incandescent creativity of Eugene Smith’s famous Sixth Avenue Jazz Loft, circa 1960.
Smith’s loft was an epicenter of New York’s after-hours jazz scene, where Monk, Mingus, Davis, Getz, and other greats composed, sparred, and tested new concepts. For Misterioso, Duke’s Department of Theater Studies has adapted transcripts from Smith’s own tape recordings and from interviews made by the Center for Documentary Studies Jazz Loft Project.
Misterioso squares up to Monk’s legacy by transforming a historical archive into a new form, one where documentary materials share space with fiction composed by Duke writers, and all of it teems with the kinetic force of movement. With an entire warehouse filled with actors, musicians, singers, and dancers, the show evolves, in the end, into a live jazz concert.
At the Jazz Loft, 821 Sixth Avenue, NYC:
“Monk had his own way of telling us what to do,” says trombonist
Eddie Bert. “One time he was dancing in the other room at the loft
while the band was playing. He kept dancing around and around and we kept
playing. Finally Hall [Overton, arranger] yelled over at him, ‘Hey,
when are you gonna play the piano?’ Monk yelled back, ‘When
the tempo gets right.’ He kept dancing and we kept playing
and when we got it right, he joined us. That's how it was. That's why
the music is so great.”
Misterioso on the web:
Misterioso at Duke Theater Studies
Misterioso video:
Misterioso trailer
Presented by the Duke Department of Theater Studies, based on research by the Jazz Loft Project at the Center for Documentary Studies.