WOOLLY MAMMOTH THEATRE COMPANY ANNOUNCES
A ONE-NIGHT-ONLY WORKSHOP PRESENTATION OF
MIKE DAISEY’S THE ORIENT EXPRESS (Or, the Value of Failure)
FREE WORKSHOP PRESENTATION OF MIKE DAISEY’S NEWEST PIECE
SUNDAY, JULY 29, 7PM
Following workshop presentations at the Cape Cod Theatre Project, Arts/Emerson in Boston, and the Spoleto Festival in South Carolina, Mike Daisey and director Jean-Michele Gregory bring a workshop presentation of their latest monologue to Woolly Mammoth.
The show’s description: “To escape scandal, Mike Daisey impulsively decides to recreate the Orient Express by traveling from London to Istanbul by rail. From an English village out of time to the glorious minarets of Istanbul, from the ghosts of the Berlin Wall to the broken statues and secret police of Budapest's recent past, Daisey draws out the hidden heart of failure, and how stories, myths, lies, and legends are the way we tell ourselves who we are. From the end of communism to the triumph of corporatism, Daisey walks the borderlands of fact and fiction, wrestling with what failure can teach him, and us, on the long, strange road East.”
“When people undergo a scandal the likes of which Mike went through, we are used to seeing them swathed in a cloak of public relations spin, if not completely disappearing from the public sphere,” says Woolly Artistic Director, Howard Shalwitz. “Instead, Mike dives right into it, bringing his artistry to his predicament. With his trademark humor and thoughtfulness, Mike deftly weaves together the story of his travels through Europe with a deeply personal and highly vulnerable self-analysis. For long-time fans of Mike Daisey, this is the bravest and most revealing they will see him on stage.”
“We have a long history of developing new work at Woolly Mammoth, so I am very pleased we were able to find room in the schedule to add this performance,” says Mike Daisey. “It feels especially fitting to bring it here, the place where The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs was born.”
