Marcus Gardley, Nathalie Fillion, Marion Aubert, Liz Duffy Adams, Octavio Solis, and Samuel Gallet in the first ever Bal Litteraire in the US! Photo by Lynne Fried
Join us as we dance up a story!
Don’t miss this exciting kick-off to the festival! Friday, May 25th, at 7 pm @ Z Space
Featuring original writing and performances by Liz Duffy Adams, Marion Aubert, Nathalie Fillion, Samuel Gallet, Marcus Gardley, and Octavio Solis!
Can’t be with us on the day? You can still join us through live streaming on New Play TV!
The San Francisco festival features for the first time in America a “Bal Littéraire” A New Play Night Club, an event that is wildly popular throughout France.
All six authors will gather at 3pm on Wednesday around a pitcher of coffee and a pile of their favorite dance tunes, contributed by each member of the group. They cooperatively decide on a set-list of six songs that would make even the dead get up and boogie, and together they develop an interactive story that involves the city of the day, the mood of the moment, or a current event that inspires them. Swallowing a piece of pizza and drink, they split the scenes in the play between them, then off like a shot! They furiously begin to write.
Over the next 24 hours, each playwright develops one episode of the story. Everyone reconvenes at 7pm on Thursday, to read the pieces out loud together, and the French writers’ pieces are sent off to be translated overnight.
The rules of the game! Scenes and songs alternate, and each scene must end with the title of the song that follows.
At the performance on Friday, the spectators surround the stage, and the authors, under the spotlights, play various characters and voices in this single story, written by six unique playwrights in record time for the New Play Nightclub, which takes about 7pm. Spectators-dancers are invited to listen carefully each text and dance wildly to each song – and not the opposite! The play itself is meant to be performed only once, ever! However, we will be streaming it live on New Play TV across the globe.
Technical constraints: five or six microphones, a good sound system, a space to dance, and … a disco ball.
The Bal Littéraire – New Play Nightclub is presented in association with San Francisco’s Litquake Literary Festival.
Click here to learn more about the Cooperative d’Ecriture!
Click here to read a Manifesto from the creators of the Bal Littéraire in France!
Litquake San Francisco’s Literary Festival
The Bal Littéraire is sponsored by the French American Cultural Society
Meet the Artists
Octavio Solis
Liz Duffy Adams
Marcus Gardley
Samuel Gallet
Nathalie Fillion
Marion Aubert
