THEY DO NOT MOVEby Brian Jucha with the Catastrophic ensemble
Houston Premiere
Regional Premiere
World Premiere
Performances
Nov 18, 2022 -
Dec 10, 2022
Cast & Personnel
Director
Cast
- Noel Bowers
- Amy Bruce
- Tamarie Cooper
- Dillon Dewitt
- Karina Pal Montaño-Bowers
- Gabriel Regojo
- Miika Stewart
- Kyle Sturdivant
Band
Costume Design
Lighting Design
Sound Design
Prop Design
Stage Manager
The Play
Using found text, music, stylized physicality, and an abundance of pop culture references They Do Not Move winds its way through an imagined American future in which democracy has been defeated and a disorganized band of vagrants, waifs, and strays are hunted by monarchist forces. Their only defense? An expressionist cavalcade of song and dance. There will be a beauty pageant. There will be a sitcom. There will be conversion therapy. Horror movies, cancel culture, and Texas law feature prominently in this oddly moving, frenetically funny love letter to our city, a devised dance-theatre piece that could only come from the mind of Brian Jucha. Like each of his works, They Do Not Move is sublimely derivative and apropos of everything. Jucha previously collaborated with IBP and Catastrophic to create Last Rites (1997), We Have Some Planes (2002), and Toast (2019). In its cover story, American Theatre magazine called We Have Some Planes “darkly hilarious and compelling… like the best of remembered dreams” and said, “Jucha and the extraordinary Infernal Bridegroom company have given us a way to open our eyes.”The Playwright
BRIAN JUCHA
has created original interdisciplinary theatre works for decades. An early participant in the development of Viewpoints Theory, the experimental dance-theatre savant worked with Anne Bogart for years culminating in the formation of Via Theater which he ultimately took over as artistic director. As part of the downtown New York City performance landscape of the 90’s, Via Theatre produced 2 to 3 original works a year to consistent rave reviews from The New York Times.
Love Bomb
will be his 5th collaboration with Catastrophic and its forerunner Infernal Bridegroom Productions, including They Do Not Move, Toast, Last Rites and We Have Some Planes, which landed Jucha and the Catastrophic/IBP ensemble the cover of American Theatre magazine.
Jucha’s greatest personal triumph came in collaboration with the company of actors of INFERNAL BRIDEGROOM PRODUCTIONS with WE HAVE SOME PLANES. Less then 6 months after September 11 – the New York artist used the verbatim transcripts from the morning of 9/11 between the cockpits and pilots of the four planes that crashed that day and the air traffic controllers along the east coast corridor as the basis of a new work. Performed underneath a looming bright red digital clock that ticked away the 75 minutes leading up to the disaster – with the text delivered in real time – Jucha and IBP broke all expectations for audiences and critics and delivered a groundbreaking theatrical experience that did not address the tragedies of that day as much as it created an emotional rollercoaster ride that examined the world in which we lived in – a world that would never quite be the same. WE HAVE SOME PLANES received critical rave reviews, standing ovations and the cover of American Theatre magazine.
Jucha gained a reputation as an established ‘traditional’ director helming the reins of plays and musicals such as Stephen Belber’s TAPE, Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses and BAT BOY The Musical. He was more widely known for collaborating closely with ensembles of actors to create original pieces. He is a theater artist who is not a playwright. He relies as heavily on stylized movement as he does on spoken text. His singular performance style is always visually arresting, engaging, and entertaining.
The performances – conceived by Jucha – working closer with actors – have ranged from performance/dance to adaptations of plays to original rock operas, to theater of the absurd collages using current events, texts from found sources (court trials, newspaper articles, self-help books); kaleidoscopes of music, sound and soaring singing; and always a technically proficient array of imagery and movement.
All of Jucha’s productions have developed out of a life’s work studying VIEWPOINTS. Many artists have utilized the benefits of Viewpoints training over the last 3 decades, Jucha is one of the few who was part of the original conception, having worked with both its creators dancer/choreographer Mary Overlie and Anne Bogart who adapted its use towards theater.
In the Media
Beautifully Chaotic They Do Not Move Opens at Catastrophic Theatre
December 14, 2022 |
Houston Press
| Natalie de la Garza
Review: THEY DO NOT MOVE Enthralls Audiences at The Catastrophic Theatre
November 23, 2022 |
Broadway World
…every performer has such strong and disarming performances that break the fourth wall and make you confront the realities that we live in.
Review: Catastrophic Theatre’s ‘They Do Not Move’ is a night of chaos, dancing and joy
November 20, 2022 |
Houston Chronicle
| Chris Vognar
“They Do Not Move” thrives on the chasm that often exists between form and content and the cloud of confusion that hovers, often by design, over contemporary life.
