Works by Martha Clarke and Alan Ball Highlight NYTW Season

New York Theatre Workshop has announced its 2006-2007 season. The company's lineup will include ¡El Conquistador!, created by Thaddeus Phillips in collaboration with Tatiana Mallarino and Victor Mallarino, a world premiere of a Martha Clarke piece, a world premiere of a play by Oscar-winning writer Alan Ball and 24 Hours Are Not a Day, written and directed by Germany's René Pollesch.

Opening the season is ¡El Conquistador!, directed by Tatiana Mallarino, which is scheduled to begin performances in September. In the show, Polonio, a Colombian peasant, finds work in the big city as the doorman of a fancy high-rise apartment building—a building populated with characters portrayed by some of Colombia's leading television actors filmed on location in Bogota. As Polonio passes his days, a crazy, dramatic telenovela-style story unfolds involving suspense, seduction, murder, revenge and redemption. The piece promises to somehow tie together traditional set design, footage shot in Colombia and the voyage of Christopher Columbus.

Pirandello Project, beginning in November, is a new work, created, directed and choreographed by Clarke. The show uses dance, live music, text and visual imagery to re-tell four Luigi Pirandello stories featured in the Taviani Brothers' 1984 film Kaos. Set in turn-of-the-century Sicily, these stories portray common people in mystical situations, heavily influenced by poverty and the violent political unrest of the time.

Slated for January 2007 is All That I Will Ever Be by Ball who won an Oscar for his American Beauty screenplay and created HBO's Six Feet Under. The plot focuses on the eternal search for belonging as seen through the eyes of two young men in Los Angeles, one a restless native Angeleno, the other an enigmatic immigrant from the Middle East. Jo Bonney, currently represented on the New York stage by Some Girls, directs.

Finally, NYTW will present Pollesch's 24 Hours Are Not a Day starting in April. The piece explores the consequences of globalization on our public and private lives.

NYTW recently completed its 2005-2006 season with columbinus.