Garden of Earthly Delights Extends Again

The off-Broadway revival of Martha Clarke’s Garden of Earthly Delights is being extended again. Based on Hieronymus Bosch’s landmark triptych, the acclaimed production opened November 19, 2008, and was scheduled to close on March 1. The show, directed and choreographed by Clarke with original music by Richard Peaslee, will now pay at the Minetta Lane Theatre through May 31. An international tour is also in the works.

A 70-minute piece that plays without intermission, Garden of Earthly Delights uses music, dance and trapeze art to dramatize Bosch’s surreal painting, which presents three sides of the human experience, from the innocence of Adam & Eve to the chaos and debauchery of life on earth before ending with a vision of hell.

The original production of Garden of Earthly Delights premiered at St. Clement's in 1984 before opening at the Minetta Lane in 1987, where its stylized aerial effects were hailed as groundbreaking. The show was honored with a Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience, an Obie Award for Peaslee’s score and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for choreography. It returned to the Minetta Lane last November for the current revival.

Garden of Earthly Delights features Sophie Bortolussi, Benjamin G. Bowman, Daniel Clifton, Marjorie Folkman, General McArthur Hambrick, Whitney V. Hunter, Gabby Malone, Jennifer Nugent, Matt Rivera, Jenny Sandler, Isadora Wolfe. Music is provided by Wayne Hankin winds, Egil Rostad cello and Arthur Solari music director, percussion. The production includes set and lighting design by Christopher Akerlind and costume design by Jane Greenwood.