A Moment on the Clock of the World: A Foundry Theatre Production

(Paperback)

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Description

A Moment on the Clock of the World follows The Foundry's long-standing tradition of creating provocative relationships between form and content. The book's design features a bold layout that divides each page into two horizontal sections.

The top portion contains each contributor's chapter. The bottom section, appearing like a deep footnote, continues throughout the entirety of the book. This portion comprises of an exploration of The Foundry's inquiry by Melanie Joseph, the company's founder and the only one of its leaders who has worked at the company for its entire duration. While resembling a footnote, Joseph's text is not an annotation or commentary. Inspired by the format of Brian Fawcett's Cambodia: A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow (1986), Joseph's text explores her own profound and personal journey with the company on a different time signature from the other contributors. This structure puts acts of inquiry in dialogue with one another in such a way that shared themes, ideas, and provocations resonate not through the stentorian stroke of direct comparison, but with the free- flowing movement of harmonics, to be discovered in any number of ways by the reader. This fluidity of form will also apply to individual chapters, which by turns will the take the form of essays, dialogues, playscripts, interviews, and even a Talmudic structure that prioritizes hypertext and notation. Like the work of The Foundry over the last two-and-a-half decades, this book strives to be a performance of ideas that invites as many people as possible to consider what it means to be citizens of a world that we ourselves create.

For the visual translation of these different forms to the page, we have partnered with Jessica Green and Tom Griffiths of the award-winning Everything Studio, a multidisciplinary design firm in Brooklyn that has fashioned books and print publications for outlets such as BOMB, Cabinet, Studio Voltaire, and Verso Books, among others. Please see "VII. Layouts" for more clarification regarding the design we are exploring for the book.

Reviews

This beautiful volume, celebrating the uncompromising vision of New Yorks Foundry Theatre, reminds us that the impossible is possible through creative courage and the conviction of ones deepest principles." Los Angeles Times "These stunning essays, interviews, incantations, manifestations are by the best radical thinkers in the U.S. A.This collection is a manifesto filled with bold ideas, magic and poetry, a living record of the best of what is still called the un-American tradition in theater.This is political and creative courage at its best and the voices inside this work are not only subversive but reach to the very root of why we make theater, why we keep coming back. Best of all, this book wrenches apart neo-liberal notions of what resistance truly is, and redefines and recontructs them from the root up. And the root is the only place where the radical still lives.And there also lives The Foundry theater." Naomi Wallace "Below the lofts, gyms, and dog-walking, is a radical history of cultural resistance and wildness. An essential inspiration and document for those interested in curing the gentrification of the mind. Nato Thompson, author,Culture as Weapon: The Art of Influence in Everyday Life "The Foundry Theatre is the great exemplar of artistic excellence, political courage, and visionary hope of American theatre in the late 20thand early 21stcenturies." Cornel West,(from the Foreword) "A fascinating testament to the game-changing spirit of one of the most important things to happen to the American theatre. Any artist or producer seeking inspiration or lessons on how to truly shake things up should start here. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins "The Foundry Theatre has quietly been responsible for some of the most artistically ambitious work seen in New York in recent years." The New York Times "The Foundry has a long history of pushing plays beyond the boundaries of traditional theatre in terms of form, content, and location." Time Out "The Foundry Theatre has excellent vision. [They] have championed remarkable theatremakers who challenge what we consider a play." Village Voice "The Foundry has long had the passion for mixing artistic rigor with social activism."The Brooklyn Rail "Since 1994, The Foundry Theatre has been a mainstay in the downtown theatre scene." The New York Times

Author Bio

The Foundry is an ongoing performance of ideas created by rigorous theatrical works, public dialogues and community engagement that invites as many people as possible to consider what it means to be citizens of a world that we ourselves create.