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The Rosenbach Company, a Pop Musical by Ben Katchor and Mark Mulcahy
Performed April 20 at The New York Public Library, Humanities and Social Science's
Library
"Thrilling, charming, and altogether a knockout." - Variety.com
The Rosenbach Company's "Interior Polock's
Bookshop." Original illustration by Ben Katchor. Courtesy of the artist.
Graphic
novelist Ben Katchor will present his brilliant, illustrated pop musical -
The Rosenbach Company - for one night only in the unique settings of
The New York Public Library. On Friday, April 20 at 7:00 p.m., Katchor and
composer Mark Mulcahy will stage their multi-media "chamber rock opera" about
the pleasures and perils of bibliomania. This will be the first time the
production will be performed in a library. Katchor is currently a Fellow of the
Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers where he
is working on a graphic novel set in and around the Library.
Ben Katchor and
critically acclaimed composer Mark Mulcahy's sung-through pop musical chronicles
the life and times of brothers Abe and Philip Rosenbach, who were the most
famous dealers in rare books and antique artifacts in America. The piece was
commissioned by the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia, a research center that
holds the brothers' personal collections of rare books and manuscripts.
Mixing projected
animated images with live actors, singers and musicians, The Rosenbach
Company explores issues such as the obsessive nature of collecting, the
relationship between cultural and commercial pursuits and the Rosenbach's
historical significance as the owners of the world's greatest literary
treasures. Their collection ranges from James Joyce's Ulysses to John
Tenniel's original illustrations for Alice in Wonderland.
The Rosenbach
Company will be presented in the Celeste Bartos Forum in the magnificent
Beaux-Arts landmark building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, the Humanities and
Social Sciences Library, an ideal setting for a tale of book-lust and literary
treasure hunts. The front of the Bartos Forum will be filled by a screen,
specially built for the occasion, on which Ben Katchor's animated drawings will
be projected.
"...a sung-through
biodrama? A chamber rock opera? A meeting of the museum establishment with the
music underground? It is thrilling, charming, and altogether a knockout." -
Variety.com
$15 General
Admission, $10 Library Donors, Seniors, Students with ID. Note: Seating is
unreserved. Arrive early for best seat selection. Tickets are available through
http://www.smarttix.com/or
212.868.4444.
About Ben
Katchor (projections, text and direction) Ben
Katchor is a graphic novelist whose books include Julius Knipl,
Real Estate Photographer: Stories; The Jew of New York; and
The Beauty Supply District. His picture-stories and drawings appear in
the Forward, Metropolis magazine, and The New Yorker,
and his current weekly strip, "Shoehorn Technique," appears in the
Forward and The Chicago Reader. He has created several
music-theater productions, including The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island
and The Rosenbach Company, both with composer Mark Mulcahy, and The
Carbon-Copy Building, with Bang on a Can/Ridge Theater, which won an Obie
for Best New Production in 1999. He has received fellowships from the MacArthur
and Guggenheim Foundations and was a fellow at The American Academy in Berlin.
He is currently a Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center of The New
York Public Library. For further information about Ben Katchor's work: http://www.katchor.com/.
About Mark
Mulcahy (composer and singer in the roles of Abe
Rosenbach) Mark Mulcahy is a composer and singer-songwriter who has
recorded several albums with Loose Records, including In Pursuit of Your
Happiness and Smile Sunset. He is co-creator, with Ben Katchor, of
two musical theater pieces, The Rosenbach Company and The
Slug-Bearers of Kayrol Island. Mulcahy previously fronted the New
Haven-based band Miracle Legion, and later, Polaris; a house band for the early
1990s alternative television series The Adventures of Pete & Pete
that gained renown for the songs "Hey Sandy" (featured in the opening credits of
each show), "Waiting for October" and "Saturnine." As a solo artist, Mulcahy has
opened for many notable performers including Oasis and Jeff Buckley, and
received homage from Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, who dedicated a song to
Mulcahy at a Boston show. Mulcahy's song "Hey, Self-Defeater" was featured in
Nick Hornby's 31 Songs .
About The
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers The
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers provides a
nine-month fellowship that allows academics, independent scholars, and creative
writers to work on projects that draw on the Library's extraordinary
collections. Each Fellow receives a stipend, office space in the Center's
handsome quarters on the second floor of the Humanities and Social Sciences
Library, and full access to the Library's physical and electronic resources.
About the
Humanities and Social Sciences Library Housed in the magnificent
Beaux-Arts landmark building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, the Humanities and
Social Sciences Library is renowned for collecting, preserving and making freely
accessible to the public an astounding range of documents charting human history
and cultural expression. Counted among its literary treasures, for example, are
the first Gutenberg Bible to come to the New World; Shakespeare's first folio; a
copy of the first printed book in America, the so-called Bay Psalm Book; the
manuscripts of George Washington's Farewell Address; and Thomas Jefferson's
handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence.
About The
New York Public Library The New York Public Library was created in
1895 with the consolidation of the private libraries of John Jacob Astor and
James Lenox with the Samuel Jones Tilden Trust. The Library provides free and
open access to its physical and electronic collections and information, as well
as to its services. It comprises four research centers - The Humanities and
Social Sciences Library; The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts;
the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and the Science, Industry
and Business Library - and 86 Branch Libraries in Manhattan, Staten Island, and
the Bronx. Research and circulating collections combined total more than 50
million items. In addition, each year the Library presents thousands of
exhibitions and public programs, which include classes in technology, literacy,
and English as a second language. The New York Public Library serves over 15
million patrons who come through its doors annually and another 21 million users
internationally, who access collections and services through its website,
www.nypl.org.
