Landed here in Groningen, one of our homes-away-from-home for five preview performances of The Following Evening at the Noorderzon Festival. So great to finally get this work in front of audiences before we bring it home next year.
For the first time ever, all three parts of A THOUSAND WAYS are happening all at once. Thanks to the team of the Israel Festival in Jerusalem for pulling off this brave feat. Shalom.
(photo of Part Three by illustrious producer Sami Pyne)
We are grateful to be invited to speak at the Pennystamps Speaker Series at the University of Michigan. Michael and Abby (+ a very pregnant belly) will be giving a talk tonight to a mostly empty auditorium, so that it can be recorded and watched from the comfort of your own home. Here’s the link.
A Thousand Ways (Part Two): An Encounter is included on the “Best Theater of 2021” by the New York Times.
Check out the full list here!
Abby & Michael have been named “Most Creative People” in 2021 by Fast Company. Check out this story about A Thousand Ways and also be sure to look through the full list of totally awe-inspiring other humans doing all kinds of incredible things across a diverse range of fields, from art to design to voting rights to advocacy and technology.
On the air! Weekend Edition on WNYC, David Furst and Jennifer Vanasco talking about A Thousand Ways, Parts One and Two.
“It’s really deeply transformative. It does what the best theater does – creates a sense of empathy, builds a bridge between you and someone who might not be like you at all.”
A Thousand Ways (Part Two) is up and running in NYC, installed inside multiple venues at The Public Theater.
A Critic’s Pick from Laura Collins-Hughes from the NY Times.
“It is a joy; even if it scares you, go. This is a work of inquisitive humanity and profound gentleness, which over the course of an hour buffs away the armor that lets us proceed through our days brusque, numb and antagonistic.”
600 HIGHWAYMEN have been invited to be Associate Artists of IN SITU, the European platform for artistic creation in public space. Michael is spending this week in an artistic laboratory with the partners and other Associate Artists. We’re very excited to be a part of this groundbreaking platform with inspiring artists.
Thank you to Gemma Wilson at American Theatre magazine who put thoughtful attention and care into this profile of 600 HWM after she experience both Part One and Part Two of A Thousand Ways.
“This Time It’s Personal: 600 Highwaymen’s Intimate ‘A Thousand Ways’”
A Thousand Ways (Part One) continues to run (though we’ve just closed at The Public Theater, CAP UCLA, Stanford Live, Boom Arts). Just announced extensions at Arizona Arts Live and On the Boards. And tickets are soon available for Walker Art Center and Carolina Performing Arts.. Check our calendar for dates & tickets. And a reminder: you can attend from wherever you are. All you need is a telephone and a quiet hour alone. Here’s some recent press from David Cote at The Observer, and the SF Chronicle Datebook.
The New York Times featured Abby & Michael and A THOUSAND WAYS in the Sunday Arts section this weekend.
“It sounds odd to describe an hourlong telephone chat, which is what “A Phone Call” is, as a work of theater, and I’m not even sure that it qualifies. Yet the performance, which requires two anonymous strangers and one automated voice to guide them through a structured conversation, employs the tools of theater. And it achieves more goals of theater — telling stories, triggering imagination, nurturing empathy, fostering connection — than nearly any other show I have experienced since pre-pandemic days.”
Above photo of A&M by Lauren Lancaster.
A THOUSAND WAYS (Part One): A Phone Call is featured in this week’s New Yorker magazine, in a piece by Alexandra Schwartz:
“Duo Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone, who go by the moniker 600 HIGHWAYMEN and are known for devising inventive, sincere theatre of a kind that makes urbane audiences fatted on cynicism feel wonder afresh … The term “experimental” tends to signal an ambition to flaunt difficulty and occlude meaning, but 600 HIGHWAYMEN’s experiments with theatrical form are distinctly generous. That is the case with “A Thousand Ways,” which takes a simple premise and turns it into magic.” Read the full piece here. And note the excellent illustration by Raphaelle Macaron.
A THOUSAND WAYS (Part One): A Phone Call has started running around the world. We just completed a run at On The Boards (Seattle) and Dublin Theatre Festival. The Irish Times calls it: “An expressive gesture of hope. ⭑⭑⭑⭑.” And here’s a feature on the project by Crosscut: “For an hour, I forgot the world around me as I pieced together a blurry picture of a stranger from the clues in her voice and the breadcrumbs of her backstory. Sitting in the dark, I came as close to a theater experience as I’ve had in a long time.” (read the full piece here).
Next week, we’re doing something we’ve never done before.
Our new performance A THOUSAND WAYS (Part Two): An Encounter will premiere at the beloved Festival Theaterformen (July 2-12) in Braunschweig, Germany. We will stay put, here in the United States, unable to travel to see this project come to life for the very first time.
Toi, toi, toi to Martine, Wolfram, Lena and the team at Theaterformen. We can’t wait to hear all about it.
(Stay tuned for updates on future life of A Thousand Ways).
We’ve made our very first (short) film.
Thanks to Onassis Foundation for commissioning us as a part of their ENTER series, a platform for artists to create new works during the COVID quarantine.
Take a look here. (And we recommend watching the other projects, too). Hope everyone is staying safe, and taking care of yourself and one another.
MANMADE EARTH returns home to a two-week run to Torn Space in Buffalo, NY.
(And also, here’s the local news featuring several members of the cast.)
Into a week of early development rehearsals with Paul Zimet and Ellen Maddow of the Talking Band, as we build a new piece for Paul and Ellen to perform. Stay tuned in 2020 for more details about this new project.
How do you rehearse a project that is built for 1,000 strangers? We’re in rehearsals for 1,000 WAYS TO LISTEN. If you’re interested, sign up for one of the slots to come try it out. (Thank you to all the folks who have come in so far!)
Thank you to The Invisible Dog Art Center and FIAF / Crossing the Line for the presenting the premiere of MANMADE EARTH. Here’s a piece on the show, written by a student in Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. (Alisa Solomon is bringing up a new crop of arts writers and the future is bright.) Next stop – MANMADE EARTH goes back to Torn Space in November. See youse in Buffalo.
We’re almost there! Thank you to Lumberyard Center for Film and Performance and Mount Tremper Arts for providing us with space and time to work on MANMADE EARTH. Next stop: Invisible Dog and the Crossing the Line Festival. Brooklyn here we come!
Since the beginning of January, we’ve been artists-in-residence at NYU / Tisch School of the Arts Department of Drama (!) working with students on FICTION. – a brand new something. Aileen, Sterling, John, Maxwell, Bia, Iris, Giorgia, Cesar, Monique, Jack, Cara, Katherine, Ricky, and Taylor: thank you for your amazing work.
New project in development: we’ll be in-residence this fall at the incredible Torn Space Theater in Buffalo, NY to be developing something brand-new that we’re calling Manmade Earth. Here’s a little more about our residency, in partnership with the University of Buffalo’s School of Architecture. Come see what we make on November 16, 17, 18 in Buffalo.
Just home from bringing The Fever to the Kimmel Center in Philly where we had our 100th performance (what.) and the amazing Luminato Festival. Thanks, Toronto, for the hospitality. And now? Enjoying the summer and prepping for the busy fall that’s on the horizon. Upcoming collaborations with Torn Space Theater in Buffalo, NY, Temple Contemporary in Philadelphia, and our dear friends Theaterformen in Hannover, Germany. And also stay tuned for new dates of The Fever on tour. We’re (probably) headed your way. Especially if you live in Sarajevo. Or Dublin. Or Washington D.C.
Just finished shows of The Fever at The Clarice Smith in Maryland, Carolina Performing Arts in North Carolina, and the AT&T PAC in Dallas. And new tour dates for this summer were just announced here. Phew! And now – with great thanks to the Jerome Foundation – we’re in residence at La Fondation Camargo in Cassis, France. Sowing the seeds of something(s) new.
Did we ever imagine traveling to Abu Dhabi to do a show? Nah. But it happened. Thank you, The Arts Center at NYUAD for having us. What a wild trip. (Here are two pieces about our time in the UAE – one, two).
We’re happy to announce that our production of Kasimir and Karoline has been nominated for a 2017 Nestroy Prize. See the full list of nominees and other info here. Congrats especially to Ella, Aldo, Alaa, Lili, Helga, Glen, Ron, Marie, Eva, Gabriela, Günter, Ivy, Simon, Lukas, Anna, Maresi, Antonia, Bernhard, Vincent, Sebastian, Valentina, Andreas, Genet, Brandon, Anneliese, Christoph, Sophie and the rest of the team!
Very excited to be in rehearsal currently with David Byrne to develop his project THEATER OF THE MIND. Diving into the surreal world of neuroscience and perception. Stay tuned via facebook if you want to be invited to an open rehearsal in coming weeks.
Thanks, Noorderzon Festival, for a great time as always. A little Dutch press that we appreciated: “The realization of the power of the performance just passed on to me later. Did I really make a dance with 59 strangers? So yes. That says something about THE FEVER here and now, in which there is no room for cynicism or distantness.” (Read the full piece here).
Onward with The Fever tour! Next stop, Zurich!
Opening night of Kasimir & Karoline at the Salzburg Festival. Here’s some local TV coverage about the show (in german!) and a radio piece as well (also german!)
Thank you Sibiu, Romania. We had two sold-out performances of The Fever in the ancient and incredible Fortress Cisnădioara (photo by Marchánt Davis!) as a part of FITS 2017. This is a venue we won’t likely forget any time soon. Now we’re heading to see our old friends at Festival Theaterformen in Hannover, Germany. We’ve got a long list of tour dates ahead of us (and more to be announced soon).
Perhaps our favorite piece of press: rehearsal diary entries from Isadora, one of the performers of the Bristol/In Between Time production of The Record.
Thank you, Under the Radar, for being our home. Final performances of The Fever today (sold out, but waitlist works).
Thank you ASU and UCCS for having us in-residence to finish THE FEVER. Helping us get ready for the premiere in January at Under the Radar! (photo by co-composer Emil Abramyan).
Under the Radar Festival has announced their lineup for 2017. Very, very excited to be premiering The Fever at The Public with our UTR family. Get tickets early!
Thanks to OzAsia Festival in Adelaide, Australia for the newest edition of The Record. Meet the team from down under. (photo by lighting supervisor Will Delorm).
After a busy summer working on The Fever (thank you St. Ann’s Church, The Public Theater, and Mount Tremper Arts!) we’re on our way down-under to make The Record with the fine folks at OzAsia Festival. G’day.
Thank you NYFA for naming Abby & Michael 2016 Fellows in Choreography. We’re honored to be included in such an esteemed group of artists.
We just finished a three-week residency at the amazing On the Boards in Seattle to work on THE FEVER (coming in 2017). Followed by the final (for now) presentation of EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR. Here’s a great piece about us from Seattle’s City Pages. Thank you, OtB, for being such perfect hosts. Sorry about the squirrel.
Though our run of Employee of the Year at Under the Radar is almost sold out (!), many people are getting in off the waitlist. Please don’t be discouraged from coming early to try to get tickets. See you there!
After several months of performing out of town, we’re happy to be gearing up to bring Employee of Year home to the Under the Radar Festival. See the festival website for tickets & info.
Happy to be home after a fantastic series of performances of Employee of the Year at the Noorderzon Festival and Zürcher Theaterspektakel, where we were the proud recipients of the 2015 ZKB Patronage Prize. The show continues with several domestic engagements: check our calendar pages and come see us! (photo by company manager Lilleth Glimcher).
Employee of the Year is nominated for a 2015 Bessie Award for Outstanding Production. We are thrilled, floored, humbled, grateful. See you at the awards ceremony at The Apollo Theater on October 19th.
Just returned home from the Festival Theaterformen in Hannover, Germany. Never before have we performed two 600 HWM works side-by-side (or back-to-back?). All performances of The Record and Employee of the Year were sold out to fantastic audiences. Tchuss, Germany. Genau.
600 HWM is featured in Jordan Tannahill‘s new publication “Theater of the Unimpressed”. Jordan came to see This Great Country and focuses on the 2013 NYC production in a section of his writing. 600 HWM’s involvement aside, we highly recommend this book. Jordan’s writing and thinking is striking and interesting.
Thanks to all of our new French friends who worked (onstage and off) to make THE RECORD in Paris a grand success. Merci!
Abby & Michael are featured in Eliza Bent’s piece in American Theatre magazine about couples who work together.
The Record is one of the NY Times’ “Stage Memories from 2014.” “The piece filled the stage with joyful human tableaus and, surprisingly, my eyes with tears.”
Casting performers in preparation for our upcoming residency at the Sundance Institute Theater Lab at MASS MoCA.
Overjoyed with the sold-out success of Employee of the Year. Stella, Violet, Alice, Candela, and Rachel really knocked it out of the park. If you missed it, here’s some thoughtful writing by New York Theater Review, or The New Yorker, or The New York Times.
49 performers + 6 new yorkers + 3 sold-out shows = The Record at the Noorderzon Festival. Here’s us on the news.
After showing Employee of the Year to sold-out audiences at the glorious Mount Tremper Arts, 600 HWM has landed in the Netherlands for The Record rehearsals. Dank ye well.
Click here to watch a little local Netherlands news coverage about the auditions for The Record for the Noorderzon Festival. Warning: lots of dutch.
After a whirlwind trip to Groningen, The Record (version Noorderzon) is cast! And our Dutch has improved only marginally.
We are so thrilled and honored to be the recipients of a 2014 Village Voice OBIE Award. Floored to be included in this luminous group. Just look at how pink we are.
Thrilled to be interviewed by the inimitable David Dower of HowlRound for one of his Friday phone calls. Here’s where you can listen to it.
Congrats to Keith, Jovan, Skylar, Allison, Sarah, Adonis, Mary & Becky for their great work during 600 HWM’s residency at SUNY Purchase.
We had to get this coverage from Deutschlandfunk translated. Here’s what (we’re told) it says: “The Record is undoubtedly one of the highlights of [Under the Radar] festival…[It] brings up for discussion the most original relationship since the beginning of theater: that between performer and audience. And when suddenly the last performer has disappeared, a strange mix of sadness and unbridled joy sets in. The excitement over this can be felt in the overcrowded lobby long after the performance.” Perhaps you speak german? (Thanks, Sasa Celecki, for the translation.)
What a whirlwind Under the Radar has been. Thanks friends (new + old) to coming out and seeing the show. We just caught this interesting writing about the show courtesy of Exeunt Magazine: “The Record explores the nature of being human, of being at all, moving and interacting with hundreds of others just like, but not quite like, us. To touch, to feel, to breathe, to see: it is an intense moment of being present and of being in this all together.”
Read the full piece here.
Olivia Jane Smith (NY Theatre Review) on THE RECORD: “Without seeing it, The Record might sound like a formalist work, about bodies in space. But in the flesh the piece transcends its structure and becomes about people. We don’t know anything about them, or what these gestures mean or don’t mean to them, or what they feel. But despite this—or, more likely, because of it—their individual humanity shines through each face, each gesture and step, and we bear witness to it. In this way, The Record is us.” – read full piece –
Charles Isherwood of the NY Times says THE RECORD at Under the Radar: “this simple yet sublime production … creates a feeling of quiet but intense intimacy, and even a shivery sense of reverence for the communal experience not just of theater, but of life itself.”
THE RECORD returns as a part of the Under the Radar festival at The Public Theater. Tickets and festival passes are now on sale. You can get them here. Here’s more info on this ultra-wonderful festival. See you in January!
Day 1 at Purchase College, where a new 600 HWM work directed by Abby and Michael premieres March 2014. Look for us on Metro North.
EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR at PRELUDE was a packed success. For those who couldn’t get in, please stay tuned. More to come.
Pick up the PRELUDE Festival guide to see 600 HWM on the cover. One night only – October 4 at 6pm – come see what’s brewing.
The New Yorker (“This Great Country: A Revelation”) and Wall Street Journal (“New Life for a Great Death”) feature THIS GREAT COUNTRY, playing in River to River. Also, WSJ features an interview with designer Ásta Bennie Hostetter.
THIS GREAT COUNTRY is sold out. Cancellation line forms one hour prior to curtain, and LMCC staff is doing their best to get everyone in. If you didn’t make it, please try again. Thank you for all the support!
THIS GREAT COUNTRY featured in New York Post and ArtInfo.
We’re in two places at once: rehearsals for THIS GREAT COUNTRY occurring simultaneously in Austin and NYC. Thank you Rude Mechs and Lucky Lady Bingo for the Austin support.
A project that began eight months ago as OEDIPUS is now EVERYONE WAS CHANTING YOUR NAME, opening this week at Abrons Arts Center. Get your tickets!
Eliza Bent writes about 600 HWM’s casting practices in TDF Magazine. Read it here.
A week of prepping in Vermont, and now in rehearsals underway in Brooklyn. See you at Abrons in 6 weeks for EVERYONE WAS CHANTING YOUR NAME.
Wow. Thanks to all who made the first two nights of THE RECORD a thrilling, sold-out, magnificent experience! Two more shows to go. Waitlist opens half-hour before showtime outside The Invisible Dog.
In rehearsal for THE RECORD – see you at the Invisible Dog in February.
Read Jessica Applebaum’s feature on 600 HWM in Culturebot. “There is something wonderfully and simplistically spiritual to this process …The typical plans, the hierarchies that are often followed, in the creation of a performance are in many ways leveled by the Abby and Michael … What follows is a theatrical event that unfolds before the audience in a manner that feels synergetic, feels as if it should take place in the space it was made and with the people who are performing it.”
20 minutes of a new 600 HWM work at Dixon Place, 8PM! One night only and ten performers. Come check it out.
We’re full swing in rehearsals for our newest work, EVERYONE WAS CHANTING YOUR NAME, which will preview at the 2012 PRELUDE Festival on Oct 5th. Also, pick up a copy of American Theater magazine to read about 600 HIGHWAYMEN and Austin’s Fusebox Festival.
Read about 600 HWM in Culturebot’s feature, “On Social Practice and Performance.”
Back in NYC, and now – onto the next. Thank you Austin and Fusebox for a great 5 months.
Read Mark Gifford’s review of THIS GREAT COUNTRY: “I desperately want to tell you about the techniques the directors employ and provide you with my critical interpretation, but I’ll be a good boy and restrain myself. Telling would spoil the suprise. Just know this: At the end of the play, despite the fact that I knew how it would end, I had tears in my eyes, and I’m fairly certain I wasn’t the only one.” (Thank you, Mark!)
All performances of THIS GREAT COUNTRY are sold out! We are adding seats where we can. Please come on the waitlist and Fusebox staff will try to squeeze you in.
Jean Claire Van Ryzen’s writes on THIS GREAT COUNTRY; “a trenchant new version.”
THIS GREAT COUNTRY – tickets now on sale! Also, read about us in the cover arts feature in Austin American Statesman – “Death of a Salesman and the birth of the Unconventional Stage.”
Landed in Austin, Texas to begin work on THIS GREAT COUNTRY. Into rehearsal we go. Yeehaw!
INDOOOZA — a new work at Little Theater, written by Browde, Silverstone, and Seattle’s finest (and The TEAM and ERS company member) Frank Boyd. One night only.
EMPIRE CITY at University Settlement is Editor’s Pick in the Village Voice and L Magazine.
Three open rehearsals at the Invisible Dog culminate a 600 HWM residency — May 27, May 28, and June 3 – 8pm. Come, see, and have a drink with us.
THIS TIME TOMORROW is back. Editors pick in L Magazine, Village Voice, Time Out New York. All performances meet at Blue Marble Ice Cream in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.