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SchmidtSmithSchmidt
Leonie Bell with LOCAL GRANDMA
December 7 - December 17
$20 – $50
The Brick presents
SchmidtSmithSchmidt
Created by Leonie Bell with LOCAL GRANDMA
December 7-17, 2023
$20-50
*Special live streaming performance Sunday December 17 2pm ET (8 PM CET & 11 AM PST ) via The Brick YouTube Channel filmed live by Zanni Productions.*
In this matrilineal, dark humor landscape, the lonesome and forgotten search for new connective tissue, mundane chaos + ancient desires reign, and the trees await a return.
Featuring
Leonie Bell
Caroline Burkhart
Rawya El Chab
Lianne Elsouki
Marcella Murray
Julliette Holliday
+ Hanna Westi
On the edge of a city: Lottie the Librarian and her adoptive grandmother Tante Eunice Geld secretly live in their garden allotment. Witches sing night-time songs around the last sacred grove in the neighborhood in preparation of a death party. Teenage daughter Susi Schmidt schemes to finally join her long-lost father in America and Mama keeps a secret that is eating her from the inside out. An ancestral forest beckons, and Dietrich, child to Mom in the Moon, attempts jazz. Choral song + pedestrian movement; performed in German, English, and Denglish.
Follow them: @leonbellstein @local_grandma_party
Leonie Bell is a German-American theater artist from Berlin, based in New York. She creates highly physical, dark humor theater landscapes populated by pseudo-historical, multilingual narratives that center matriarchal lineages and imagine nature as a main character. She produces much of her work as her free-form theater company LOCAL GRANDMA. In NYC, she has presented work at Target Margin Theater, Performance Space NY, BAM, The Whitney Museum, The Brick, Center for Performance Research, and other venues. Recent: Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship, Mabou Mines Resident-Artist-Program, and BAX Upstart Program. Leonie also designs sound, directs new & old plays, and likes to collaborate. leoniebell.org @leonbellstein
Caroline Burkhart is a theatre-maker and performer based in NYC, and is thrilled to be back with LOCAL GRANDMA. Caroline devises new work with the after-image, and has performed at Target Margin Theater, Theater For the New City, and MoMA PS1. She recently directed for the NYC FRIGID Fringe Festival, The Kraine Theater, and New Genesis Productions. Caroline has developed her original work with La MaMa ETC and Movement Research, and her dance-theatre piece, Nuclear Family, recently premiered at The Brick. She teaches theatre, dance, and storytelling with WR Arts and The Moth. carolineburkhart.com @careburks
Rawya El Chab is a NYC-based theater-maker and teaching artist. Her career trajectory combines classical training in theatre and contemporary art interventions. She took part in major post-war Lebanese theater and film productions in Beirut. Her first piece in NYC, The Meltdown, was produced by The Global Forms Festival at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. She received a residency at the Target Margin to develop The Gambler. The show ran at the Loading Dock, in June 2022, part of the Exponential Festival. In January 2023, she showcased the digital collage Epikoinonìa, also at the Exponential Festival. Currently she is developing her first solo performance, Loula, the Pearl of Bekaa. The show was awarded a production grant from AFAC, and it will take place at the La Mama theater club in February 2024. @rawyaelchab
Lianne Elsouki is an actor, theater maker and teaching artist based in Brooklyn. Hailing from Beirut where she innately found herself indulging in surrealist and absurdist theater, her approach of working with youths and teaching theater sharpened her psychological lens and influenced her artistic process. Her most recent work-in-progress that previewed at the Brick’s :?!New Works Festival was a psychomagic act titled PANICMOM. Lianne has performed in One Night at the Target Margin theater. For the Exponential Festival, she collaborated in creating Epikononia as well as staged managed The Gambler. @liannesouki
Julliette Holliday is a Brooklyn based Black multi-hyphenate artist—writer, performer, composer, deviser, director, teaching artist and producer. Julliette’s recent credits include [sunflower] by Sifiso Mabena at Dixon Place, Shakespeare’s Stars by Spellbound Theater Company at The New Victory Theater, and Nuclear Familyby Caroline Burkhart at The Brick. In her own creative work, Julliette explores theater-making methodologies that excavate the magical realism of the mundane world’s unassuming beauty. Currently she serves as a Creative Producer for Trusty Sidekick which specializes in creating new immersive work for kids with neurodiverse audiences in mind. @jullietteh
Marcella Murray is a Brooklyn-based theater artist from Augusta, Georgia. Recent work includes Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed (2020 Obie Special Citation)/Abrons Arts Center and The Chocolate Factory, Primer for an Impossible Conversation/MCA Chicago, and Water Prayer/EiO. She is a La MaMa Artist in Residence. She is currently developing Other Atlantas: A Prologue (2023 Henson Workshop Grant). @marcirenee04
Hanna Westi is a diversely trained singer, actress and dancer based in New York City, originally from Hamburg, Germany. She is a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy NY (AMDA) Integrated Program. Hanna has been a permanent cast member of the Galli Theater New York, as well as participated regularly in Cabaret Shows such as Let’s Broadway NYC and Chasing Dreams as a solo artist. She has also proven to be a passionate teaching artist for children and teenagers. @hanna.westi
LOCAL GRANDMA is a free-form theater company that creates and produces live performances, multimedia videos, and other interdisciplinary, genre-fluid projects. LOCAL GRANDMA is based in Lenapehoking/Brooklyn, NY and led by German-American artist Leonie Bell. LG is drawn to intergenerational, cross-cultural narratives and cultural exchange about origin stories and identity. LG is a devotee of irreverent humor, rigorous play, and causing a ruckus. To date, LG has produced four projects, two theater productions and three multi-media films and has worked with over 50 local and international artists and shared work with over 850 virtual and in-person audience members. SchmidtSmithSchmidt is LG’s second multi-weekend production. LG is currently creating a third multimedia film for January 2024.
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A Note on Accessibility: The Brick has trigger warnings posted in the space for each show for you to check if you so choose. If you would rather ask questions in advance of being in the space or would like to enter in advance of house opening due to our seating not being assigned, please reach out to theresa@bricktheater.com.
Mask Policy: The Brick strongly encourages but does not require masks for audience members. We are in ongoing conversation with our artists and audiences as we continue to adapt our covid policies and it is subject to change at any time. Thank you.