By The various safety protocols were released as both new and returning shows enter rehearsals. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Hundred Days now takes place entirely in New York City (mostly in Astoria, Queens), with lots of internal detours into the twisty corridors of each partners mind. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Dan Meyer Some people in the family Ms. Bengson grew up in dont talk to one another anymore, but for the musical the Bengsons interviewed all of them including the older sibling, so-called, who committed the crime. So it was no surprise when Arena Stage reached out to the Bengsons to take part in the theaters three part-commissioned music series, Arena Riffs. With a full rock band, a choir of singers, dazzling sets, and breathtaking music, Hundred Days is the Bay Area's hottest world premiere of the year. | Dan Meyer Manhattan Theatre Club is presenting the New York premiere of Where the Mountain Meets the Sea, written by AUDELCO Award nominee Jeff Augustin (The New Englanders, The Morning Show) and directed by Princess Grace Award winner Joshua Kahan Brody, with music by The Bengsons (Hundred Days, The Lucky Ones). Hayley Levitt, This poignant 90-minute show, which opened on Monday night at the New York Theater Workshop, is a response to one ineradicable and devastating fact of life. Working in the first few months of the pandemic at Shaun's parent's home in Dayton, Ohio, they mustered as much uplift as they could for "The Keep Going Song," a show presented (virtually, of course) through the Actors Theater of Louisville. He majored in musicology at Indiana University and moved to. Part of that was an awareness, new to Mr. Bengson, of what a fragile thing a family can be. | Thank you, Ms. Bengson said from the kitchen. March 15, 2022, By By paragraph.style.height = '0px'; At other times, particularly toward the end, the Bengsons fully embody the roles of Will and Sarah, bringing the whole emotional impact of their musical performance, presence and obvious chemistry into the bittersweet tale of this other, fictional couple. Copyright 1991-2023 Playbill Inc. All Rights Reserved. January 10, 2022, By Then, in one cataclysmic season, it all falls apart, beginning with a killing that might have been prevented if only the parents hadnt been so committed to a you-choose-your-feelings worldview that they dismissed the signs of mental illness in one of the kids. When new work is offered, it streams online, often created by the artists themselves. | With creator Sara Bareilles back in the lead role, the musical grossed more in single-day ticket sales than any other show in the history of the Barrymore. "To do the show, honestly, I really have to look squarely at what is terrifying me right now, and there's plenty to be afraid of, and say, 'okay, let's keep moving, let's love each other anyway, let's love the world anyway and see what happens,'" Abigail said. Abigail Bengson has appeared on HBO's High Maintenance and also toured as a member of tUnE-yArDs, including an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.instagram: @thebengsonswww.bengsons.com But three weeks is a long time in the newly discovered country of young love. Their video for The Keep Going Song has been viewed over 4 million times. A half-hour into an emotionally delicate interview, there was a soft knock on the front door: Ms. Gancher, bringing over some eggs in the shell. The musical, starring Caroline Bowman and Caroline Innerbichler, plays Sheas Buffalo Theatre through September 24. The letters pile up outside, but if they unplug the radio and the phone, they're disconnected. | sleeknoteScriptTag.charset = 'utf-8'; The result is a raw and personal expression, wrapped in splendid music and honesty. He ha (read more about this author). Their theater work includes. Abigail Bengson and Shaun Bengson Emilio Madrid-Kuser. Its been incredible that weve gotten to work through the year, and how this song has gone viral, Shaun said. May 7, 2021. Ms. Bengson is sure of her right to tell such a story onstage because it is a fundamental trauma of her past, overlapping though it does with other peoples pain and struggles. New York's vaccine and mask dates have expired, but both are still required for Broadway audiences. January 11, 2022, By by The Bengsons arenastage1 2.96K subscribers Subscribe 1.2K 50K views 1 year ago Arena Stage is excited to present a newly commissioned filmed music series, Arena Riffs, featuring. The story looks at embracing uncertainty, taking a leap, and loving as if you only had a hundred days to live. (La Jolla Playhouse, New York Theatre Workshop, US Tour). The stage managers are Amanda Spooner and Christopher Kee Anaya-Gorman. Ill eat those eggs. This. Then, they dreamed bigger: a Broadway musical! Michael R. Jackson, John Gallagher, Jr. & More to be Featured in Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3 Concert Series, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tina Fey & More to Celebrate Ars Nova 20th Anniversary at NOVA BALL, Photos: On the Red Carpet for the 66th Annual Obie Awards, Photos: Go Inside Opening Night of WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE SEA at Manhattan Theatre Club, Photos: First Look at WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE SEA at Manhattan Theatre Club, Photo Coverage: The Public Theater Celebrates Launch of 13th Annual UNDER THE RADAR. | My Joy Is Heavy! 43K Followers, 2,442 Following, 548 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Abigail & Shaun Bengson (@thebengsons) Natan Zamansky The Broken Ear Setlist: Songs from Ohio features performances by artists including Barrie Lobo McLain, Vuyo Sotashe, and Allan K. Washington. // Create a new style element | Bethany Rickwald Dan Meyer styleElement.styleSheet.cssText = cssRule; Logan Culwell-Block s.parentNode.insertBefore(sleeknoteScriptTag, s); By In the new show, an extended family runs a school together, raising their children Abigail, her sisters and their cousins in a kind of hippie idyll. Use this COVID-19 protocols checklist before heading Here, it's no role at all, but real life and determinations with her husband and son, who makes a couple of key appearances. Three of their singles have been featured on So You Think You Can Dance (FOX). He seems gentle, diffident but steely underneath, while theres a sparkle to her, and a healthy dash of punk spicing her earth-mother serenity. The Bengsons display the pleasures, joys and the emotional tolls of the events of the past year and how they managed to cultivate and hold onto happiness even during these dark, difficult times. By We wrote our first song together on that first night, Abigal said. The concert's creative team also includes assistant director Keenan Tyler Oliphant, lighting designer Alejandro Fajardo, projection designer Jeff Sugg, scenic and costume designer DOTS, associate projection designer Simon Harding, producer Wendy vanden Heuvel, and executive producers Kendra Bator and Tom Casserly. What Are Theatremakers Doing to Present Safe Productions? In a quieter, more reserved performance, Shaun Bengson is played by the talented Alec Phan, with Royen Kent alternating in the role on weekends. But accompanied by a wonderfully droll quartet of singing musicians Colette Alexander, Jo Lampert, Dani Markham and Reggie D. White the Bengsons are stirring, and surprisingly witty, company. For their part, the Bengsons composed a new memoir musical titledMy Joy Is Heavy!, which is currently streaming on Arenas website for free. October 15, 2020. The show smoothly segues from the informality of a tale told in a concert setting to more fully staged scenes. September 1, 2021. Three weeks later, the couple got married. The premise of Hundred Days, the new indie-rock musical at Z Space, sounds like it would be a huge downer. In 2017, the couples Off-Broadway theatrical concert, Hundred Days, toured across the U.S. and was a big hit. You can read more of his theater writing. Presented by Z Space and piece by piece productions with Encore Theatre Company, the show is conceived and created by married couple Abigail and Shaun Bengson, who double as a band called. Abigail once served as a background singer for Tune-Yards, but her expressive warmth is also memorable from her role in HBO's "High Maintenance" a year ago, as Kim, the intimacy coordinator who meets an asexual magician. | What did our critic think of OPEN at Nu Sass? Hello friends!Here's our official Tiny Desk Contest 2020 submission!THE BENGSONSAbigail and Shaun Bengson are a married composing and performing duo who have. | The album, which features the cast of the NYTW production, will be released September 21. Andrew Gans | So The Lucky Ones is wounded autobiography veiled in fiction. For the first time since the pandemic shutdown, Actors' Theatre in Grand Rapids, Michigan is returning to its home stage at Spectrum Theater on the Grand Rapids Community College campus. Structured as a live concert, with bits of storytelling woven in (the songs are by Abigail Nessen-Bengson and Shaun Bengson, who write and perform under the name The Bengsons, and the book by the . Mr. Bengson, 34, cracked up at this, seated beside her in the apartment in Alphabet City where they stayed through early previews, to be close to the theater. Theres a line near the start of the new musical The Lucky Ones thats a deliberate hedge an explanation of the rules of the show that also leaves those rules a little murky. And each of the songs are terrific; one an apology for how a bad pandemic era had gotten worse, another about light in the darkness, and one that recalls heartbreak but commits to happiness. More upcoming/ in development: Ohio (piece by piece productions). And I do mean overwhelming. Actors' Equity Sets Protocols For the Return of In-Person Auditions, Playwrights Horizons Drops COVID-19 Booster Requirement, Two Years After the Shutdown, Broadway is Back, Broadway Mask, Vaccination Policies to Remain in Place as New York Lifts Its Own Requirements, Broadway COVID Safety Team Celebrates 2,000 Broadway Performances, Broadway Week's 2-For-1 Ticket Deals Extend Through February 27, Audible Theater Sets Off-Broadway Return for, New York City Center Will Require Proof of COVID-19 Booster in Addition to Complete Vaccination, The Public Theater Will Require Proof of COVID-19 Vaccination and Booster, Go Inside Rehearsal for Jason Robert Browns, 2020 Tony Award Nominations Announced October 15. November 9, 2020. The Bengsons performing in The Lucky Ones, which is the second part of a trilogy. He became a music teacher in NYC. A cross-country road trip that occupied the shows center 11 months ago has been jettisoned. From left, Jo Lampert, Ms. Bengson and Mr. Bengson in this poignant 90-minute show at New York Theater Workshop. Ryan McPhee Almost exactly five years ago, Abigail and Shaun Bengson performed Hundred Days at Know Theatre. But she thinks of Eden now as a place you have to outgrow, accepting the complexity of life and the presence of darkness without fixating on the darkness. Yet the acceptability of drawing bystanders into ones own art is one of the great ethical debates in any kind of autobiography. | | To wit: Whether by choice, chance or ultimately and unavoidably death, you will be separated from the person you love most. Thats where The Keep Going Song evolved from. Even days afterward, having heard the songs only once, I get a surge of visceral pleasure every time one of them runs through my head. You have entered an incorrect email address! The long-running favorite returns to the Orpheum Theatre. A look at an Equity-approved musical, an immersive experiment, and an amateur teen show. By The more the piece evolved and the more collaborators got involved, the more the couple moved toward an honest and real portrayal of their feelings, fears and everything in between. The one possible relevance that the period has (besides possible medical advances since then) is how easy it is for Sarah and Will to seclude themselves in their home and remove themselves from any indication of what day or decade it really is. } else { The Rob McClure-led musical has been facing breakthrough COVID cases among its cast. Some of those tapes, she said, have been to prison and back cassettes on which her budding-songwriter self set down in music the fraught emotions she couldnt speak. Its conversational, sometimes it seems like a music video or a dance party, sometimes it seems like youre going for a walk with us, Shaun said. The limited engagement of the Jason Robert Brown revue will begin in February 2021. In 2001 he began to explore beyond the Miami Valley. And Ms. Bengson, in particular, finds herself opening baggage from her past that would seem to make happiness with someone else impossible. By Would just being grateful and happy during the same period be a better approach? The musical, starring Katrina Lenk and Patti LuPone, was originally slated to open March 22, 2020composer Stephen Sondheims 90th birthday. Their music has been featured several times on So You Think You Can Dance (FOX). Abigail Bengson is such a compelling, empathetic figure, with a voice grounded in a folk, shape note singing and gospel as she expresses herself further with upraised hands. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. The Bengsons drove to Dayton, Ohio, to stay with Shauns parents, and they put together an hour-long concert for the Louisville theater. By They have received the Jonathan Larson and Richard Rodgers Awards and nominations for the Drama Desk, Drama League, and Lucille. This special evening with the award-winning singer/songwriter couple begins at 6 pm on Saturday, July 30 (rain date July 31 at 6 pm), and features a live ASL interpreter. October 8, 2020. Rocking cellist El Beh doubles as the compassionate doctor who has to break the bad news (a far cry from the creepy nurse she played in Symmetry Theatre's recent Carnival Round the Central Figure). Those interviews became part of the piece. Before the pandemic hit, the couple were working on the music for a play at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, and after one performance, the country shut down. I know that in taking this on, I cant be meek, I cant glaze over, I cant allow fear or denial to be the story of our family, because that was toxic, too.. And she has a deep affection for the Bengsons. July 1, 2021. For a musical that's so much about creating memories to last and evoke a lifetime, Hundred Days succeeds brilliantly in etching its eloquent lines and infectious melodies indelibly on the brain. | | | })(); Abigail and Shaun Bengson are a married composing and performing duo based in NYC and VT who have performed across the country and around the world. La Jolla Playhouse announces the cast and creative team for Hundred Days, book by The Bengsons and Sarah Gancher, music and lyrics by The Bengsons, directed by Anne Kauffman, with movement direction by Sonya Tayeh. Logan Culwell-Block 2020 Jonathan Larson Grant recipients Abigail and Shaun Bengson share what this grant means to them in a virtual acceptance speech. Roger Catlin, a member of the American Theatre Critics Association,is a Washington D.C.-based arts writer whose work appears regularly in SmithsonianMagazine.com. The story is of the classic boy-meets-girl, boy-gets-girl, boy-loses-girl-because-life-is-nothing-but-loss mold. The task, I think, of storytelling, she said, is the reintegration of the dark and the light going back and saying, Yes, this darkness is here and its true. And, There was light on us once, and there will be again.. | Yet she is terrified of compounding. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical also features Rhys Whitfield as Raoul. Its title song captured and likely inspired 4 million viewers on YouTube, and maybe just nudged Smith to tap The Bengsons to create something for the series they're calling Arena Riffs. Otherwise manning a DJ set that includes an old-fashioned gramophone, Jo Lampert gives an achingly resonant performance as Will's best friend Max, a boisterous and bawdy dude whose devotion to his friend is absolute and tinged with (seemingly platonic) yearning. Ms. Bengson says that she and her husband are both profoundly introverted, but you wouldnt know it from talking with them. Talaura Harms "My Joy is Heavy!" St. Anns Warehouse to Begin Indoor Performances With The Bengsons, Track-by-Track Breakdown: The Bengsons on Crafting Their, joins New Yorks flexible cultural spaces, JoAnn M. Hunter's Exclusive Playbill Photoshoot, See Natasha Lyonne, Larry Owens, Ronan Farrow, More Celebrate The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window Opening Night. And I can't imagine wanting it any other way.