I AM ANDY is a new full-evening music theater work in development with composer JACK PERLA, choreographer/playwright RAJA FEATHER KELLY, designer YUKI IZUMIHARA, and dramaturg/director LESLIE SWACKHAMER.
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RAJA FEATHER KELLY is an American dancer and choreographer based in Brooklyn who is notable for his radical downtown surrealist productions which combine "pop and queer culture. He has choreographed numerous theatrical productions, including Fairview and A Strange Loop. He is the artistic director of his dance company called The Feath3r Theory, and he serves as the artistic director of the New Brooklyn Theatre.
Raja has been awarded a Creative Capital Award (2019), a National Dance Project Production Grant (2019), a Breakout Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (2018), Dance Magazine's inaugural Harkness Promise Award (2018), the Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography (2016), and is a three-time Princess Grace Award winner (2017, 2018, 2019). He was born in Fort Hood, Texas and holds a B.A. in Dance and English from Connecticut College. |
YUKI IZUMIHARA is an award winning scenic, projection, and production designer born in Shimonoseki City, Japan and based in Oakland, CA. Ms. Izumihara’s work is influenced by years of martial arts training and is animated by a belief in discipline, ethics and craftsmanship. She also serves as an art director, concept designer, and visual artist to establish, clarify, and amplify project identities through visual language.
Her work has been featured at LA Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Omaha, San Diego Opera, Opera Santa Barbara, New World Symphony, SF Symphony, Hartford Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, LA Chamber Orchestra, Sun Valley Music Festival, ODC Dance, the Hammer Museum, Getty Villa Museum, Cardi B’s Art Basel Concert and various theaters across the country. |
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LESLIE SWACKHAMER is an award-winning director and dramaturg known for directing large works with bravura ensembles and bold visuals. Equally at home with new and established pieces, Leslie has workshopped, directed and produced over 100 new works at theatre and opera companies across America. Opera companies where she has directed include The Washington National Opera, Vancouver Opera, Opera Carolina, Seattle Opera, Houston Grand Opera and Opera Omaha. Theaters where Leslie's work has been produced include Southcoast Rep, The Alley Theatre, Stages Repertory Theatre, Madison Rep and Seattle Rep. Leslie has held artistic leadership positions at The Cleveland Play House and ACT Theatre (Seattle). A passionate advocate and activist for new plays and work by women+, Leslie is the Executive Director of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the oldest and largest international prize specifically honoring women+ playwrights.
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Warhola is a dance/music/theater piece in development. Book and choreography are by Raja Feather Kelly, music by Jack Perla, lyrics by Michael Korie, design by Yuki Izumihara, and dramaturgy by Leslie Swackhamer. Duration will be about one hundred minutes; instrumentation is three quartets — strings, vocal (SATB) and rock (guitar, piano/keyboard, bass, drums), plus solo voice.
Warhola is about the cost of art to those who make it. Our subject is vulnerability — Andy’s vulnerability in his time, and the vulnerability of artists in our own time. Zoomed out, the vulnerability of anyone struggling from humble beginnings to something better. Creative workers experience considerable pressure under techno-capitalism to accelerate, mechanize and compromise. The goal of I Am Andy is to affirm that the value of creativity lies beyond monetary value, and that vulnerability is an indispensable strength for artists. We hope to shed light on the uneasy union of art and commerce, and imagine a healthier alternative.
In 2010, twenty three years after Andy Warhol’s death, his “Brillo Boxes” sold for three million dollars. In May 2022, his “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” sold for $195 million in New York, becoming the most expensive twentieth century artwork by an American artist ever sold. But the official Warhol narrative – “self made art-visionary lives profitably ever after” – is only partial. Beneath the celebrated persona was Andrew Warhola — balding, anxious about his nose and skin, desiring and fearful of physical contact and love.
Andy was born Andrew Warhola, the fourth child of immigrants Julia and Andrej, in a two room flat in Pittsburgh. The family was poor — meals were frequently restricted to soup. His mother worked cleaning houses and making toys out of tin cans. His father died when Andy was just fourteen. Warhol suffered from Sydenham's chorea, which causes spasms, skin pigmentation and blotchiness. The body was unreliable for Andy, and from this vulnerability he forged a twofold aim — to be the most famous artist of the twentieth century and to become very rich. Warhol’s work, initially a commentary on the ephemeral nature of fame and value in a consumer-driven society, now embodies commodification and consumerism .
Andy famously declared: “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” He understood the importance of “going viral” before it was a common term. Thirty seven years after his death, we live in the attention economy Warhol predicted, and artists are especially vulnerable to its requirement to brand, market and create ceaselessly. But few of us can match Andy’s relentless output and media savvy, and for many artists speed and hype contradicts the nature of their work.
Andy’s transformation from critic to symbol of consumerism underscores capitalism’s control of culture. Valuations of his output climb ever higher, and the cycle of obsession and possession seems inescapable. Warhol is often credited with democratizing art, but the very thing he championed — merging consumerism and art — rests upon a rags to riches narrative. He epitomizes the American Dream — ambition, talent and hard work leading to self-determination and wealth. These narratives drove Andy, but they also damaged him. From the beginning of his celebrity, we’ve amplified, worshiped and shot Andy Warhol, without knowing Andrew Warhola. Warhola envisions something better — celebrating artists’ authentic selves, over external success.
When I first became aware of Warhol, I wasn’t immediately attracted to his work. Not as I am to Frankenthaler, Guston or Gerhard Richter, for example. But as I learned more about Andy’s life and work, my empathy for his contradictions and complexity grew. This is especially true of his experience of poverty, bullying and sexuality.
I don’t share Andy’s experience of early poverty. I grew up middle class. My maternal grandmother, however, was a seamstress who worked in lower east side garment shops, and my maternal grandfather was a sculptor. He worked with hard green wax and a butane torch, coaxing out florid details with a set of small tools. He was proud of his training in Italy and at the Art Students’ League in New York, but he had no skill for career development. He was a quiet immigrant with somewhat broken English; self- aggrandizement was not in his nature. His failure to attain the American dream ultimately undid his marriage. I’ll never forget my feeling of sadness over his series of small basement apartments as he got older. He didn’t ask for much, but I thought he deserved a bit more.
As for bullying, I had my share growing up. My older brother Joseph suffered from a learning disability and epilepsy. My parents were determined to keep him in a mainstream school. Joe was two years ahead of me. We attended a working class Catholic school where physical and verbal abuse were considered signs of healthy development for boys. My brother was bullied daily. My Dad told me it was my role to protect him. I was consistently tied with another boy for smallest in my own class, however, and Joe’s classmates were already two years older, taller and heavier. I’d wade in and give it a go, but since I never properly learned to land a punch the results were unconvincing.
Because I experienced more than my fair share of toxic masculinity going up, Andy’s queerness is the thing about him that I find most inspiring. In the world he was born into, being gay meant alienation and danger. But Warhol was out as early as his twenties, when homosexuality was still criminalized, and his gay colleagues were still closeted. He showed his identity openly in life and art, confronting the macho- identified abstract expressionism of DeKooning and Pollock with camp and other aspects of queer culture.
Warhol is the most extensively documented artist in history, due to his own obsession with self-documentation. There is a surfeit of information, and it would be a mistake to organize the proposed work chronologically. Instead, it will be structured in scenes connected with interludes. The function of the interludes is to facilitate an emotional and thematic narrative.
The interludes will take two forms - telephone calls and in-person conversations. The premise for the telephone calls is factual - every morning between 1976 and 1987, Andy talked with his friend and amanuensis Pat Hackett to dictate the previous day’s events. These calls could last up to two hours. The in-person conversations, between Andy and his therapist, are invented. The premise is that art was Andy’s therapy, starting with the paper cutout dolls he made when struck with St. Vitus’ Dance as a child. That relationship continued throughout his life. Andy conversations with his therapist are his conversation with art.
Genius/fake, generous/cheap, kind/cruel, transcendent/superficial — Warhol is a contradictory, elusive character. I believe that by telling his story, from the perspective described, we can shed light on the uneasy union of art and commerce, and suggest something better. We inhabit the world he conjured. We are Andy – his ambitions, paranoias and bravery. After all, how many artists do we call by their first name?
Warhola is about the cost of art to those who make it. Our subject is vulnerability — Andy’s vulnerability in his time, and the vulnerability of artists in our own time. Zoomed out, the vulnerability of anyone struggling from humble beginnings to something better. Creative workers experience considerable pressure under techno-capitalism to accelerate, mechanize and compromise. The goal of I Am Andy is to affirm that the value of creativity lies beyond monetary value, and that vulnerability is an indispensable strength for artists. We hope to shed light on the uneasy union of art and commerce, and imagine a healthier alternative.
In 2010, twenty three years after Andy Warhol’s death, his “Brillo Boxes” sold for three million dollars. In May 2022, his “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” sold for $195 million in New York, becoming the most expensive twentieth century artwork by an American artist ever sold. But the official Warhol narrative – “self made art-visionary lives profitably ever after” – is only partial. Beneath the celebrated persona was Andrew Warhola — balding, anxious about his nose and skin, desiring and fearful of physical contact and love.
Andy was born Andrew Warhola, the fourth child of immigrants Julia and Andrej, in a two room flat in Pittsburgh. The family was poor — meals were frequently restricted to soup. His mother worked cleaning houses and making toys out of tin cans. His father died when Andy was just fourteen. Warhol suffered from Sydenham's chorea, which causes spasms, skin pigmentation and blotchiness. The body was unreliable for Andy, and from this vulnerability he forged a twofold aim — to be the most famous artist of the twentieth century and to become very rich. Warhol’s work, initially a commentary on the ephemeral nature of fame and value in a consumer-driven society, now embodies commodification and consumerism .
Andy famously declared: “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” He understood the importance of “going viral” before it was a common term. Thirty seven years after his death, we live in the attention economy Warhol predicted, and artists are especially vulnerable to its requirement to brand, market and create ceaselessly. But few of us can match Andy’s relentless output and media savvy, and for many artists speed and hype contradicts the nature of their work.
Andy’s transformation from critic to symbol of consumerism underscores capitalism’s control of culture. Valuations of his output climb ever higher, and the cycle of obsession and possession seems inescapable. Warhol is often credited with democratizing art, but the very thing he championed — merging consumerism and art — rests upon a rags to riches narrative. He epitomizes the American Dream — ambition, talent and hard work leading to self-determination and wealth. These narratives drove Andy, but they also damaged him. From the beginning of his celebrity, we’ve amplified, worshiped and shot Andy Warhol, without knowing Andrew Warhola. Warhola envisions something better — celebrating artists’ authentic selves, over external success.
When I first became aware of Warhol, I wasn’t immediately attracted to his work. Not as I am to Frankenthaler, Guston or Gerhard Richter, for example. But as I learned more about Andy’s life and work, my empathy for his contradictions and complexity grew. This is especially true of his experience of poverty, bullying and sexuality.
I don’t share Andy’s experience of early poverty. I grew up middle class. My maternal grandmother, however, was a seamstress who worked in lower east side garment shops, and my maternal grandfather was a sculptor. He worked with hard green wax and a butane torch, coaxing out florid details with a set of small tools. He was proud of his training in Italy and at the Art Students’ League in New York, but he had no skill for career development. He was a quiet immigrant with somewhat broken English; self- aggrandizement was not in his nature. His failure to attain the American dream ultimately undid his marriage. I’ll never forget my feeling of sadness over his series of small basement apartments as he got older. He didn’t ask for much, but I thought he deserved a bit more.
As for bullying, I had my share growing up. My older brother Joseph suffered from a learning disability and epilepsy. My parents were determined to keep him in a mainstream school. Joe was two years ahead of me. We attended a working class Catholic school where physical and verbal abuse were considered signs of healthy development for boys. My brother was bullied daily. My Dad told me it was my role to protect him. I was consistently tied with another boy for smallest in my own class, however, and Joe’s classmates were already two years older, taller and heavier. I’d wade in and give it a go, but since I never properly learned to land a punch the results were unconvincing.
Because I experienced more than my fair share of toxic masculinity going up, Andy’s queerness is the thing about him that I find most inspiring. In the world he was born into, being gay meant alienation and danger. But Warhol was out as early as his twenties, when homosexuality was still criminalized, and his gay colleagues were still closeted. He showed his identity openly in life and art, confronting the macho- identified abstract expressionism of DeKooning and Pollock with camp and other aspects of queer culture.
Warhol is the most extensively documented artist in history, due to his own obsession with self-documentation. There is a surfeit of information, and it would be a mistake to organize the proposed work chronologically. Instead, it will be structured in scenes connected with interludes. The function of the interludes is to facilitate an emotional and thematic narrative.
The interludes will take two forms - telephone calls and in-person conversations. The premise for the telephone calls is factual - every morning between 1976 and 1987, Andy talked with his friend and amanuensis Pat Hackett to dictate the previous day’s events. These calls could last up to two hours. The in-person conversations, between Andy and his therapist, are invented. The premise is that art was Andy’s therapy, starting with the paper cutout dolls he made when struck with St. Vitus’ Dance as a child. That relationship continued throughout his life. Andy conversations with his therapist are his conversation with art.
Genius/fake, generous/cheap, kind/cruel, transcendent/superficial — Warhol is a contradictory, elusive character. I believe that by telling his story, from the perspective described, we can shed light on the uneasy union of art and commerce, and suggest something better. We inhabit the world he conjured. We are Andy – his ambitions, paranoias and bravery. After all, how many artists do we call by their first name?
FiLM credits
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Music and Lyrics:
Directed by: Executive Producer: Produced by: Editor / Art Director: Postproduction Supervisor: Colorist: Graham Willcox Sound Mixer: Animation: Line Producer: Special Thanks: |
Jack Perla & Jeffery Goodby
Jeffery Goodby Tod Puckett, Kronos Performing Arts Association & Jeffery Goodby Avi Oron Cary Flaum Graham Willcox Dave Baker Mike Landry, Elevel Amanda Steigerwald Noémi and Michael Neidorff Peter and Jayne Davis Roy and Laura Lundgren Piedmont Pianos The Craneway Pavillion Blake Gopnik Agustin Arteaga |
New York City Unit
Producer: Mary Ford Director of Photographer: Mark Sandhoff Assistant Director: Amanda Steigerwald Audio Engineer: Geoff Countryman Production Company: Good Company Richmond, California Unit Director of Photography: Mark Sandhoff and Michael Miller Assistant Director Amanda Steigerwald Audio Engineer: Zach Miley Assistant Camera: Emilio Diaz Assistant Camera/Tech: Hanna Hegnell Producer: Jack Sloman Production Company: E level, Goodby Silverstein & Partners |
Performers
Anthony Roth Costanzo Kronos Quartet David Harrington John Sherba Sunny Yang Hank Dutt Vocal Quartet Cathy Gloria Kate Lamont Solas B. Laigee Trance Thompson Rock Quartet Kai Eckhart (Bass) Deszon Claiborne (Drums) Dave McNab (Guitar) Jack Perla (Piano) |
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Warhola
Lyrics by Jeffery Goodby Duration ca. 15 minutes Voices Andy Warhol (Counter Tenor or Mezzo Soprano) Vocal Quartet (SATB) Instrumentation String Quartet Rock Quartet (Guitar, Keyboard, Bass, Drums) |
Score Samples
For perusal materials, performance licensing, score & part rental or purchase, please visit Bill Holab Music... |