Zero Cost House (for Zoom)

20 Jun 2020
  • A photograph of a toy deer and a wooden toy house.

Zero Cost House (for Zoom)

By Toshiki Okada
Translated by Aya Ogawa
Directed by Dan Rothenberg

June 26-27 & July 2-3

7:30PM (EDT) on Zoom

The performance is 2 hours long, with a 5 minute intermission.

Pay what you wish, $1-$99.
All ticket proceeds will be donated to Mill Creek Urban Farm and Morris Home. Learn more about these organizations and why we are supporting them here.

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Pig Iron Migrates to Digital, Adapting the Work of Toshiki Okada for Your Screen

A livestreamed play about disaster, Thoreau’s Walden, and the conscience of the artist.

Back in 2010, Pig Iron commissioned Japanese playwright Toshiki Okada to create a new play with us. As we began to work on the piece, the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima disaster reordered life in Japan. So Toshiki changed course–in life and in the work–and the play became a kind of autobiography. What began as an adaptation of Thoreau’s Walden became a sly referendum on what’s at stake when an artist becomes “political.” 

What’s at stake on the inside. Okada’s writing has been called “hyper self conscious,” and he’s a master cartographer of everyday worries and the yearning to break free of everyday life. We always wanted to get back to this play, which premiered in 2012-2013–and this moment of political awakening and forced isolation seemed like the ideal moment.

So we’ve reworked Zero Cost House for Zoom. Our first digital outing–and we think it might be better than the original! Actors in Philadelphia and New York will perform the play four times, live, from their homes. No special effects–this is a strictly analog affair. Except for the streaming platform, of course.


Zero Cost House (for Zoom)

Text by Toshiki Okada
Translated by Aya Ogawa
Adapted by Dan Rothenberg and Pig Iron

With
Will Brill
Maiko Matsushima
Mary McCool
Shavon Norris
Alex Torra
Saori Tsukada
Dito van Reigersberg

Design Consultants
Visual: Maiko Matsushima
Sound: Rucyl Frison

Stage Manager: Adam Swez
Sound Operator: Jacob Gilbert
Dramaturgy: Alexandra Tatarsky

Direction: Dan Rothenberg

Zero Cost House (for Zoom) has been generously supported by The Japan Foundation, New York.

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