Unique production in Green-Wood Cemetery includes jugglers, a skeleton band, and lots of fire (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Green-Wood Cemetery
Fifth Ave. and 25th St., Brooklyn
Thursday – Sunday through June 26, $75, 7:00
www.green-wood.com/gacc
In The Great American Casket Company, BREAD Arts Collective (Rise & Fall) takes full advantage of the opportunity to stage the first-ever site-specific multiperformance theatrical production in historic Green-Wood Cemetery. Every Thursday through Sunday in June, up to seventy-five “clients” come to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn to hear the extensive, immersive sales pitch from “employees” of the Great American Casket Co. The evening kicks off with heavenly standards by Coriander Suede and the Tombstones (Owen Weaver, Lizzie Hagstedt, Eric Powell Holm, and composer and musical director Andrew Lynch), including “My Blue Heaven” and “Pennies from Heaven.” (Feel free to dance if you’d like.) The audience is introduced to seven characters identified only by number (in ascending order from one to seven: Mélissa Smith, Kelly Klein, Gregory G. Schott, Kate Gunther, Andy Talen, Ashley Winkfield, and Ben Lewis) who are awaiting the arrival of the President (Toni Ann Denoble), a heavily made-up steampunk leader pushing the company’s exclusive afterlife technology.
Employees of the Great American Casket Co. push their exclusive afterlife technology in immersive show (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
As the sun sets over the spectacular grounds, the clients are guided through various parts of the cemetery, encountering puppets (courtesy of puppeteers Matthew A. Leabo, Winkfield, and Rachael Shane, who is also an aerialist), jugglers, ghostly guitarists, and other entertainments. The show drags significantly in the middle when a subplot regarding one Agnes Butterfield (Lyndsey Anderson) begins, but it takes off again toward a sparkling and otherworldly conclusion. Written by Anderson and Lewis, charmingly directed by Katie Melby, and featuring costumes by Elizabeth May that range from skeletal to clownish to devilish to angelic, The Great American Casket Company is, above all else, a great way to experience Green-Wood Cemetery, which is the resting place of such “famous residents” as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Boss Tweed, Leonard Bernstein, Horace Greeley, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Charles Ebbets, and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Not all of the knots are tied at the end, and several elements will leave you scratching your head, but if you “buy the plot,” as the opening number says with clever double meaning, you’ll have a grand old time. The show concludes with a reception with members of the cast and crew, hosted by Brooklyn-based alternative event planners Modern Rebel, with free popcorn, s’mores, and Pixy Stix, wine and beer (with suggested donation), and a photo booth.