King Kong, African American men, and Frankenstein collide in humor-laced tales about theme restaurants featuring mutilation with dessert, and party motivators with major minstrel twists. Disposable Men is richly interactive live multimedia performance. It explores the uncanny relationship that African American men and classic Hollywood monsters share . . . the unfounded fear of, and the imaginative ways that they are killed.
CRITICS AGREE-DON'T MISS DISPOSABLE MEN!!
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Thursday - Monday @ 8:30 PM
also Sundays @ 5:00 PM
$20
at the door
Tickets can be purchased at the HERE Box Office from
4:00 PM until curtain.
Click HERE for group sales info.
Co-presented by HERE Arts Center and GSRT's Digital Performance Institute
Join us for Thursday Talkbacks
Starting June 9, join us after the show to discover perspectives from community
activists and thinkers on the frontlines of racial and social perceptions.
Find out out how these individuals have responded to Disposable Men and participate
in a dialogue with them and with the artist, James Scruggs.
June 9: Activists Kathie Cheng and Juanita Young from October 22 Coalition
to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, interviewed by Niegel Smith, Assistant Director, Disposable Men.
June 16: Diallo Shabazz, Northeast Region Youth Field Director of The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), interviewed by Carl Skutsch, history professor at School of Visual Arts.
June 23: Bob Vorlicky, Associate Professor of Drama and Director of Theatre Studies
in the Department of Drama, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, interviewed by Kristin Marting, director, Disposable Men.
June 30: Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, J.D./M.A., Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and former civil rights litigator.
more...
James Scruggs - Artist's Statement
In the year 2000, the phenomenon of the African American male as an endangered
species was a constant and recurring thought in my mind. Living in New York
City, I was bombarded with signals, clearly indicating that somehow the life
of a black man was not as highly regarded as the lives of other men. This was
very disturbing to me. In May of that same year, I created an eight-channel
video installation that was shown in DUMBO. It dealt with the notion of the
African American male as a larger-than-life, threatening being, who, because
of this perception, was easy to kill without conscience.
more ...
James Scruggs - Artist Bio
James Scruggs wrote and produced a multi channel video installation called
Disposable Men, a piece about the mayor approved NYC police shootings of
unarmed black men, it had a private showing in DUMBO in May of 2000. In May
of 2002 he performed Disposable Men, the performance piece, at BAX Theatre
in Brooklyn. In June, 2002 he was selected to participate in a Summer
Institute for emerging performance artists at The Kitchen.
more...
Perspective and History
NIEGEL SMITH
Haven't we been constantly bombarded with the question, "look at what
we've done to our black men?" Hasn't there been 35 years of serious artistic
and academic criticism surrounding our understanding of race and sex in America?
James Scruggs's Disposable Men takes this seemingly familiar dialogue and
restructures it through a media-saturated storytelling that asks its audience
to make the critical links between Hollywood monsters, multiple media markers,
personal histories, minstrelsy, government experiments, and searing emotional
landscapes to rediscover our fascination with 'otherness' and to give a more
complicated understanding of the mental and social anguish lurking between
cause and effect.
more...
Village
Voice, June 28th, 2005
ALEXIS SOLOSKI
Scruggs has crafted a model of articulate rage and prickly comedy.
more ... - live
link
TIME OUT New York, June 30, 2005
ADAM FELDMAN
"Astutely combining live performance with a panoptic array of video
projections, Scruggs offers a pointed, visually striking account of
denigrated negritude."
The L Magazine, June 22 2005
DOUGLAS SINGLETON
"Disposable Men is media-saturated storytelling that makes critical links
between Hollywood monsters, personal histories, and searing emotional
landscapes from which we can examine how we categorize and segment
societies."
The Aquarian: Theater Review
RADOMIR LUZA, JR
Scruggs, [director] Marting, and Technology Director Hal Eagar and HERE must
be given major kudos for their passion, perseverance and courage in tackling
this controversial project that almost certainly would not be seen on
Broadway.
more ...
Bergen
Record - Lynching Apology: Too Little, Too Late
LAWRENCE AARON
Go see this imaginative multiscreen production before it closes July 2. Be
ready for a visual and emotional jolt...I've seen Disposable Men three times
and with each visit, discover something new.
more ... - live
link
New York Times - Reviving Mississippi, in the 1960's
JASON ZINOMAN
James Scruggs, who wrote and performs this collection of character pieces,
has done something very difficult: he has written an angry play about racism
that
is also slyly funny. But be warned: the laughs will usually catch in your throat.
This multimedia show engages issues of race in the button-pushing satirical
style that Spike Lee was aiming for in his film "Bamboozled."
more ... - live
link
NYtheatre.com - review
DAVID PUMO
Scruggs is a committed performer, not afraid to get up close and confront
the audience eye to eye. His message is as timely now as ever, and by
immersing his audience in strong characters and images, Scruggs has made the
truth here unavoidable.
more ... - live
link
The NY Sun - Wake-Up Calls for Children & Grown-Ups
HELEN SHAW
In "Disposable Men," a one-man media spectacle at HERE, James Scruggs
does his level best to jolt us awake.
Mr. Scruggs embodies and then explodes the icons of "disposable" blackness.
more ... - live
link
Talkin' Broadway - review
WARREN HOFFMAN
I highly recommend rushing to the HERE Arts Center where
James Scruggs's stunning multimedia performance piece Disposable Men demonstrates
the socially transformative
work that theater can do.
more ... - live
link
GayCityNews - Fatally Profiled, Dead Black Men
CHRISTOPHER BYRNE
It is not a piece of anger or answers but an exploration,
Scruggs said art
and theater combined to explore an issue that s so present in our culture
and so powerful and yet, ironically, so easily ignored.
more ... - live link
Digital Performance Magazine - review
HEMAL VASAVADA GILL
... One of the most technologically involved productions
to grace the stage at the OBIE - award winning HERE Arts Center ...
According to Scruggs, "The piece is about media and media perceptions
- it was important that we had content that was about the media and represented
it onstage."
more ...
Press Release (html) Press
Release (PDF)
Press Photos
Press Contact: |
Group Sales: Marcia Pendelton WTG Group Sales 718-919-5553 (Phone) 718-919-8444 (Fax) wtggroupsales@aol.com (email) |
African American male
as a Disposable Man
Just like in the old black and white Hollywood movies, mobs of people would
pour out onto the streets in search of a man/monster to lynch, it wasn't
always the man who committed the crime, but the mob would not stop until
they felt justice was served. Justice was served in many ways, dragging a
man/monster until near death, then burning then hanging then the crazed mob
would tear the body apart. Prized souvenirs of these lynchings were body
parts, which were sometimes displayed in local shop windows. In the paper
the next day the article would invariably read that the lynching, although
attended by recognized local civic leaders, was perpetrated by 'persons unknown".
No punishment was inflicted upon the perpetrators. This actually happened
regularly, as recently as fifty years ago.
more...
Additional Links and information
Forum
Disposable Men brings up some strong and interesting issues. Our talk back nights have been very exciting and informative. If you can't make it to one of the talk back sessions, or you want to continue a conversation, join our forums, and share your own experiences.
Discuss
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