2019 PERFORMANCES
LESSONS OF HUMANITY • August 2 & 3 at 8pm; August 4 at 4pm
Created and performed by SAMITE
A performance tailor-made by Samite to fit KoFest's 2019 season theme of "HABITAT: human" using a rich blend of traditional African music and personal stories that draw on his own experience of war in Idi Amin’s Uganda, and his life as a refugee who finds his new home in rural upstate New York to be a place from which he can...Read More
THE LAST RAT OF THERESIENSTADT • July 5 & 6 at 8pm; July 7 at 4pm
Lead Writer/Performer/Deviser: HILARY CHAPLAIN & Company
A show about a Weimar cabaret star who finds herself transplanted from Berlin to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. There she forges an unlikely friendship with Pavel, a rat (played by a puppet) who, despite the lack of food that has driven away the rest of his kind, remains out of love for her and her art...Read More
OK, OK • July 12 & 13 at 8pm; July 14 at 4pm
created and performed by KATIE PEARL
OK, OK is a performance reckoning with the racism of today through the lens of what Katie Pearl learned—and didn't learn—about Oklahoma history while growing up in her native habitat of Tulsa, OK. Performed by Pearl with an ensemble of four, OK, OK weaves together personal biography and civic narrative to crack open closed surfaces and get at what’s underneath. Hilarious, heartbreaking and...Read More
KoFest STORY SLAM 2019 • Saturday, July 20 at 8pm
WE ARE CLOSE TO SELLING OUT & ARE NO LONGER SELLING TICKETS ONLINE! PLEASE CALL THE BOX OFFICE RE. LIMITED AVAILABILITY. (413) 542-3750. You’ve heard of poetry slams – competitive poetry events. This is one is for first person, true stories – told live and without notes, 5 minutes or less — and on the theme of “HABITAT (human)” A benefit to keep Ko going strong, this event typically sells out, so reservations are highly recommended, and if you've got a story to tell . . .
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SPECIAL ALL AGES EVENT: The Mettawee River Theatre Company in THE RING DOVE • Sunday, July 21 at 8pm
BECAUSE OF THE EXTREME HEAT WE ARE MOVING THIS PERFORMANCE TO THE AIR-CONDITIONED HOLDEN THEATER. RESERVATIONS RECOMMENDED. Directed by RALPH LEE, this allegorical tale about friendship it is drawn from THE PANCHATANTRA, a collection of stories whose origins reach back over 2,000 years, to ancient India. The production will incorporate an array of giant figures, puppets, and masks and will be performed out under the stars in a landscape permeated with live music, song and a spirit of celebration...
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(dis)Place[d] • July 26 & 27 at 8pm; July 28 at 4pm
A fool'sFURY production, written and performed by DEBÓRAH ELIEZER. Directed by BEN YALOM
This show integrates video, movement and song to crack open Debórah's assumptions about her own identity through the story of her father, Edward Ben-Eliezer, an Iraqi Jew born in 1930, a member of the Zionist underground, a refugee, an Israeli spy, and an immigrant to America. The result: a multilayered experience about the nature of home, the politics of place and the claiming of...Read More
2019 WORKSHOPS
TOY THEATER
with JOHN BELL & TRUDI COHEN
Great Small Works
July 8-13, 2019
Participants will be shown basic techniques and materials used in Toy Theater (also known as Paper Theater). After discussing image and text selection and dramaturgy, our workshop will offer a chance to construct a toy theater stage and scenery and figures, and to put together a multi-scene story...Read More
FIRST PERSON: Crafting Your Story for Performance 2019
with GERARD STROPNICKY, Co-Founder, Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble
July 15-20, 2019
Why do some stories – some performances – spark your imagination, set fire to your soul, and leave you transformed, while others just sit there? Is it the content, or the telling? The framing, or the style? Can story be employed to bring laughter, or tears, or understanding, or lasting social change, or…Read More
UNLOCKING INSPIRATION: The Vital Act
with DEBÓRAH ELIEZER
Co-Artistic Director foolsFURY Ensemble
July 29-Aug. 3, 2019
This fun, participatory workshop will explore embodied creation methods that will remove your inner critic and allow your uninhibited creativity to flow. Through free writing, movement meditation, kinetic storytelling and vocal improvisation, we will unlock inspiration, discover untold stories and turn the idea of narrative on its head...Read More
KEEP KO STRONG
FUNDERS
The Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
The 2020 NET/TEN Mini-Grant program of the Network of Ensemble Theaters
Mettawee's performance was funded in part by The Amherst Cultural Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
Art Angels
The Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts
In addition, we are most grateful to the AMHERST COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF THEATER AND DANCE, for access to their lovely theater and studios.
KO Theater Works is proud to be a member of
THE NETWORK OF ENSEMBLE THEATRES:
Artists Creating Theatre. Artists Creating a Community. Artists Creating a Movement.
LET’S GET SOCIAL