There’s always been something inexplicably fun about The Citizen’s Band. While we’re generally bored of burlesque, this musical theater troop has had enough chutzpah and crazy-ass outfits (sparkly gasmasks!) to keep us interested. It turns out that the secret is drunken rehearsals. Or at least it used to be.
For the troupe’s upcoming show, “The Debt Rattle,” director Gordon Greenberg attempted to add some structure to the routine without diminishing the end product. “I think the whole idea of having any arc or structure was new for them, even having organized rehearsals at a rehearsal space that didn’t involve alcohol and anarchy was new,” Greenberg says. “The fun experiment of it all is walking a line between giving it shape and retaining that wonderful sense of freedom and improvisation.”
“The Debt Rattle” began with the idea of a marathon dance hall, a popular hangout during the Great Depression. Using original music and radio broadcasts from the era, Greenberg and band member Sarah Sophie Flicker wrote a script for the show based around what they heard and also employed choreographer Dennis Jones (Broadway Bares, Legally Blonde, The Full Monty) to create movement using steps from the same time period.
“We have rooted [the show] in a very specific place, more specific than ever before,” says Greenberg. “It’s no secret that were reliving a lot of the mistakes of the past, so we’re looking at the ways that America coped with recovering from those mistakes in the Depression.”
To put on what Greenberg calls “a grand scale cabaret circus with a conscious,” the group has been in rehearsals for about a month, working with Jones and music supervisor Kim Grigsby (Spring Awakening). It might not seem like a long time, but the group’s previous shows have always been loose—too much rehearsal would make the Weimar-style spectacle seem stiff—and the cast isn’t exactly made up of amateurs. This time around, Cardigans singer Nina Persson, omnipresent Downtown crooner Justin Bond and Jon Natchez from Beirut and Team B are part of the squad, giving some gravitas to the line-up of celebrity offspring and model-actress-socialites that, while not untalented, have in the past made us question the seriousness of the group. (Zoe Kravitz, a member of the group, can apparently hear the Debt Rattle all the way in Williamsburg, where she lives while her rock star father attempts to unload his Crosby Street apartment for $15 million.)
To appreciate the show fully, according to Greenberg, the most important thing to do is go in with an open mind. “It’s by no means a political tract and is not trying to be a show that’s preaching’,” he says. “It’s just fantastically talented and unique creatures. Everyone in the group is a unique amalgam of talent and experience and texture and they’re all fantastical creature. The show ends up being somewhere between cabaret, theater, performance art and circus. To me the only entertainment spectacle of its kind.”
>The Debt Rattle
Oct. 22 through 24, Abrons Art Center, 468 Grand St. (betw. Pitt & Clinton Sts.), 212-598-0400; 8, $25.
For the troupe’s upcoming show, “The Debt Rattle,” director Gordon Greenberg attempted to add some structure to the routine without diminishing the end product. “I think the whole idea of having any arc or structure was new for them, even having organized rehearsals at a rehearsal space that didn’t involve alcohol and anarchy was new,” Greenberg says. “The fun experiment of it all is walking a line between giving it shape and retaining that wonderful sense of freedom and improvisation.”
“The Debt Rattle” began with the idea of a marathon dance hall, a popular hangout during the Great Depression. Using original music and radio broadcasts from the era, Greenberg and band member Sarah Sophie Flicker wrote a script for the show based around what they heard and also employed choreographer Dennis Jones (Broadway Bares, Legally Blonde, The Full Monty) to create movement using steps from the same time period.
“We have rooted [the show] in a very specific place, more specific than ever before,” says Greenberg. “It’s no secret that were reliving a lot of the mistakes of the past, so we’re looking at the ways that America coped with recovering from those mistakes in the Depression.”
To put on what Greenberg calls “a grand scale cabaret circus with a conscious,” the group has been in rehearsals for about a month, working with Jones and music supervisor Kim Grigsby (Spring Awakening). It might not seem like a long time, but the group’s previous shows have always been loose—too much rehearsal would make the Weimar-style spectacle seem stiff—and the cast isn’t exactly made up of amateurs. This time around, Cardigans singer Nina Persson, omnipresent Downtown crooner Justin Bond and Jon Natchez from Beirut and Team B are part of the squad, giving some gravitas to the line-up of celebrity offspring and model-actress-socialites that, while not untalented, have in the past made us question the seriousness of the group. (Zoe Kravitz, a member of the group, can apparently hear the Debt Rattle all the way in Williamsburg, where she lives while her rock star father attempts to unload his Crosby Street apartment for $15 million.)
To appreciate the show fully, according to Greenberg, the most important thing to do is go in with an open mind. “It’s by no means a political tract and is not trying to be a show that’s preaching’,” he says. “It’s just fantastically talented and unique creatures. Everyone in the group is a unique amalgam of talent and experience and texture and they’re all fantastical creature. The show ends up being somewhere between cabaret, theater, performance art and circus. To me the only entertainment spectacle of its kind.”
>The Debt Rattle
Oct. 22 through 24, Abrons Art Center, 468 Grand St. (betw. Pitt & Clinton Sts.), 212-598-0400; 8, $25.
