In this newest piece, Bogad plays the Economusician, who makes absurd music out of economic data. Bogad takes note of, and makes notes from, falling property values and wages, rising prison populations and sea levels, and others indicators of our ongoing permacrisis. The musical scores keep score in the class struggle. The result is Econo-cacophony.

This piece was first performed March 30, 2012 at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York, and most recently in Helsinki on November 9th at the Baltic Circle Theatre Festival.

It will be performed again on Wednesday, November 28th, at 7pm at NYU’s Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics, and again in January 2013 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as part of the Hemispheric Institute’s international Encuentro.

Economusic has been funded by the Bay Area Theatre Fund.

Photos by Antti Yrjönen.

When Wells Fargo is foreclosed by the people, this angry banker is forced to miss a day of rejecting small business loans and avoiding tax payments.

In this performance, L.M. Bogad poses as an authority (sometimes bureaucrat, corporate flack, and others).  The sign on the table says “WRITE YOUR DREAMS.” As people comply, he changes the signs to “WRITE YOUR HOPES” and/or “WRITE YOUR FEARS.” He then “processes” people’s writings in a series of absurd ways; censoring, annotating, footnoted, cutting, folding, crushing, twisting, burning, inhaling the smoke of the burned document to evaluate its smell…

In Winifred Lutz’s “Garden” at the entrance to the Mattress Factory (www.mattress.org)
$10 (Free for MF Members, CMU, PITT, and PPU students w/I.D.)

WELCOME TO OUR REVOLUTION:  Testimony from Tahrir
In this performance, Lawrence Bogad explores the Garden outside the Mattress Factory, guiding the audience though the tale of his five week journey through the streets of revolutionary Cairo. He navigates a torture-state in its death-throes, sees babies riding tanks, hears a rumor of “Zionist sharks,” and deciphers ancient Pharoanic hieroglyphic totalitarian propaganda. The piece will begin at dusk, with an ironic/symbolic ritual to Prevent the Sunset.