About the show:
The "crime of the century" of the 1920’s jolts to life in modern day New York City in Joseph Silovsky's micro-history multimedia tale, Send for the Million Men. With a compelling command of animatronics, robotics, puppetry, and handmade projectors, Silovsky examines the controversial executions of notorious anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Their bleak fates intertwine with Silovsky's own micro-tragic biography in a humorous and captivating history-rethink.
Credits:
A HERE Resident Artist and Dream Music Puppetry Production
created and directed by Joseph Silovsky
performed by Joseph Silovsky, Victor Morales, Catherine McRae
associate director: Eric Dyer
video designer: Victor Morales
sound designer: Catherine McRae
lighting designer: Laura Mroczkowski
electronics designer: Ryan Holsopple
Funding:
Send for the Million Men was commissioned, developed, and produced through the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP). It has received generous funding from the Jim Henson Foundation, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, and The Puffin Foundation. The work also received support from St. Ann’s Puppet Lab, DPI (Digital Performance Institute) residency, LMCC (Process Space), Mount Tremper Arts, The Knockdown Center, and Associated Hole Productions, a division of Radiohole.
The full 16 minute presentation of two acts from Send for the Million Men at St Ann's Warehouse for the 2011 Labapalooza.
I have three core interests in creating Send for the Million Men. I am compelled by the characters of Sacco and Vanzetti. The two men faced their fates differently. Sacco was steadfast but felt powerless. Vanzetti refused to succumb, improving his English and working at both men's defense. He develops, by chance, into a true hero. "If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men." I believe Vanzetti is an overlooked historical figure, and that their story has not had its due in dramatic form.
Politically I want to draw attention to the relevant issues: capital punishment, the judicial process, immigration. All are resurgent topics; the Anarchists of the 20s are today's Islamists (again stereotyped as bomb wielding radicals).
I see a relationship between my performance style and the elusive, charged nature of this century-old moment. We reconstruct historical events, especially politically fraught ones, from minute, often conflicting objects and stories; this is also how I construct my shows. This multi-faceted story mirrors the way my pieces offer fragments, near misses, asides and marginalia. By acknowledging that true reconstruction is impossible, I want to leave viewers feeling they might have grasped the essence of a time, place or person.