Beowulf - a Thousand Years of Baggage takes on the LES

Banana Bag & Bodice's

BEOWULF – A Thousand Years of Baggage takes on the LES

After a successful smash-hit run last April at Abrons Arts Center, Banana Bag & Bodice brings their award-winning epic SongPlay back to some of the Lower East Side’s most exciting and prestigious music venues. Digging into the roots of the original epic poem, this re-imagined version of Beowulf – A Thousand Years of Baggage hearkens back to the raw and rowdy style of storytelling in the old Scandinavian mead halls – with a passion for fierce poetry and a pint of thick beer.

Monsters and professors collide in blood-soaked Scandinavia as this hefty poem is rescued from 1,000 years of analysis and transformed into a defiantly raucous dissertation on art and violence. With an 8-piece band including dueling trombones, bass clarinet, accordion and saw, Beowulf combines Weillian cabaret, 40's jazz harmony, indie rock, punk, electronica and Romantic lieder into a cacophonous swirl.

Trailer: Trailer here Written by Jason Craig Music by Dave Malloy Co-Directed by Rod Hipskind and Mallory Catlett with Jen Baker, Gelsey Bell, Rick Burkhardt, Jason Craig, Ezra Gale, Rod Hipskind, Birgit Huppuch, Anna Ishida, Jessica Jelliffe, Mario Maggio, Dave Malloy, Andy Strain, Brian Thompson and Peter Wise

What's being said about this show:

**Winner of the 2008 Glickman Award**
**Best of 2009, The New Yorker**
**2009 Innovative Theater Award Nomination, Best Music**
**Best of 2008: East Bay Express (#1), SF Chronicle, SF Bay Guardian, SF Examiner, Mercury News*


"Hilarious...clever...has the makings of a cult fave."
-Variety

“Joyfully raucous and silly… The propulsive, oompah-inflected music brings out the power and the color of the legend…”                                                                             
-The New Yorker

 “Ferociously fun…there's always a good stomping rock number and a stylized ass-kicking coming soon...Seeing this cracked Beowulf may not earn students extra credit, but it's an irresistible excuse to cut class."                                                                  
-Time Out New York

 "...a brilliant musical score...wonderfully cacophonous arrangements for blaring trombones, booming percussion, wild guitar, and wailing horns and viola, that not only capture the raw, primitive sensibilities of the story's eighth-century Scandinavian setting and characters but also underline subtle elements of the drama through hard rock, traditional Middle Eastern tunes, rap, Broadway, 1960s folk, and vocal jazz."
-Back Stage

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