Last month, we learned that Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O would be premiering a "psycho-opera" in New York in October, but we didn't know much else about the project. Now some more details have emerged, and it looks to be one hell of a spectacle.
Entitled Stop the Virgens, it will come to Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse for eight performances, running from October 12 to 22. Karen O co-created the piece with design director KK Barrett.
She wrote the songs, while YYYs bandmate Nick Zinner provided musical direction alongside N.A.S.A.'s Squeak E. Clean (aka Sam Spiegel). Third Yeah Yeah Yeah Brain Chase will help out with the performance alongside Money Mark, members of the Raconteurs/Greenhornes, and, uh, actress Lili Taylor of Say Anything/High Fidelity fame. The show is produced by the Creators Project and directed by Adam Rapp.
So what exactly is a "psycho-opera"? To be honest, we're still not entirely sure. But in a press release [via Pitchfork], Karen O had this to say about it:
I have a pretty good idea of what the psycho opera is about but I wouldn't dare try and put it into my clumsy words. I'm hoping to create an original live experience, it should feel like a psychedelic ride laced with catharsis. There is emotional cost to our narrative so we're aiming to engage the audience, this piece isn't aiming to be all about spectacle or abstraction though there is good helping of both in the production. It's aiming to have all the good stuff of escapist entertainment with a few sucker punches to the gut along the way. I'm in the camp that needs to discover and take risks, sometimes it's with the promise of something special and new, sometimes it's to stay awake, either way it's much more stressful with all the uncertainty but worth the pain in the end.
If you're as curious as we are about how this is going to turn out, you might want to start booking your vacation time for October.
Entitled Stop the Virgens, it will come to Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse for eight performances, running from October 12 to 22. Karen O co-created the piece with design director KK Barrett.
She wrote the songs, while YYYs bandmate Nick Zinner provided musical direction alongside N.A.S.A.'s Squeak E. Clean (aka Sam Spiegel). Third Yeah Yeah Yeah Brain Chase will help out with the performance alongside Money Mark, members of the Raconteurs/Greenhornes, and, uh, actress Lili Taylor of Say Anything/High Fidelity fame. The show is produced by the Creators Project and directed by Adam Rapp.
So what exactly is a "psycho-opera"? To be honest, we're still not entirely sure. But in a press release [via Pitchfork], Karen O had this to say about it:
I have a pretty good idea of what the psycho opera is about but I wouldn't dare try and put it into my clumsy words. I'm hoping to create an original live experience, it should feel like a psychedelic ride laced with catharsis. There is emotional cost to our narrative so we're aiming to engage the audience, this piece isn't aiming to be all about spectacle or abstraction though there is good helping of both in the production. It's aiming to have all the good stuff of escapist entertainment with a few sucker punches to the gut along the way. I'm in the camp that needs to discover and take risks, sometimes it's with the promise of something special and new, sometimes it's to stay awake, either way it's much more stressful with all the uncertainty but worth the pain in the end.
If you're as curious as we are about how this is going to turn out, you might want to start booking your vacation time for October.
