A group of people on stage, mostly standing and pointing outward, with one person in a wheelchair in front. The scene is dramatically lit with red and blue lights against a dark background.

Prep School: Seagull

Elevator Repair Service is a seminal and long-running NYC theatre company, founded in 1991 by artistic director John Collins. Seagull is the first time they’ve graced the NYU Skirball stage since their 2019 run of Gatz. This time, they’re tackling one of Chekhov’s most beloved works, with less strict fidelity to the text than they displayed in Gatz. Learn more about the company and about Seagull on their website.

Can’t get enough Chekhov? Read about another adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull, developed by Celine Song in the first year of Covid lockdown and performed on Twitch, using the Sims video game as stage.

RELATED EVENTS
Seven people perform onstage under dramatic red lighting; one person stands on a chair in the center while others pose around them, some leaning back, creating a dynamic, theatrical scene.
  • Fri Jul 29 – Sun Jul 31, 2022

Elevator Repair Service: Seagull

Learn More

GET THEE TO THE LIBRARY

Recommended readings to get you in gear for the show.

  • Frances Babbage, Adaptation In Contemporary Theatre: Performing Literature. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018. 
  • Sara Jane Bailes, Performance Theatre and the Poetics of Failure: Forced Entertainment, Goat Island, Elevator Repair Service. London: Routledge, 2011.
  • Douglas Clayton and Yana Meerzon (eds), Adapting Chekhov: The Text and Its Mutations. London, Routledge, 2012.
  • Harai Golomb, A New Poetics of Chekhov’s Plays: Presence Through Absence. Eastbourne, UK, Sussex Academic Press, 2014.
  • James N. Loehlin, The Cambridge Introduction to Chekhov. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

READ ALL ABOUT IT
EXTRA CREDIT

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

We’ve picked a book to complement each show in our season. We’ve got novels, short stories, essays, poetry, and memoir.

Why this book? No spoilers… but Trust Exercise‘s formal shifts and narrative instability resonates with Elevator Repair Service’s experimentation, reliance on audience participation, and the collapse of the fourth wall. Choi’s characters don’t get into Chekhov, the intimacy and intensity of the text demands the readers’ full attention.

LEARN MORE(opens in a new tab)
Book cover of “Trust Exercise: A Novel” by Susan Choi, featuring teal folding chairs on a coral background and a gold National Book Award Winner seal.