three pianos

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Written, Arranged and Performed by
Rick Burkhardt,
Alec Duffy &
Dave Malloy

Franz Schubert’s "Winterreise" exploded and mayhemed. Gute Nacht.

Ontological Hysteric Theater
March 2010

Directed by Rachel Chavkin
Set Design: Andreea Mincic
Lighting Design: Austin Smith
Sound & Video Design: Dave Malloy
Stage Manager: Jessie Vacchiano

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• letzte hoffnung (demo version)

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"5 Stars....In the boisterous, offhandedly virtuosic Three Pianos, writer-performers Alec Duffy, Dave Malloy and Rick Burkhardt lasso Schubert’s sacred cow and serve it up as barbecue. The trio is a real-life music-theater supergroup...they also get the audience drunk, circle their instruments like panicked wagon pioneers, toast one another with bourbon they find in their benches and roar with laughter...Full-blooded and full-bodied, Three Pianos lifts its glass to music, to Schubert and to the type of friendship that can make you laugh off heartbreak. It’s also a superb evening. Cheers."

-Helen Shaw, Time Out New York

"An evening based on Schubert’s “Winterreise” seems an unlikely antidepressant. But Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy and Dave Malloy give this gloomy song cycle an amusing theatrical makeover in Three Pianos ...in the scrappy and surreal piece, the 24-part song cycle unfolds amid cleverly constructed mayhem, with Mr. Duffy, Mr. Malloy and Mr. Burkhardt metamorphosing among characters and centuries. Scenes shift with dizzying speed…they leap among pianos and pound out the songs with irreverent twists…Like the drama, the pianos are never static — energetically pushed and pulled around the set as giant props. Liquor was plentiful on set and off; bottles of wine and cups were distributed among the audience, which seemed thoroughly entertained by the trio’s goofy and touching musings about love, life and art."

-Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times

“The best antidote to winter's bitter dregs...Warms spectators at the hearth of musical enthusiasm… Like being cozily tucked away with a clutch of nerdy music-loving friends, Three Pianos transforms Winterreise's spectral solitudes into a parable of artistic community."

-Jacob Gallagher-Ross, The Village Voice

"Smart, funny, thoughtful and even educational. Deftly directed by Rachel Chavkin of The TEAM, Three Pianos is performed with skillful musicianship and engaging acting. As they move the pianos around the stage in various configurations you’ll be amazed that they keep performing this complicated and beautiful music without missing a beat. Literally. It is an ambitious task to embark on creating a contemporary re-setting of classical music that is accessible and theatrical, yet the Three Pianos team has managed to do it...a real gem of a piece, definitely not your run-of-the-mill experimental downtown mishmosh but a well-planned, carefully constructed, precise (but still endearingly messy), composition from three very talented artists."

-Andy Horwitz, Culturebot