So Will and Sarah decide to shut themselves away from the world and live their last 100 days together as if they were 60 years, celebrating all the birthdays and anniversaries and other cherished memories they would have if they grew old together. First he attended college at Indiana University (studied Ethnomusicology & Traditional Indiana Fiddling), then after graduation Shaun moved to New York City as a part of the city's teaching fellows program. Just by being so real and powerful, and serving as kind of an emotional catharsis for our own time of global trauma, "My Joy is Heavy!" paragraph.style.position = 'absolute'; Andrew Gans | Three weeks later, the couple got married. And Ms. Bengson, in particular, finds herself opening baggage from her past that would seem to make happiness with someone else impossible. Do Broadway and Off-Broadway Theatres Still Require Masks? Review: Waltzing With Love and Death in Hundred Days, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/theater/hundred-days-review-shaun-abigail-bengson.html. Their music has been featured several times on So You Think You Can Dance (FOX). Abigail Bengson says that she. Dan Meyer The limited engagement of the Jason Robert Brown revue will begin in February 2021. By Colette Alexander, Abigail Bengson, Shaun Bengson, Jo Lampert, Dani Markham, and Reggie D. White, By | Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.. Ryan McPhee | A trio of the indie-folk duos songs have also been featured on So You Think You Can Dance, and one of their most recent singles, The Keep Going Song, has been viewed more than 4 million times on social media. Set in crunchy small-town New England (a part of Vermont that happens to be in Maine), its a follow-up to Hundred Days, a musical memoir of the Bengsons beginnings as a couple that was a hit last fall at New York Theater Workshop. Presented by Z Space and piece by piece productions with Encore Theatre Company, the show is conceived and created by married couple Abigail and Shaun Bengson, who double as a band called. Almost exactly five years ago, Abigail and Shaun Bengson performed Hundred Days at Know Theatre. | Wearing a black leather biker jacket over a slinky white dress, the long dark haired Ms. Bengson has an alluring presence, a powerful voice and plays drums. | As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. CREDITS Created by and featuring the music of: Abigail & Shaun Bengson Director: Anne Kauffman Book by: Kate E. Ryan Producer (Z Space): Lisa Steindler | Their theater work includes. Website by, The Bengsons create new indie-folk musical for Arena Stage, A global community celebrates Passover with The Third Seder concert on Sunday, Washington Stage Guild revives Shaws Devils Disciple with simplicity and skill, Getting to know Elizabeth Dinkova: I like creating a brave space, When I like a play, I get obsessed: Karin Rosnizeck on The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield, I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky remains sharply poignant, Calendar: Play Readings, Workshops, and Theater Events in the DMV, Rorschach Theatre announces free staged readings of three new plays, Keegans Boiler Room Series announces seven new play workshops, 2023 Womens Storytelling Festival to feature 27 performers, Brett Widmann, Chicago WordPress Developer. When new work is offered, it streams online, often created by the artists themselves. We made the whole piece on our cell phones, filming each other and things that were going on.. Visually, the piece is as bright as The Bengsons' surroundings (and outlook). 2020 Jonathan Larson Grant recipients Abigail and Shaun Bengson share what this grant means to them in a virtual acceptance speech. Then, in one cataclysmic season, it all falls apart, beginning with a killing that might have been prevented if only the parents hadnt been so committed to a you-choose-your-feelings worldview that they dismissed the signs of mental illness in one of the kids. July 27, 2021. You have entered an incorrect email address! "Hundred Days," the luminous musical memoir by the Bengsons and Sarah Gancher, is an everyday horror story with a very provisional happy ending like so many chapters of human existence. The stage managers are Amanda Spooner and Christopher Kee Anaya-Gorman. The Bengsons display the pleasures, joys and the emotional tolls of the events of the past year and how they managed to cultivate and hold onto happiness even during these dark, difficult times. They've learned the best from indie music videos and are able to convey the beauty and reality of Vermont winter while eking out metaphors in its landscape. By Sovereignty Hymns. Talaura Harms "We asked the question, 'well, what would we do, if we didn't very much time left together, if we did get the the terrible news, how would we handle it?'" November 21, 2022, By This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Created by Abigail and Shaun Bengson (Hundred Days), the series is inspired by interviews with people whose lives have been impacted by abortion.In this work, the Bengsons queried, can we have an empathetic conversation about . Because of past trauma in her life, Abigail said, getting close to anyone in a short period of time brought on an enormous amount of PTSD. Shaun said that the material they had been working on all got scrapped once the protests started they started to re-approach the entire project. The result is a raw and personal expression, wrapped in splendid music and honesty. I dont know. Mr. Bengson, who exudes a defensive deadpan calm that hints at demons scrambling beneath, sums up their chronicle with the jaunty disclaimer, So here it is, the sound of introverts pining! That may not sound like much fun. Ryan McPhee "So letting love win in the battle between love and fear, something we all experience every day. Logan Culwell-Block Yet she is terrified of compounding. They have received the Jonathan Larson and Richard Rodgers Awards and nominations for the Drama Desk, Drama League, and Lucille. Now, they invite the public to participate in a hybrid congregation., In our new work, the idea is that loss is the mechanism by which God comes close, says Abigail Bengson. In Hundred Days, real-life married couple Abigail and Shaun Bengson (the duo behind Ars Nova's The Lucky Ones) detail the story of how they . With a full rock band, a choir of singers, dazzling sets, and breathtaking music, Hundred Days is the Bay Area's hottest world premiere of the year. Dan Meyer Shaun Bengson, 34, cracked up at this, seated beside her in the apartment in Alphabet City where they stayed through early previews, to be close to the theater. The task, I think, of storytelling, she said, is the reintegration of the dark and the light going back and saying, Yes, this darkness is here and its true. And, There was light on us once, and there will be again.. Ms. Bengson is sure of her right to tell such a story onstage because it is a fundamental trauma of her past, overlapping though it does with other peoples pain and struggles. October 8, 2020. Ms. Bengson says that she and her husband are both profoundly introverted, but you wouldnt know it from talking with them. Ryan McPhee | | By BroadwayWorld was there for the special night and you can check out photos from the red carpet here! April 12, 2022, By Three weeks later, the couple got married. In her own family, opinion about the existence of the show is divided some of those depicted vehemently in favor, some opposed. I recognize its a little codependent.. October 12, 2020. Logan Culwell-Block July 1, 2021. The one-day-only event, starring Olivier nominees Rachel Tucker and Rachel John, played the West End October 11 following a digital production earlier this summer. Three of their singles have been featured on "So You. Then, they dreamed bigger: a Broadway musical! Talaura Harms Ryan McPhee Hello friends!Here's our official Tiny Desk Contest 2020 submission!THE BENGSONSAbigail and Shaun Bengson are a married composing and performing duo who have performed across the country and around the world. He seems gentle, diffident but steely underneath, while theres a sparkle to her, and a healthy dash of punk spicing her earth-mother serenity. Andrew Gans Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Critical reception of The Lucky Ones has been mixed, with Jesse Green of The New York Times calling it a gawky, powerful work in progress, while Sandy MacDonald, in Time Out New York, found it harrowing.. Im like, here I am, sending tapes to them, 20 years later.. What did our critic think of OPEN at Nu Sass? May 3, 2021. Logan Culwell-Block But as the show picks up momentum, their own music sweeps them into galvanizing eruptions of passion and existential anger. | The concept of 'Hundred Days,' however, has stayed the same, The Bengsons said. The Daniel Craig-led production is back after cases of COVID within the company put a pause on performances. Three of their singles have been featured on So You Think You Can Dance (FOX). And she has a deep affection for the Bengsons. The Bengsons performing in The Lucky Ones, which is the second part of a trilogy. Its become a language we speak together.. September 5, 2021. Theyre people with a lot of pain and a lot of damage, she said, but also a lot of strength and a lot of magic., They are also so intertwined, personally and professionally, that they share a bio in the program for The Lucky Ones., Is that gross? Ms. Bengson asked recently, in the tone of someone checking to make sure she doesnt have lipstick on her teeth. const styleElement = document.createElement('style'); "Hundred Days" runs at La Jolla Playhouse's Mandell Weiss Forum until oct. 21, 2018. Leah Putnam // Define the CSS rule for the .my-paragraph class Eleven years ago, Abigail and Shaun Bengson met. Leah Putnam Shaun's fast and folky acoustic-guitar strumming and Abigail's delightful alt-rock vocals establish a beautifully resonant intimacy and then swell into a magnificent full-ensemble sound with the drums thundering and the ensemble singing in transcendent unison. Abigail once served as a background singer for Tune-Yards, but her expressive warmth is also memorable from her role in HBO's "High Maintenance" a year ago, as Kim, the intimacy coordinator who meets an asexual magician. And the sound of Ms. Bengson wailing like a banshee as she considers the mangling trap that is love will echo in your ears for days to come. Abigail and Shaun Bengson are a married composing and performing duo. It was from Robert Fleming, a gay Black man who is executive artistic director of Actors Theatre in . Eliots work. (La Jolla Playhouse, New York Theatre Workshop, US Tour). The production began previews at London's Theatre Royal Drury Lane in August. St. Anns Warehouse will reopen its doors this spring with a pair of concerts from The Bengsons, performing their new work-in-progress The Broken Ear Setlist: Songs from Ohio. May 10, 2021. And I really hoped that wasnt so.. Shaun's contributions include a deft melodic touch, technological prowess and musical ear that allows the inclusion of drums, guitar, accordion, and all manner of other instruments as well as. So The Lucky Ones is wounded autobiography veiled in fiction. The beauty part of this is that any question that I can think of to ask, theres an answer to, and the answer is always weirder and more interesting and more surprising and sort of brighter than anything that I could make up.. Performances are set for April 15 and 16 with indoor and virtual audiences. They begin awkwardly and self-consciously, as if reluctant to commit even to performing. Certainly there are heartbreaking moments in the play, but the overwhelming experience of Hundred Days is one of joy. Hundred Days runs through April 6, 2014 at Z Space in San Francisco. And with those words, Mr. Bengson and his wife, Abigail the other half of the folk-rock duo the Bengsons, the indie-theater darlings who created the show for Ars Nova attempt to draw a cloak of privacy around themselves and the people they love. Like Hundred Days, The Lucky Ones is directed by Anne Kauffman and has a book co-written by the playwright Sarah Gancher, who is the Bengsons neighbor across the hall in Ridgewood, Queens. "It's not easy, it's not easy, but it's the way I want to live," Abigail said. By The production, directed by Anne Kauffman, premieres December 4 after beginning previews November 15. Their theater work includes Sovereignty Hymns (La Jolla Playhouse), The Keep Going Song (Actors Theatre of Louisville), My Joy is Heavy (Arena Stage), Hundred Days (La Jolla Playhouse, New York Theatre Workshop, US Tour), The Lucky Ones (Ars Nova), Where the Mountain Meets the Sea (ATLs Humana Festival; Manhattan Theatre Club), Anything That Gives Off Light (Edinburgh Theatre Festival), Youll Still Call Me By Name (New York Live Arts, Jacob's Pillow), and Iphigenia in Aulis (Classic Stage Company). The shift in focus from outside to inside clarifies and intensifies what was already an affecting piece. The personable and talented married singer-songwriter couple, Shaun and Abigail Bengson explore their lives in this uneven concert musical. We wanted to make it really intimate and trying not to replicate the experience of being in a theater with us, but figuring out what would be most enjoyable over this medium.. Dan Meyer Hello friends!Here's our official Tiny Desk Contest 2020 submission!THE BENGSONSAbigail and Shaun Bengson are a married composing and performing duo who have. Andrew Gans Often, they jump and dance in their own kitchen, an intimacy that can't quite be replicated on stage. Running time: Twenty-seven minutes, followed by a 15 minute discussion between The Bengsons and Molly Smith. Anyone can read what you share. | By Kauffman's staging makes full use of Z Space's cavernous performance space at Project Artaud, with the band and the world retreating behind a slowly lowering warehouse door. Though initially charming, Hundred Days goes off course during its second half. Hundred Days, the luminous musical memoir by the Bengsons and Sarah Gancher, is an everyday horror story with a very provisional happy ending like so many chapters of human existence.