Tony Rizzi: An Attempt to Fail at Groundbreaking Theater by Pina Arcade Smith

An Attempt to Fail at Groundbreaking Theater… finds its main protagonists from pop culture and the dance world and places them in the underground New York performance art scene of the 80s. Performer Tony Rizzi takes on the triple roles of German dance icon Pina Bausch, performance art legend Penny Arcade, and queer filmmaker Jack Smith, to take the audience on a roller coaster ride of Catholic nuns, wisdom through dance, pornographic sex, and our success-obsessed world. The work teeters on the brink of complete failure, but with the help of the public, lights will work, costumes will be changed, texts understood and dance seen. Jack Smith said it best: “You have to be willing to be bad for 20 years in order to be great and even then, there is no guarantee.”