THEY CAME TO THE CASTLE: Immigrants, a Tenor and Lola Montez

Theater for the New City, New York City

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY BARBARA KAHN

November 4-21, Thursday – Saturday at 8pm, Sunday at 3pm.

155 1st Ave. (9th & 10th Sts.) Res/Info: 212-254-1109

Tkts: $15, seniors/students $12, TDF accepted.

They Came to the Castle: Immigrants, a Tenor and Lola Montez is a historical play set in the mid-19th century in a now landmarked building in Battery Park–the entry point to the United States prior the facility on Ellis Island. Newly-arrived travelers share their hopes and dreams, seeking love and success in a new land. An Irishman fleeing the potato famine; an Italian man who escaped from forced child labor in the sulfur mines of Sicily; the sole survivor of a pogrom (organized violence against Jews) in a Russian village; a woman who “always felt different” and ran from an arranged marriage; a freeborn African American woman who works for the NYC Commission on Immigration. Castle Garden was briefly a prominent entertainment center. In a re-imagining of a night’s entertainment, the Italian tenor Lorenzo Salvi performs and the infamous dancer Lola Montez recreates her notorious “Spider Dance.”

Funding has been made possible by the Puffin Foundation, the Arch and Bruce Brown

Foundation and individual donors.

Set design by Mark Marcante

Lighting by Alexander Bartenieff

Costumes by Everett Clark.

Sound design by Joy Linscheid

Original music by Allison Tartalia

Choreography by Robert Gonzales Jr

Stage Manager Selear Duke

Graphic design by Virginia Asman

Photo and video services by Joe Bly

Featuring JC Augustin, Drew Brock Baker, Grace Canahuati, Christine Fiala, Christopher Lowe, Lisa Monde, Adara Totino, Ciaran Walsh, Rebekah D. Wilson.