THE END OF TV
Told as a song cycle with live visuals and set in a post-industrial Rust Belt city in the 1990’s, The End of TV explores the quest to find meaning amongst the constant barrage of commercial images designed to sell us lifestyles in the interest of selling us junk. The two sides of the American Dream — its technicolor promise as delivered through TV advertising, and its failure witnessed in the dark outcome of industrial decline — are staged in cinematic shadow puppetry and lo-fi live video feeds with flat paper renderings of commercial products. The show is driven by a sweeping song cycle performed live by a 5 piece band.
The End of TV depicts the decline of an American rust belt city through the stories of Flo and Louise, both residents of a fictional Midwestern town. Flo is an elderly white woman who was once a supervisor at the thriving local auto plant; now succumbing to dementia, her memories of her life are tangled with television commercials and the “call now” demands of QVC. Louise, a young black woman laid off from her job when the same local auto plant closes, meets Flo when she takes a job as a Meals-on-Wheels driver. The two women begin an unlikely relationship as Flo approaches the end of her life and Louise prepares for the invention of a new one. Their story is intercut with commercials and TV programs that are the constant background of their environment.
PRESS
“The End of TV”‘s artistry is awesome. Its impact is profound, unique, indescribable.”
Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant June 2017
” a fascinating theatergoing experience blending live music, old TV video clips and shadow puppetry”
E. Kyle Minor, New Haven Register June 2017
“the audience gets to experience . . . a moment of live artistic creation, playing out on the stage in front of them, with little to hide and lots to show”
Thomas Breen, New Haven Independent June 2017
“akin to a behind-the-scenes look of the making of a movie, with the film itself made in real time”
Elena Goukassian, Hyperallergic, July 2017
CREDITS
Screenplay by: Kyle Vegter and Ben Kauffman
Direction and Storyboards by: Julia Miller
Adapted for the screen by: Lizi Breit, Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Julia Miller, Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter
Music by: Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter
Sound Design by: Kyle Vegter
Puppet Designer: Lizi Breit
Associate Puppet Designer and Story Board Artist: Drew Dir
Assistant Director: Sarah Fornace
Costumes by: Mieka van der Ploeg
Lighting Design by: Claire Chrzan
Masks by: Julia Miller
Stage Manager: Shelby Glasgow
Production Manager: Mike Usrey
Puppet build interns: Zofia Lu Ya Zhang and Kathryn Ann Shivak