Gatz - Elevator Repair Service

Gatz, the theatrical tour-de-force marathon adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

Created by multi-award winning ensemble Elevator Repair Service, this award-winning theatrical event is directed by John Collins and features Scott Shepherd (X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Bridge of Spies), who won an Obie for his performance in Gatz. Ben Brantley, writing in The New York Times, called it “The most remarkable achievement in theater not only of this year but also of this decade”.

One morning in the shabby office of a mysterious small business, an employee finds a copy of The Great Gatsby in the clutter on his desk. He starts to read it out loud and doesn’t stop. At first his coworkers hardly notice. But after a series of strange coincidences, it’s no longer clear whether he’s reading the book or the book is transforming him into its narrator. Eight hours long and with a cast of thirteen, Gatz is a theatrical tour de force – not just a retelling of the Gatsby story but a thoroughly entertaining dramatization of the novel itself. Fitzgerald’s American masterpiece is delivered word for word. Gatz will be presented as a marathon theatrical event, with two intermissions and a dinner break.

Biographies

Elevator Repair Service is a New York City-based ensemble that has been making original theater since 1991. Under the direction of Artistic Director John Collins ERS has achieved national and international recognition with its extensive body of work and has influenced a generation of theater-makers. The company’s performances have been presented in Europe, Australia, Asia, South America, and across the United States and have been recognized with numerous awards, including Lortel Awards, Bessie Awards, a Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant and an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence. More info at elevator.org

John Collins (Director) is the Artistic Director and founder of Elevator Repair Service. Since 1991, he has directed or co-directed all of the company’s productions. Collins is the recipient of a 2014 Doris Duke Artist Award, a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama and Performance Art and a 2011 United States Artists Donnelley Fellowship. In 2010, he received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Director and the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director for ERS’ production of Gatz. Recent ERS projects include Measure for Measure at The Public Theater and The Select (The Sun Also Rises) at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC, and at the New Zealand Festival. His writing about theater and sound design can be found in two recently published books, Theatre Noise: The Sound of Performance (Cambridge Scholars, 2011)
and Encountering Ensemble (Methuen Drama, 2013). Collins was born in North Carolina and raised in Georgia. He holds a combined degree in English Literature and Theater Studies from Yale.

Scott Shepherd (Nick). Seven Elevator Repair Service productions since 1994 including Measure for Measure, Gatz (Obie Award), No Great Society, Total Fictional Lie, Cab Legs, and Shut Up I Tell You (I Said Shut Up I
Tell You). Twelve Wooster Group pieces since 1997 including The Town Hall Affair, Vieux Carré, Hamlet, Poor Theater (Obie and Bessie Awards), and To You, The Birdie! Other theater: Straight White Men in Paris, Berlin, Athens, and Toronto; The Village Bike at MCC; Blood Knot at Signature Theater. Film: The Torture Report (in production), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (upcoming), Hostiles, Norman, Jason Bourne, Ithaca, Bridge of Spies, The Family Fang, And So It Goes, Side Effects. Serials: True Detective (season 3, in production), Wormwood, The Young Pope, Elementary.