Elevator Repair Service (ERS) is a New York-based theater ensemble founded by director John Collins and a group of actors in 1991. [1]
ERS has performed in various New York City venues including The Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Performance Space 122, The Performing Garage, HERE Arts Center, The Ontological at St. Mark's Church, The Flea Theater, The Kitchen, and Soho Rep. It has also performed elsewhere in the United States, and in Europe, Australia, and Asia. [1] [2]
Theatre critic Ben Brantley, writing in The New York Times , called its production Gatz starring Scott Shepherd "The most remarkable achievement in theater not only of this year but also of this decade." [3]
In 2008, the ensemble was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. ERS has also received numerous awards including an OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence; The Foundation for Contemporary Arts Theater Grant; the Theatre Communications Group’s Peter Zeisler Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement; Eliot Norton Awards for Outstanding Visiting Production, Outstanding Actor, and Outstanding Director; and a Lucille Lortel Award for Alternative Theatrical Experience and Best Director. Artistic Director John Collins received 2011 US Artists Donnelley and Guggenheim Fellowships. Individual ERS ensemble members have received OBIEs for Sustained Excellence in Performance, Lighting Design, and Sound Design.
During its first 15 years, the company worked "with found texts or improvised, anything that wasn't literature" as director John Collins pointed out in an interview. [2] These pieces included Language Instruction (1994), inspired by Andy Kaufman and "How To Speak Dutch" LP's; Cab Legs (1997), referencing Tennessee Williams; and Total Fictional Lie (1998), which drew on documentary films as its source material. On composing these early pieces, former ERS co-director Steve Bodow said, "We like words or movement or sounds that go through a process of several translations. Sometimes it’s literal, from one language to another, sometimes it’s more metaphorical, from one medium to another." [4]
This has changed with the play Gatz , premiered in 2006, the first of a trilogy (although initially not planned as such) of plays based on American novels from the mid to late 1920s. The trilogy consists of the plays Gatz, The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928), and The Select (The Sun Also Rises) . ERS has adapted these three plays in different ways. For the first play, Gatz, based on the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (first published 1925), ERS performed every word of the book in a production that lasted over six hours. The second play is based on The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (first published 1929), and ERS staged a single chapter. For the third play, based on The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (first published 1927), ERS created an edited version of the story using Hemingway's dialogue and some of his prose. [2]
In 2013, ERS was developing two new works for the stage: Arguendo, a staging of the 1991 Supreme Court case Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., slated to premiere at The Public Theater in September 2013, and Fondly, Collette Richland, with preview performances at the Walker Art Center.
In 2024, ERS adapted James Joyce's Ulysses, covering the entire book, restricting lines to words written by Joyce, but "fast forwarding" through much of it to achieve a two hour and forty minute running time. The play, which starts off as a reading with multiple actors sitting at a desk, expands into a fully staged and costumed production as it progresses. ERS' Ulysses had its global premiere at the Fischer Center at Bard College on June 20, 2024, as part of its SummerStage Festival. It was directed by ERS Artistic Director John Collins, with co-direction and dramaturgy by Scott Shepherd who also plays Buck Mulligan and Blazes Boylan. [5]
The play is said to capture the book's, "whimsy, dark humor, madcap pace, and trenchant ebullience amid chaos." [6] [7]
Shows from source: [8] For show marked *, also refer to source: [9]
The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Following the 1964 renaming as the Drama Desk Awards, Broadway productions were included beginning with the 1968–69 award season. The awards are considered a significant American theater distinction.
Donald Margulies is an American playwright and academic. In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Dinner with Friends.
Travesties is a 1974 play by Tom Stoppard. It centres on the figure of Henry Carr, an old man who reminisces about Zürich in 1917 during the First World War, and his interactions with James Joyce when he was writing Ulysses, Tristan Tzara during the rise of Dada, and Lenin leading up to the Russian Revolution, all of whom were living in Zürich at that time.
Will Eno is an American playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. His play, Thom Pain was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2005. His play The Realistic Joneses appeared on Broadway in 2014, where it received a Drama Desk Special Award and was named Best Play on Broadway by USA Today, and best American play of 2014 by The Guardian. His play The Open House was presented Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre in 2014 and won the Obie Award for Playwriting as well as other awards, and was on both TIME Magazine and Time Out New York 's Top Ten Plays of 2014.
Walter Bobbie is an American theatre director, choreographer, and occasional actor and dancer. Bobbie has directed both musicals and plays on Broadway and Off-Broadway, and was the Artistic Director of the New York City Center Encores! concert series. He directed the long-running Broadway revival of the musical Chicago. His most well-known acting role was Nicely-Nicely Johnson in the 1992 Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls.
John Collins is an American experimental theatre director and designer. He is the founder and artistic director of Elevator Repair Service (ERS) and has directed or co-directed all of its productions since 1991. Most notable among his work with ERS is Gatz, a verbatim performance of the entire text of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
Romance is a play by David Mamet. It premiered Off-Broadway in 2005 and also ran in London.
Indian Ink is a 1995 play by Tom Stoppard based on his 1991 radio play In the Native State.
Steve Bodow is an American television writer and producer. Most recently he was Executive Producer and showrunner of Netflix's Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj. From 2015 to early 2019 he was Executive Producer/co-showrunner of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, following his 13 years at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as an Executive Producer, Head Writer and staff writer. In his time at TDS, Bodow won 14 Emmys and two Peabody Awards.
The Lucille Lortel Awards recognize excellence in New York Off-Broadway theatre. The Awards are named for Lucille Lortel, an actress and theater producer, and have been awarded since 1986. They are produced by the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers by special arrangement with the Lucille Lortel Foundation, with additional support from the Theatre Development Fund.
Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo is a play by Edward Albee which adds a first act to his 1959 play The Zoo Story. This first act, also called Homelife, revolves around the marriage of Peter and Ann and ends with Peter leaving to go read a book in Central Park.
Peter Friedman is an American stage, film, and television actor. He made his Broadway debut in the Eugene O'Neill play The Great God Brown in 1972. His other Broadway credits include roles in The Rules of the Game (1974), Piaf (1981), The Heidi Chronicles (1989), and Twelve Angry Men (2004). He earned a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical nomination for his role as Tateh in Ragtime (1998).
David Cromer is an American theatre director, and stage, film, and TV actor. He has received recognition for his work on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in his native Chicago. Cromer has won or been nominated for numerous awards, including winning the Lucille Lortel Award and Obie Award for his direction of Our Town. He was nominated for the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for his direction of The Adding Machine. In 2018, Cromer won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for The Band's Visit.
Tribes is a play by English playwright Nina Raine that had its world premiere in 2010 at London's Royal Court Theatre and its North American premiere Off-Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre in 2012. The play won the 2012 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.
The Select (The Sun Also Rises) is a stage adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises by Elevator Repair Service theater ensemble. It has been performed in several venues. It premiered at the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The Off-Broadway production, which ran from September 11 – October 23, 2011 at the New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW), earned awards for its sound design. The show directed by John Collins and produced by Ariana Smart Truman and Lindsay Hockaday received the Lucille Lortel Award for being outstanding.
Leigh Silverman is an American director for the stage, both off-Broadway and on Broadway. She was nominated for the 2014 and 2024 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for the musicals Violet and Suffs, and the 2008 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play for the play From Up Here.
Sam Gold is an American theater director and actor. Having studied at Cornell University and Juilliard School he became known for directing both musicals and plays, on Broadway and Off-Broadway. He has received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, a Tony nomination for Best Director of a Play, and nominations for four Drama Desk Awards.
Scott Shepherd is an American film, theater, and television actor. He is best known for his roles in the films Bridge of Spies (2015), Jason Bourne (2016), El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).
The Inheritance is a play by Matthew López that is inspired by the 1910 novel Howards End by E. M. Forster. The play premiered in London at the Young Vic in March 2018, before transferring to Broadway in November 2019.
Gatz is a stage adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby by Elevator Repair Service theater ensemble. The show was directed by John Collins.