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Australia's Strange Fruit performing "Tall Tales of the High Seas."

Without Walls Festival to Feature Third Rail Projects, Strange Fruit

The 2019 festival, presented by La Jolla Playhouse, will feature new interactive works from around the globe.

LA JOLLA, CALIF.: La Jolla Playhouse has announced the lineup for its 2019 Without Walls (WOW) Festival, featuring site-specific and interactive performances, Oct. 17-20. The four-day celebration, produced in partnership with the NTC Foundation, will be held at San Diego’s ARTS DISTRICT Liberty Station.

“Every two years, the WOW Festival unites local, national and international artists and art lovers for four days of innovative, immersive and interactive events,” said Christopher Ashley, the artistic director of La Jolla Playhouse, in a statement. “There truly will be something to appeal to everyone, and we’re delighted that audiences of all walks of life can gather at ARTS DISTRICT Liberty Station to celebrate our community’s adventurous spirit and rich cultural diversity.”

The WOW Festival projects will include:

  • Allegory by Sammi Cannold and Emily Maltby, featuring music by Ari Afsar, a recreation of a women’s suffrage pageant originally performed in 1913 on the steps of the U.S. Treasury Building.
  • As Far As My Fingertips Take Me by Tania El Khoury, an intimate performance between an audience member and a refugee, separated by a gallery wall.
  • Boats by Polygot Theatre, an immersive show for children that takes place in an imaginary urban ocean.
  • Calafia at Liberty by Wetsuit Collective, takes place around the USS Recruit and explores the history of Queen Calafia.
  • The Golem of La Jolla – Excerpts in Concert: a modern parable spoken and sung with music by Michael Roth and a libretto by Allan Havis, about La Jolla Synagogue’s Rabbi Joan who is preparing for a mysterious visit.
  • Hall Pass by Blindspot Collective, a collection of short plays and musicals about young people performed throughout high school.
  • Hidden Stories by Begat Theater, an outdoor immersive performance for which audiences are led through an urban landscape with headphones.
  • How High the Moon by Mike Sears, a modern folktale featuring live music, animation, object puppetry, and actors to tell the tale of a young blue-collar couple.
  • Ikaros, by Third Rail Projects, an audio walking tour on the grounds of a former naval base. The project was commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse.
  • Inclusion by San Diego Circus Center, about the unique history of circus arts.
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed by the San Diego Ballet at the gardens of Liberty Station.
  • Pandora and the Jar of Hope by Theatre Arts School of San Diego, a large-scale puppetry, dance, and spoken word performance that explores the myth of Pandora’s box.
  • PDA by People of Interest, a documentary dance-theatre piece featuring real-life performer couples.
  • Peregrinus by Teatr KTO, an examination of 21st-century office works inspired by the poems of T.S. Eliot.
  • Portals: Interactive Connected Trees by Matan Berkowitz, an interactive art installation that turns trees into communication portals.
  • Las Quinceañeras by David Israel Reynoso/Optika Moderna, an exploration of the rite of passage many Latinas take on their 15th birthday.
  • Senior Prom by San Diego Dance Theater, featuring an intergenerational cast of dancing participating in prom activities.
  • She Buried the Pistol by Lydia Blaisdell and the Hearth Theater, a one-woman show that explores the writer’s great-grandmother’s life.
  • Tall Tales of the High Seas by Australia’s Strange Fruit, a tale of eccentric mariners performed on top of swaying poles 16 feet in the air.
  • Theater on the Move by Oracle Performing Arts, a compilation of 10 different 5-minute plays performed in a pop-up theatre for 12 audience members at a time.
  • ¡Vuela! by Inmigrantes Teatro, about four injured birds desperately trying to rejoin their flock and flee an impending hurricane.
  • Without a Net by Malashock Dance, a circus-themed participatory experience.
  • Written in Stone by Backyard Renaissance Theatre, a collection of 10-minute plays set inside Stone Brewing’s Liberty Station Bistro & Gardens. This project was commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse.

Since 2011, La Jolla Playhouse has been commissioning and presenting immersive and site-inspired works throughout the San Diego community for the WOW Festival.

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