FEINSTEIN’S/54 BELOW, Broadway’s Supper Club, presents Gelsey Bell and Viva DeConcini in Molly Rice’s ANGELMAKERS: Songs for Female Serial Killers on August 15th at 9:30pm.
ANGELMAKERS explores the moments and motives of female serial killers throughout history, from the 1500’s to the present. The songs, as diverse in content as they are in style, are performed by an all-female band featuring New York experimental theater musicians and Pittsburgh punk-rock artists.
So why female serial killers as the focus of a concert musical? ANGELMAKERS conceivers Molly Rice and Rusty Thelin respond:
’The Keepers’, ‘Staircase’, ‘Making a Murderer’– our culture is fascinated with true crime, but women aren’t usually at the center of the story unless they’re victims of male killers. ANGELMAKERS asks: how do murderous obsessions exist differently in women than in men, and does our fascination with violence change when it’s a woman who’s committing it? What iniquities influence the making of these “monsters”? How indelibly is victimization bound to the act of victimizing, and how does an audience’s understanding of a character as both sufferer and perpetrator of suffering affect their ability to empathize?
According to its creators, ANGELMAKERS (#everyonedeservesonesong) is an exploration of radical empathy at a time when it’s needed most. Using the crack-you-open power of music and the steeped-in notions of women as the more sympathetic (and empathetic) gender, this piece asks audiences to simultaneously hold both their righteous anger at destructive behavior and their awareness of the humanity inside each of us.
“We hope this piece will evoke responses of discomfort, fascination, distance, and compassion– responses that, in a larger sense, we all need to learn to negotiate if we hope to understand those who are fundamentally different from us,” Rice says.
The show was produced with generous help from The Heinz Endowments*, and was developed at the 2017 Orchard Project in Saratoga Springs, NY**, an accelerator of new work, including that of acclaimed live artists Taylor Mac, Young Jean Lee, Adam Rapp, Mo Rocca, Itamar Moses and many more (www.orchardproject.com).
Gelsey Bell and Viva DeConcini in ANGELMAKERS: Songs for Female Serial Killers plays Feinstein’s/54 Below (254 West 54th Street) on August 15th at 9:30pm. There is a $25-$35 cover charge and $25 food and beverage minimum. Tickets and information are available at www.54Below.com. Tickets on the day of performance after 4:00 are only available by calling (646) 476-3551.