Elevator Repair Service (ERS) is a

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

-based

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...

ensemble founded by director

John Collins John Collins may refer to: Arts and entertainment * John Collins (poet) (1742–1808), English orator, singer, and poet * John Churton Collins (1848–1908), English literary critic * John H. Collins (director) (1889–1918), American director an ...

and a group of actors in 1991.Elevator Repair Service: Bio
on the group's official site, Accessed 22 September 2007. ERS has performed in various New York City venues including

The Public Theater The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as the Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers.Epstein, Helen. ''Joe Papp: An American L ...

, 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 The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was foun ...

, and Soho Rep. It has also performed elsewhere in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, and in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

, Australia, and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...

.''The Independent'': Interview with John Collins
on a blog site of the British newspaper ''The Independent'', accessed 19 August 2010. Theatre critic

Ben Brantley Benjamin D. Brantley (born October 26, 1954) is an American theater critic, journalist, editor, publisher and writer. He served as the chief theater critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1996 to 2017, and as co-chief theater critic from 2017 to ...

, writing in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', called its production ''Gatz'' starring Scott Shepherd "The most remarkable achievement in theater not only of this year but also of this decade." In 2008, the ensemble was awarded a grant from the

Foundation for Contemporary Arts The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA), is a nonprofit based foundation in New York City that offers financial support and recognition to contemporary performing and visual artists through awards for artistic innovation and potential. It was ...

Grants to Artists Award. ERS has also received numerous awards including an OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence; The

Theater Grant; the

Theatre Communications Group Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is a non-profit service organization headquartered in New York City that promotes professional non-profit theatre in the United States. The organization also publishes ''American Theatre'' magazine and ''ARTSEA ...

’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 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 ...

for Alternative Theatrical Experience and Best Director. Artistic Director John Collins received 2011 US Artists Donnelley and

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

ships. 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. These pieces included ''Language Instruction'' (1994), inspired by

Andy Kaufman Andrew Geoffrey Kaufman ( ; January 17, 1949 – May 16, 1984) was an American entertainer and performance artist. While often called a "comedian", Kaufman preferred to describe himself instead as a "song and dance man". He has sometimes b ...

and "How To Speak Dutch" LP's; ''Cab Legs'' (1997), referencing

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...

; 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 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 w ...

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." 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 ''The Great Gatsby'' is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsb ...

'' by

F. Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...

(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 ''The Sound and the Fury'' is a novel by the American author William Faulkner. It employs several narrative styles, including stream of consciousness. Published in 1929, ''The Sound and the Fury'' was Faulkner's fourth novel, and was not imme ...

'' by

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most ...

(first published 1929), and ERS staged a single chapter. For the third play, based on ''

The Sun Also Rises ''The Sun Also Rises'' is a 1926 novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, his first, that portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the ...

'' by

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

(first published 1927), ERS created an edited version of the story using Hemingway's dialogue and some of his prose. In 2013, ERS was developing two new works for the stage: ''Arguendo'', a staging of the 1991

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

case

Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc. ''Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc.'', 501 U.S. 560 (1991), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court concerning the First Amendment and the ability of the government to outlaw certain forms of expressive conduct. It ruled that the state has th ...

, slated to premiere at The Public Theater in September 2013, and ''Fondly, Collette Richland'', with preview performances at the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

Works

*''Mr. Antipyrene, Fire Extinguisher'' *''Marx Brothers on Horseback Salad'' *''Spine Check'' *''Language Instruction: Love Family vs. Andy Kaufman'' *''McGurk: A Cautionary Tale'' *''Shut Up I Tell You (I Said Shut Up I Tell You)'' *''Cab Legs'' *''Total Fictional Lie'' *''Highway to Tomorrow'' *''Room Tone'' *''Gatz'' *''No Great Society'' *''The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928)'' *'' The Select (The Sun Also Rises)''* *''Shuffle'' *''Arguendo'' *''Fondly, Collette Richland'' *''Measure for Measure'' *''Everyone's Fine with Virginia Woolf'' *''Seagull'' *''Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge'' Shows from source:Elevator Repair Service: Shows
on the group's official site, accessed 19 August 2010. For show marked *, also refer to source:Edinburgh International Festival: The Sun Also Rises (The Select)
accessed 19 August 2010.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official site

* ttp://bombsite.com/issues/67/articles/2231 1999 ''BOMB Magazine'' interview of Elevator Repair Service by Coco Fusco 1991 establishments in New York City Theatre companies in New York City Performing groups established in 1991