Machine Project

at the Hammer Museum
8:30pm in the Lobby
October 15 & 16

ANNIE OKAY is an original performance theater work inspired by the unintentional colonialist subtext in two of America’s most beloved musicals, Annie Get Your Gun and The King and I. Acknowledging the beauty and craft in these works, ANNIE OKAY revisits the musical form to look at what our entertainments say to us about our struggle with race, identity, colonialist politics, and the American tryst with violence. Poetic, dense, funny, and complicated, ANNIE OKAY challenges and surprises audiences as they are led through the Hammer Museum’s expansive lobby and marble terraces following a conceptual narrative performed by some of Los Angeles’ most intriguing and talented performance artists and actors.

Written and directed by Asher Hartman and assisted by Haruko Tanaka, the short production features artists whose individual careers span performance, acting, composing and directing, including Dawn Kasper, Paul Outlaw, Jasmine Orpilla, Rochelle Fabb, Michael Morrissey and Franc Baliton, Eliezer Ortiz, and Patrick Kennelly, Claire Cronin, Seema Kapur, Simone Gad, Caroline Kim, Robert Jacka Kristina Faragher, Mirabelle Ang, Caroline Kim, Miggie Wong, and John Wu. Featuring a score by Devin McNulty and Max Markowitz, choreography by Prumsodun Ok and Carol McDowell, sculptural costumes by Curt LeMieux, photography by Marchionno & McCarty, costumes by Curt LeMiuex, makeup by Maritza Mazariego.

The performance moves between abstract theater, comedy, and relational components that allow audiences to enter into dialogue drawn from the piece’s mix of ragged humor, violence, and sexuality.