Waking Up New York with Immersive A Dozen Dreams
By: Ellis Nassour
May 7, 2021 — En Garde Arts and Arts Brookfield are presenting the immersive theatrical installation A Dozen Dreams, a live “timestamp of a once-in-a-generation event that will resound for years to come” May 13 – 30 at Brookfield Place in one of downtown’s treasures, the Winter Garden (Battery Park, at the West Side Highway, entry through mall at 230 Vesey Street opposite the World Trade Center).
At the start of the global pandemic, March 2020, En Garde Arts invited 12 women playwrights to share their pandemic dreams. The result became A Dozen Dreams, a series of designer rooms built in a labyrinth conceived by En Garde Arts founder and artistic director Anne Hamburger, visual and environment designer Irina Kruzhilina, and former Lark Performing Arts artistic director John Clinton Eisner.
Each experience is unique, with the playwrights’ sharing their dreams through stunning, multi-dimensional audio and visual (lights, video) representations of intimate moments vital to the human connection we lost in COVID isolation. Each room comes to life as audiences wind through a maze of single and pod-pair sets.
The playwrights featured are Sam Chanse, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Emily Mann with singer Kecia Lewis, Ellen McLaughlin, Martyna Majok, Mona Mansour, Rehana Mirza, Liza Jessie Peterson, Ren Dara Santiago, Caridad Svich, Lucy Thurber, and Andrea Thome.
Production designers also include Brittany Bland (projection and video); Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (lighting); and Rena Anakwe (sound).
Tickets for A Dozen Dreams performances are free. The running time is 45 minutes. Patrons must wear acceptable face covering. No more than two people are allowed to travel through the experience together at one time if they reserve to travel together.
A digital playbill will be accessible via QR code/URL link on site, and e-mailed to audience members making reservations.
Performances bookings are in 20-minute increments (for example: 2 P.M., 2:20, 3, 3:20. 3:40, and 7:20 P.M.), Wednesday – Saturday, 2:00 p.m. – 8 and Sunday Noon to 5 P.M. (last booking, 4:20 p.m.).
To reserve timed tickets, visit www.engardearts.org. Access to Vesey Street is by IND E or IRT 1 Local to World Trade Center ; IRT Lex 4 or 5 to Fulton Street; BMT R, N or W to Cortlandt Street; J or Z to Fulton Street; or PATH to World Trade Center.
Take note of COVID precautions:
To ensure safety protocols, patrons will receive a questionnaire prior to arrival and asked to respond to these questions: A) Do you have a fever above 100 degrees; B) Have you tested positive for COVID within the last 10 days; C) Do you have any COVID symptoms; D) Have you been exposed to anyone testing positive in last 10 days; and E) Have you traveled outside of NY state, beyond a contiguous state in the past 10 days.
Signage will support and communicate arrival protocols and ensure safe distances are maintained between patrons awaiting entry.
Signage throughout the location will remind patrons and staff to adhere to proper hygiene, social distancing rules, appropriate use of PPE, and cleaning and disinfection protocols.
Hand sanitizer will be available at the check in/box office.
