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November 30, 2007 9:16 am
Do the primary debates make you break out in song? Does your existential dread express itself in aerial ballet? Are you wont, after scanning the day’s headlines, to don a gilded leotard and take to the stage? If so, there may be a place for you in the Citizens Band. Spearheaded by filmmaker Sarah Sophie Flicker, the New York-based cabaret collective was launched in the wake of the 2004 presidential election and, since then, has earned a devoted downtown following for its Weimer-influenced, progressive-minded, celebrity-guested spectaculars. Beginning tonight, Citizens Band is taking its act to the theater district, with a three-night stand of new show “The Panic Is On” at Ars Nova. Here, Flicker talks to Style.com about putting the party back into politics.
That’s a great title, “The Panic Is On.”
Isn’t it? We stole it from this obscure blues song from, like, 1923. I always love it when something from a long time ago conjures up exactly the mood of the current moment.
Is that how you’re feeling? Is the panic on?
I think if you pay any attention to what’s happening politically, economically, environmentally, yeah, the tendency is to panic. Personally, though, I try to be optimistic, and that’s really what the show’s about—living in a climate of fear, but looking for hope. Plotwise, “The Panic Is On” is about a group of people stuck in a bomb shelter. There are lots of explosions.
Yikes. Allegorical, I presume.
We’re not trying to tell the future. I mean, all our shows are set in a kind of never-never land; this one happens to look like an industrial waste zone. You can read it as the past, if you want, or as the present or the future. Or you can just look at it as an imagination world. We try to create a magical atmosphere, a place that’s sort of outside time.
Previous Citizens Band shows have seen guest stars like Zooey Deschanel and Maggie Gyllenhaal. How do those collaborations come about?
Well, the initial idea with Citizens Band was that the bulk of troupe would rotate, but as time has gone on we’ve found that we like having an established, core group. The guest stars come along in much the same way that core group came together—someone knows someone who knows someone who thinks X person would be a great addition. For this show we’ve got Nina Persson, who used to be in the Cardigans. She came through a friend, and she’s amazing.
This is the first Citizens Band performance to take place in an actual theater space. Has that changed the show at all?
I loved every minute at Deitch Projects; we had all the freedom in the world. But let me tell you, it was a revelatory experience to walk into Ars Nova and see, you know, a stage. And lights. And all the other accoutrements of a theater. Previously, that was stuff we had to create from scratch. Being in an actual theater opens up the possibility of longer runs, which is something I’m dying to do.
What else are you dying to do?
Our management probably gets a hundred e-mails a day from us about things we’re dying to do. Like, we just went on the radio, and so now everyone’s decided we should have a radio show. We’re all very energized and enthusiastic and most days, anything seems possible. So, you know, it’s not all dystopia. I promise.
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