The Orchard Archives | Arlekin Players Theatre

Chekhov Two Ways, With a Robot and Baryshnikov Along for the Ride

Yuliya — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 18:20:00 +0000

With its production of “The Orchard,” juxtaposing the human and the virtual, the Arlekin Players continue taking creative leaps.

The director Igor Golyak of the Arlekin Players Theater with the 12-foot robotic arm that sits at the center of his new adaptation of “The Cherry Orchard.”Credit…

When the director Igor Golyak began working on a staging of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard,” he had an idea in mind. “There was a concept,” he said, then interrupted himself. “I’d rather not talk about what it used to be, if that’s OK. The war started, me being from Kyiv and having this affinity for the Russian culture. …” Golyak’s voice trailed off. He was speaking in a coffee shop a block from the Baryshnikov Arts Center, in Midtown Manhattan, where his show, now titled “The Orchard,” is set to begin previews June 7 with a cast headed by the busy stage and screen actress Jessica Hecht as the estate owner Lyubov Ranevskaya. Also onboard is the center’s namesake, Mikhail Baryshnikov, as the old servant Firs. Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.

A version of this article appears in print on June 5, 2022

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BirdDog Stories: Igor Golyak and The Orchard

Yuliya — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 04:29:54 +0000

March 1, 2023

Conceived, adapted, and directed by Igor Golyak is this new rendition of Anton Chekhov’s famous play The Orchard. In this new Version, Igor has blended new-age technology with the stage creating not just a unique version of this play but a new way to experience the stage both in-person and online. There are 8 BirdDog cameras (P4K, P200, & PF120) and some FLEX converters on cinema cameras positioned around the stage, a PF120 in a Robot Arm standing in for the titular Cherry Orchard, and a witness camera in the back for actors to use. They are able to pull all those streams into the Netgear M4250 Switch and then composite in Isadora and then broadcasted through OBS to Dolby Miliicast. They are also able to re-project the cameras and other materials from Unreal Engine 5 back onto a Kaleida Holonet scrim, a hologram gauze that is imperceivable to the audience until light hits it.

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Marina Abromovic names Arlekin’s The Orchard a Cultural Highlight

Yuliya — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 04:17:29 +0000

On my radar: Marina Abramović’s cultural highlights

July 16, 2022

‘Amazing’: Mikhail Baryshnikov in The Orchard in New York. Photograph: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

Last month I saw The Orchard, directed by Igor Golyak. This radical hybrid production was a new interpretation of The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov, and the audience could decide between watching either an in-person theatre show or a digital piece at home. I thought this was very inspiring. Baryshnikov himself was cast as the lead and did an amazing job. Normally, dancers don’t play characters in Chekhov, and this really captured my attention. This very modern approach gave a completely new life to a classic play.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/jul/16/on-my-radar-marina-abramovic-cultural-highlights

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