About
In Das Ersatz, Travis Amiel and Cosimo Pori star as two run-of-the-mill clowns going to work, getting fired, losing friends, and making new ones. They just want to do their best, but they fail every time! It feels like everything is replaceable, them most of all. But is everything truly expendable or is expendability the essence of being alive?
Das Ersatz combines electrifying dance sequences with the ancient wisdom of memes as our (un)loveable clowns embody their dizzyingly contradictory desires…if only they’d listen to their mothers! A prismatic assemblage of Bob Fosse, Vaporwave, and Pina Bausch, among many others; Das Ersatz exists at the intersection of tofu, margarine, and immaterial labor.
Through Amiel and Pori’s unique blend of misquoted pop culture and queer 😜 dance theatre, Das Ersatz challenges the binary of free will and determinism: for you can always make a change if you know that you’re terrible…but what if you just don’t know how terrible you’ve become? Are we living in the best of times or the blurst of times?
Production History
Das Ersatz premiered at The Brick Theater in Williamsburg June 2024.
Lighting design by Connor Sale
Set design by Joe Burt
Illusions by Reuven Glezer
Makeup Consulting by Nina Lucia Rodriguez
Stage Management by Mack Fuentes
The show got a shout-out in Sara Holdren's piece for Vulture and was mentioned in the New York Times' Pride Month theater roundup.
Photos by Jose Miranda
