The Duchamp Syndrome

May 3–June 7, 2015
MexicoU.S. Premiere
Antonio and Ana are among the most inspiring artists we know. Our 2013 collaboration on WORKING ON A SPECIAL DAY was just the beginning of an ongoing partnership to make exciting theatre together.
Meet the Artists

Ana Graham (Director, Actor, Translator and Costume designer) born in Mexico City, where she studied drama at the Núcleo de Estudios Teatrales. She is Artistic Producer and Founder of the Mexico-based Por Piedad Teatro where she has developed most of her work. She is also a member of the adviser committee for the US/MEXICO exchange program at The Lark and has been a recipient of Mexico’s National Fund for Culture and Arts performers grant. In 2012 Graham was appointed Mexico’s Art, Culture and Tourism Ambassador by former President Felipe Calderón. Aiming to expand the activities of her theatre company and to open international opportunities for Mexican theatre artists, she moved to New York in 2009. She splits her time producing work in Mexico City and New York City. Ana and collaborator Antonio Vega partnered with The Play Company to present Ettore Scola’s Working On a Special Day in New York at 59E59 (2013) and The Duchamp Syndrome at The Flea (2015). In 2018 she was a resident artist at Berkeley Repertory Ground Floor program. In Mexico she recently directed Samuel Beckett’s El Final (The End), Maria Milisavljevic’s Abismo (Abyss) and co-directed with Antonio Vega El Ensayo (10 Out of 12) by Anne Washburn and Winter Solstice by Roland Schimmelpfennig. As an actor she has performed in more than twenty plays, including Woody Allen’s Interiors and Terror by Ferdinand Von Schirach. In 2005 she received an Ariel nomination as Best Actress for her role in the movie Mezcal directed by Ignacio Ortiz. She is currently collaborating with New York playwright Andy Bragen on the development of a new play called Summit and rehearsing William Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra where she has been cast as Anthony on an all-women Mexican production.

Antonio Vega (Author, Director, Actor, Set Designer) is a theatre artist born in Guadalajara where he graduated from ETX Jalisco School of Theater. He continued his training in Mexico, London and NYC. In 2013 Vega and collaborator Ana Graham partnered with PlayCo to present Ettore Scola’s Working On a Special Day. In 2015 he created, co-directed and starred in The Duchamp Syndrome. His most recent collaboration with PlayCo was Django in Pain which he wrote and directed.

Omen Sade (Actor) in The Duchamp Syndrome. Omen Sade is a NYC based performer, director, and physical theater artist. He is a co-founder of international physical theater group PAPA27, and former Associate Artistic Director of the Filament Theater Ensemble in Chicago.

Omen completed graduate-level studies at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, studied at the Accademia Dell’Arte in Arezzo, Italy, and the British American Dramatic Academy in London and holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College in Theater and Social Change. 

After returning from Paris, Omen held the first Dramatic Space Workshop in New York City, in 2015, at Columbia University.

Concepción Márquez (Actor) was in The Duchamp Syndrome.

Vìctor Zapatero (Lighting Designer) career as lighting designer includes theatre, dance, opera and architecture. Among many other theater projects he has collaborated with Por Piedad Teatro on Samuel Beckett's The End, The Golden Dragon and Ladies & Gents. Opera lighting designs include The Magic Flute, Macbeth, The Ring of the Nibelung, Rigoletto and Don Giovanni; all of them at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. In 2007 he co-directed Plutón, which was presented at Museo de la Ciudad de México and at 3LD Center in New York City. He collaborated as lighting coordinator on Robert Wilson's production of Einstein on the Beach in Mexico City.

THE DUCHAMP SYNDROME tells the story of Juan, a Mexican immigrant in The Big Apple, who dreams of stand-up comedy stardom. Juan is so lonely he starts making friends – literally! He creates a world of his own in pursuit of the American dream, made up of fellow travelers, human and not, who help him practice his routines. THE DUCHAMP SYNDROME is a comical love letter to New York, with guest appearances from a large cast of repurposed objects.

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Featuring

Antonio Vega Omen Sade

Voiceover

Concepción Márquez

Lighting Design

Vìctor Zapatero

Venue

The Flea Theater 41 White Street New York, NY