Marfa Lights

Produced by the Aztec Economy (Brooklyn)
for The Sandwich Box (Denmark)

written by Casey Wimpee
directed by Julie Rossman
music composed by Benjamin Manglos
produced by Cole Wimpee and Kalli Newman
video trailers by Michael Mason and Kalli Newman
featuring Adam Belvo as Rip
Lacy Post as Diane
Michael Mason as Mercy
& Darcie Champagne as Marfa

We composed an original play around the lysthus / tent. Once Lars agreed to let us participate with TSB, I asked my brother, a New York Innovative Theatre Award nominated playright, Casey Wimpee to write a 60 minute play.

He started with the premise: The tent is in the middle of the playing space. What story can we tell with this? Naturally, the formulaic idea of ‘2 couples camping in the woods meets ghost / angel / aliens / supernatural’ came to mind.

Out of this premise, Casey wrote marfa Lights. Marfa is a real town in far West Texas that is known for supernatural ‘lights’ that can be viewed from various observation points around the town.

For 100 years there have been multiple schools of thought to why these strange, moving, multi-colored lights would appear around dusk on the horizon: aliens, evaporating moisture, headlights from off an interstate highway nearby…etc.

After reading the aphorisms contained in the TSB website, Casey was informed and inspired to create the structure off of 4 varieties of cricket mating calls (this was specifically an association to the lust and grief ideas contained in the aphorisms).

Soon we had the play cast with a great set of actors and a perfect director. We then used a sound designer/composer to compose original music which we played live at each of the shows.

The shows premiered in a chilly courtyard in New York City – 4 late night, secret shows. Cheap admission prices. The tent was easy to set up in the courtyard and for the first ½ of the play we used clip lights to laminate the tent from the inside – giving it’s blue fabric a ‘blacklight violet quality’. ½ way through the show, we stripped the blue material off to reveal a white sheet/fabric underneath which was then illuminated also throughout the remainder of the show.

It was D.I.Y. / homemade theatre aesthetic and owls were a major underlying theme.

Photos and more can be found at our website – www.newyorkisdead.net

Please email aztececonomy@gmail.com for more information

If you'd like to view the script, please click here to open a PDF file.

We hope to take the show to Marfa, Tx in the future to the internationally-acclaimed Chinati Foundation.

See posters/postcards from the show below.