About this project
Butterfly, Butterfly, Kill Kill Kill! is a yakuza noir inspired by Seijun Suzuki’s 1967 film 'Branded to Kill', that will be performing at the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival, August 13-19.
A proper fundraising video featuring the director and crew is coming soon, for now enjoy the trailer!
WHAT WE'RE DOING
In 1967, Suzuki was fired by Nikkatsu Studios for turning standard yakuza-flick scripts into avant-garde wonders that the studio said "made no money and no sense". However, critics hailed him as an auteur who combined the lurid fun of his B-movie scripts with the formal experimentalism of the Japanese and European New Waves. His philosophy was that "there is no film grammar... all that matters is to surprise the audience... to entertain." Our play, BBKKK!, is less an adaptation than an analogy: we want to do to stage what Suzuki did to film--to both embrace and subvert genre conventions and a limited means of production to create a scrappy, innovative, performance that combine avant-garde aesthetics with raw entertainment value. Featuring monstrous puppets, mystic sex rituals, yellowface assassins, wildly stylized violence, and a live electro-jazz-exotica score!
WHY WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT: a note from the director
After our performance of BBKKK! at the Brick Theater Fight Fest in December 2009, a lot of people asked how they could help support our next production, and still others who couldn't come to New York to see the show asked how they could get involved. This Kickstarter fundraising drive is a way to extend the show's creative community to include friends, relatives, and enthusiasts who want to support our work.
The $2625 fundraising goal represents an almost complete budget for our rehearsal rentals, materials costs, festival fees, and publicity efforts. What it does not include is the enormous amount of skilled labor has gone into this show from everyone in the cast and crew, all of whom are all shuffling their schedules and balancing the show with work, classes, and other projects.
By helping us cover our basic production costs, you free us up to compensate our workers from the box office returns. Box office returns from five performances split between 13 people may not amount to much more than a modest honorium for each person in the end, but that modest payment makes a huge difference. Not only is the principle of compensating labor important, but for many of us this modest stipend is needed just to make ends meet during the final weeks of rehearsal and performance. In the fringe theater scene, especially in New York, the pervasive attitude is that people, and especially actors, should work for free. This is an attitude I would like to see change, and with your help this show can lead by example.
Please help us support our working artists by making a donation and buying tickets. If you can't come see the show, please consider making a donation to show your support.
Many thanks,
Patrick Harrison
Our website: http://www.depthcharge.us/
REVIEWS
"Inspired! Subversive! ...for those who like chaos and carnage, a lot of fun." - Joe Bendel, jazz critic
http://jbspins.blogspot.com/2009/12/fight-fest-butterfly-butterfly-kill.html
"A spectacularly effective subversion of the concept of cinematic violence... A much-needed evisceration of nostalgic, primitivistic genre-worship... A badass nod to a badass director." - Whit Bernard, music writer
http://www.dolceandgomorrah.com/...
FAQ
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Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on August 29, 2010.
Pledge $10 or more Pledge $10 or more
"Special Thanks" credit on our website and, time permitting, on our printed program.
Pledge $50 or more Pledge $50 or more
All of the above + a personal letter of thanks from the director + poster signed by the cast
Pledge $100 or more Pledge $100 or more
All of the above + a t-shirt + two tickets to the show (if you donate before Aug 19) + an invitation to join the cast for celebratory drinks at the conclusion of our festival run
Pledge $175 or more Pledge $175 or more
All of the above + a free 90-minute pole dancing lesson from one of our cast members!
Project By
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Depth Charge is theater company founded by Patrick Harrison, consisting of a network of actors, directors, composers, musicians, and craftsmen working in New York, Providence, and Tulsa. Depth Charge shows typically feature film or video elements, stylized physical comedy, grotesque puppetry, class critique, horror, eros, madness, and a live music. Depth Charge separates things from the sense they make, crafting a theater of surprise and sensation and that values entertainment over and above Art.
