The OPC american paperback dropped just in time for everyone’s favorite literary holiday ; St. Patrick’s day. Signed copies @booksoup in LA 🖤🔪
Long live the battered paperback, my only flag.
@doubledaybooks
This book has everything. All of the work, from all of the places; Times Bar, New Theater, Volksbühne, TV Bar. The title says it – it’s a portrait of an era. Of a different Berlin. And it also has all the texts. So often what gets written gets lost in art, blowing away after the opening. Press releases. Titles to works. Scripts. Essays. This book is a bag for all the fluttering leaves of writing.
Flipping through I am overwhelmed by how often, and how many of us, were always coming together to do things. To put on plays. To paint backdrops. To eat dinner. To pose for photographs. To drink. To write. To go out. To put on shows. It felt like a time before money. Before a lot of things. I am so grateful to have all of it together. And it ends with a photograph of the red seats at New Theater Hollywood which feels fitting.
The book is available through @inventorypress and now shipping!
We will have a big party to celebrate it in Feb @newtheaterhollywood
The book is lovingly (also patiently, cause it took years) designed by @dansolbachstudio , with brilliant texts by @silentforweeks and David Bussel
and it wouldn’t have happened without @fabricestroun
Thanks to @pshitcity@friart.kunsthalle@isabellabortolozzi@reena_spaulings@fluentumcollection
the ARC’s are in, and she’s an american beach read. hmu for a review copy if that’s your biz. and LA mark your calendar for aug 20th release party new theater hollywood x skylight books 💧
Expect the unexpected at New Theater Hollywood, the indie playhouse where live performance thrives in our increasingly screen-based world.
Artists Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff, onetime artistic directors of the Grüner Salon in Berlin’s storied Volksbühne theater, launched the space as a non-profit in 2024, reviving a 49-seat stage on Santa Monica Boulevard’s forgotten theater row. The venue features a concession stand that sells Red Vines and loose cigarettes; a single bathroom lined in floor-to-ceilng gold tinsel, inconveniently located behind the stage; and a cult following of literary, art world, and pop culture types, many of whom were never much into theater before.
Aspiring to break the mold of theater with a capital T, New Theater Hollywood specializes in genre-defying, comically bizarre, multidisciplinary collaborations. Making ends meet through small donations, plus the sale of tickets, merchandise and their art, Henkel lovingly describes New Theater as a “psychotic undertaking,” perpetually threatening “financial ruin.” But the pair believes in theater as a kind of magic—a collective experience that takes on a life of its own. “Particularly in a place like Los Angeles, where there is no third space, I think theater is really good at inviting people to come in,” says Henkel.
Link in bio to read more about New Theater Hollywood’s origin story.
Words: @janellezara
bar as news room - final hours of tv bar
shot over 3 years on 16mm at tv bar, PARADISE is screening @times.newyorkcity all day on Friday the 15th, and we’re doing a talk back at 6pm with @sophiecavoulacos
last slide is the final selfie crash out. what i wouldn’t give for another round of prosecco von fass with everyone
🎥 May 15th & 16th: decompress from the fairs with a screening of Paradise and THEATER from Max Pitegoff and Calla Henkel.
The 4-part film Paradise takes place in a fictional eponymous bar and follows a group of bartenders as they navigate a chronically absent boss that wants the bar to function as a newsroom. Paradise focuses on labor, performance, and how much one has to give away while working.
The 5-part film THEATER is set and shot at New Theater Hollywood in Los Angeles, the theater space the two artists have been operating since January 2024. Blending fiction with documentation, THEATER uses footage shot during rehearsals of productions staged at New Theater Hollywood to construct a narrative around a character named Kennedy … In her desire for community, she faces the cult-like power it takes to keep a group together, and the unyielding hope of transformation through fame– all haunted by strikes, ghosts, exploitation, love, and the maddening reality of living inside of other people’s ambitions.
Both films are courtesy of the artists and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.
I am so excited to get to screen both PARADISE and THEATER in New York City on May 15th and 16th @times.newyorkcity
Set at TV Bar and New Theater these two films encompass so much of Max and my life and so many people we love, I hope you can come ♥️
We’re doing a talk with Sophie Cavoulacos on May 15, at 6pm
Screenings:
Friday, May 15th Paradise (1:20 minutes) 12pm, 1:30pm, 3pm & 4:30pm
Saturday, May 16th THEATER (65 minutes) 12pm, 1:15pm, 2:30pm, 3:45pm & 5pm
They thought with four parents, nothing could go wrong… 👀
Four Terrible Parents is Calla Henkel’s brand new utterly gripping and sophisticated take on a whodunnit. From the Berlin underground scene to a small town in South Carolina, join Raul, Banner, Valentine and Linh and their unconventional family.
This stylish and twisty story of love, power and starting again is perfect for fans of Emma Cline, Miranda July and Ottessa Moshfegh, and is out 30th July! ✨
We have proofs available and it’s also available to request on NetGalley!
#literaryfiction #literarythriller #queerbooks
