Music by Marisa Michelson
Lyrics by Joshua H. Cohen
Book by Marisa Michelson and Joshua H. Cohen
Choreography by Chase Brock
Directed by Daniel Goldstein

Prospect Theater Company

FINALIST, 2014 JOE A. CALLAWAY AWARD FOR CHOREOGRAPHY

“Chase Brock’s choreography alternates between the wonderfully intricate and the satisfyingly muscular.”

– The New York Times

“The stellar cast effortlessly delivers this very difficult material while performing Chase Brock’s visually appealing choreography, which turns human bodies into a rushing river.”

– theatermania.com

“Tamar of the River is a phenomenal effort of beauty. The direction by Daniel Goldstein and choreography by Chase Brock are well suited to the piece and to the music, perfectly complementing the strange and compelling tone with strange and compelling staging and movement. There is no question that Tamar of the River is an arresting and sensual theatrical piece. A grand gesture in the grandest traditional of grand gestures.”

– Theatre Is Easy

“Director Daniel Goldstein and choreographer Chase Brock take full advantage of the elongated and multilevel stage, moving the action back and forth across the raised platform stage. I found myself marveling at tableau after gorgeous tableau. The actors’ bodies are used just as creatively as their voices as they surge and stomp and flow through the room. The River is almost always present, and when the River chorus’ movements are paired with their stunning raised voices, the effect is positively chill inducing.”

– Woman Around Town

“The glorious Tamar of the River, running through October 20 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, is a must-see for anyone interested in nontraditional, engaging, and accessible musical theatre. The show is compelling, sexy, sometimes funny, and deeply emotional. Composer/librettist Marisa Michelson, lyricist/librettist Joshua H. Cohen, director Daniel Goldstein, and choreographer Chase Brock create a vivid and magical world.”

– Show Showdown

“It’s hard to imagine a more ambitious piece of musical drama coming out of indie theatre than Prospect Theatre Company’s production of Tamar of the River. Director Daniel Goldstein has put together a production that is visually as well as aurally arresting. Chase Brock’s choreography provides a sense of almost non-stop movement. But there’s no masking the formidable talents that have created this work, which, if there’s any theatrical justice, should find its way into adventurous opera houses and regional theaters with the necessary musical chops around the country and even internationally.”

– NY Theater Now

“Highly stylized and theatrical, yet primal with a mythical vibe, Tamar is a unique treat for the eyes and ears. It is the kind of production that signals a departure from predictable musical theater, mostly in its drawing from Middle Eastern, Asian and pre-Western music. Director Daniel Goldstein’s greatest accomplishment here is surely his close collaboration with musical director (and conductor) Matt Aument and choreographer Chase Brock. Each vocal cord and muscle of this disciplined cast is put to use throughout Tamar. Together these artists create something distinct and refreshingly bold – a compelling fluidity of sound and movement that has stayed afloat in my mind since witnessing it.”

– Smart Reviews

“Director Daniel Goldstein and choreographer Chase Brock have molded this uniformly talented band of singer-actor-dancers into a remarkably cohesive band of voices and bodies, making brilliant use of long poles, like those used in stick fighting, to embody multiple images of fluidly dynamic bodies in motion, some of it in perfectly synchronized lock-step formations. There’s a pretty moment when the actors manipulate long ribbons of paper, and another when the ribbons are of cloth and wound around Tamar, in her undergarments, to form a dress. Much of the movement, especially when the bodies are mingled in close proximity, brings to mind the work of the Open Theatre, especially THE SERPENT, back in the 1960s, something my theatre guest and I recalled independently of one another.”

– Theatre’s Leiter Side