1993

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1993

developed at the Orchard Project and The Keen Company

produced as an audio experience by the Keen Company as part of their 2020/21 Hear/Now Season

all voices, sounds, music, noise and silence created and/or compiled by finkle

From The Burdens of Silence - Arts Independent, April 2021, Brendan McCall writes

To kick off its 21st season, Off-Broadway´s Keen Company pivoted from presenting live productions into offering an online-only season of audio plays in a series entitled “Hear/Now”. The first, 1993 by the multi-talented finkle, is an eight-part radio drama

Hold on a sec: 1993´s not really a radio drama. Maybe it´d be more accurate to describe this piece as…an online musical? The piece has a number of original songs which appear throughout the episodes, all written & performed by finkle.

Sorry, no, “musical” isn’t quite right, either. 1993 feels closer to a concept album, except this one is wrapped in the digital pages of a Playbill. One of the characters is spending that year recording an album on a 4-track, and listeners could interpret the songs in 1993 as excerpts from that demo recording. And, like quintessential examples of the genre (“Quadrophenia”, “American Idiot”, “Sgt. Pepper´s Lonely Hearts Club Band”), 1993´s audio episodes feature characters (all played by finkle) and scenes (in a script he wrote) that unfold like tracks on a double-LP, interconnecting by theme more than dramatic action. Rather than progressing forward in a realistic linear narrative, these eight almost psychedelic episodes fit together like tiles of an almost psychedelic mosaic, perhaps describing a dream or a memory whose logic remains elusive. finkle´s piece is about sex, about identity, about AIDS; it is also about the burdens of silence, of memory´s complicated intimacy between the past and the present. Listening to 1993 feels like a raw, intimate conversation with a stranger."

You can find 1993 on all podcast platforms as a part of the Keen Company’s Hear/Now season.

On Spotify, On Itunes. Or you can listen to it on Keen’s website HERE.


for 1993, the album, click HERE

Click this image to see the Keen Company’s Program.

Click this image to see the Keen Company’s Program.

In January 2021 Keen Company hosted a conversation about 1993 and the AIDS movement. Hosted by Jonathan Silverstein featuring:

David Drake: Playwright, Director, Actor, Author, and Artistic Director of The Provincetown Theater

Kenny Finkle: Theatermaker, Creator of "1993"

Alejandro Santiago: Support Assistant, GMHC’s Terry Brenneis Hub for Long-Term Survivors

Krishna Stone: Director of Community Relations, GMHC