Arguendo

ERS takes on The Supreme Court.

In Arguendo, ERS tackles Barnes v. Glen Theatre, a 1991 U.S. Supreme Court case. Brought by a group of erotic dancers who claimed a First Amendment right to dance totally nude, the case examines an Indiana law that banned public nudity. At oral argument, the Justices attempt to define dance, ponder nudity in opera houses vs. strip-clubs, and ask whether naked erotic dancing is artistic expression or immoral conduct.

Arguendo is a staging of Barnes v. Glen Theatre’s entire oral argument, verbatim, set against Ben Rubin’s OBIE-award winning projection design of animated text. The argument is interspersed with bits of real interviews with the justices, the lawyers and an exotic dancer who traveled all the way from the Déja Vu Club in Saginaw, Michigan to listen to the argument at The Supreme Court.

Full of Supremely Naughty Charm

—Alexis Soloski, The Village Voice

Cool, obsessive genius!

—Ben Brantley, The New York Times

Boisterously Entertaining!

—Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly

Select performances featured post-show conversations with ERS director John Collins joined by journalists, constitutional law experts and other special guests.

Talk-back guests have included:

• Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
• Justice Sonia Sotomayor
• Seth Waxman (former Solicitor General of the United States)
• Jeffrey Toobin (The New Yorker, CNN)
• Amy Adler (NYU Law School)
• Senator Bob Kerrey (former Governor of and U.S. Senator from Nebraska)
• And dozens of illustrious others

Advisors to the project, Emily Bazelon (Slate.com) and Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz (Georgetown Law School), are frequent post-show panelists.

Recordings of Supreme Court cases can be heard at The Oyez Project at Chicago-Kent.

Arguendo began its life at The Guiding Lights Weekend in Seattle in March 2012. The piece was further developed with work-in-progress showings at The Bushwick Starr in May 2012, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival in September 2012, and The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival in January 2013. Arguendo premiered at The Public Theater in September 2013.

Arguendo was co-commissioned by The Public Theater, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company,  ArtsEmerson: The World on Stage and Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University.  Arguendo was workshopped at The Public’s 2013 Under the Radar Festival and developed in part at The Bushwick Starr, New York Theatre Workshop and at Abrons Art Center, Vineyard Arts Project and LaMaMa E.T.C.

Performances of Arguendo are made possible, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.  Arguendo is also supported with funds from The Edward T. Cone Foundation, the Barbara Bell Cummings Foundation, the Lucille Lortel Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New York Theater Program, New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project, with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Tony Randall Theatrical Fund, The Scherman Foundation, The Sequoia Foundation for Achievement in the Arts and Education, The Shubert Foundation, The Dorothy Strelsin Foundation, as well as many generous individual contributors.