STAGE: Disfarmer @ St. Ann's Warehouse

In the small mountain town of Heber Springs, the Arkansas artist known as Disfarmer captured the lives and emotions of the people of rural America between 1939-1945. Critics have hailed Disfarmer's remarkable black and white portraits as "a work of artistic genius" and "a classical episode in the history of American photography."

JAN. 27 - FEB. 8 @ St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn: Dan Hurlin, who last presented at St. Ann's Warehouse in 2004 with his award-winning puppet-theater work, Hiroshima Maiden, returns with the World Premiere of Disfarmer. The story is inspired by the over forty-year career (1915-1959) of portrait photographer Mike Disfarmer, who for decades shunned his family and neighbors while operating the only portrait studio for miles around Heber Springs, Arkansas. Using "Table-top puppetry," an oddly funny text by Sally Oswald and an original banjo score by Dan Moses Schreier, Hurlin's Disfarmer seeks to create a visceral sense of the photographer's interior and exterior worlds, illuminating the contradictions in the life of this American hermit whose intimate and revealing portraiture documented an entire community.

In addition, for the first time since the discovery of Mike Disfarmer's unique body of work, archival quality limited edition Disfarmer prints are available for purchase online authorized through Disfarmer.com.