(A)loft modulation

Inspired by true events at 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957–1965

(A)loft Modulation drops audiences into a gritty, dilapidated five-floor walk-up in Manhattan’s flower district — an after-hours refuge for musicians, artists, junkies, and prostitutes. It is the late 1950s and early ’60s, the last explosive heyday of jazz, when the fuse of American culture burned just beneath the surface. Night after night, the building’s inhabitants jam while a compulsive photographer obsessively documents it all on reel-to-reel tapes and photographs.

Inspired by true events at 821 Sixth Avenue between 1957–1965, the play traces the turbulent obsessions of artists and loiterers in their pursuit of purpose as social chaos threatens to upend American culture. It is angst versus contentment, selfishness versus generosity, artist versus layman — struggles refracted through the fractured lens of unlabeled reel-to-reel tapes stumbled upon sixty years after they were recorded.

Immersive in form and steeped in atmosphere, (A)loft Modulation is both a memory play and a jazz improvisation: a meditation on art, freedom, and survival at the boiling point of America’s cultural underground.

Artist Statement

With (A)loft Modulation, we were interested in using the lens of history to explore a moment of systemic change in America. The late 1950s into the 1960s marked a period when culture, politics, and identity were in flux — when the underground was fermenting with possibility even as the nation faced deep fracture.

By looking back at this era through the loft at 821 Sixth Avenue, we sought to reflect on another moment of systemic upheaval: the years following the 2016 election. In both periods, questions of truth, freedom, and belonging collided with anxieties of control, fear, and cultural shift.

The play uses the chaos of jam sessions, the obsessions of artists, and the unfiltered record of reel-to-reel tapes as a way of asking what remains when a society is forced to renegotiate its values. (A)loft Modulation is less about nostalgia than about recognition — a reminder that America’s present turmoil is part of a longer story, one where culture both mirrors and shapes the struggle for change.

Press Quotes

• "Scintillating, magical and transporting" - Broadway World

• "It looks and sounds terrific" - The New Yorker

• "You should try not to miss this unique theatre experience" - Theater Pizzazz