About

Watchface’s Greatest Hits
Big Brother Is Watching from 1984: The Future Repeats Itself
Theme Song from Ralph and Louie’s Bad Habits
Aria: Shopping Mall from Camden
Decay 2 from Case
Husband and Wife from Negotiations
Etiquette from Boys Will Be Men
Cleaning from Of Little Women
Service from Stereotype in Quad
Tea Ceremony from End of the World
Cowboy Country from House of Jahnke

Prior to the summer of 1986, Watchface did not really exist. A loose collection of friends and
family had been performing together since 1983 but had never made a conscious decision
to unify as a distinct entity. Flyers and postcards for their performances simply listed the
names of those involved.

This changed when the cast of Stereotype in Quad – Chazz Dean, Melanie Monios, Iris Rose,
and James Siena – was asked to substitute at the last minute for choreographer Wendy Perrin
in PepsiCo Summerfare’s New Voices in Dance program. This was their highest profile gig to
date, in a large theater at SUNY Purchase, for an organization with a marketing department
that was just about to distribute their press materials and strongly resisted the idea of listing
four individual names every time their show was mentioned. The edict came down from the
festival producers: “You need a name.”

This involved more than just the four cast members of Stereotype in Quad. By 1986, these
four had performed in multiple shows not only with each other, but with Kurt Fulton, Kim X
Knowlton, and Maggie Siena. Altogether, they had already created 17 shows, ranging from
the solo Camden to House of Jahnke, which included all seven performers. All of them
needed to convene and discuss two important questions imposed by PepsiCo Summerfare’s
directive: did they want to officially become a group, and if so, what was that group’s name?

The decision to unify was immediate and unanimous and created a feeling of excitement
among the members of the now official but still unnamed group. As many prospective
parents can tell you, the choice of a name everyone can live with takes a bit more time.
At the initial meeting, the seven threw out a few ideas but decided to meet again with lists of
names they would be comfortable proposing to the six other strong-minded, outspoken
members. At the second meeting, they all read their lists of candidates, laughing at the
more ridiculous options and campaigning for their favorites. There was no outright winner
but several contenders had their fervent advocates. They decided to take some time to
think it over and reconvene to make their final choice – with the option of bringing in new
names if a great one should occur to anyone.

At the decisive last meeting, Melanie proposed a new possibility: Watchface. It was greeted
with enthusiasm and added to the roster of candidates. On the final ballot, it won
unanimously. name selection balloting It wasn’t until they’d used the name for a while that they
realized exactly why it fit them so perfectly – it combined the measurement of time with the
act of observation, two critical factors in their methodology.

Even before the Summerfare show that had hastened their christening, the newly-formed
Watchface made its maiden voyage at the opening night of Gates of Dawn, a new
performance space near the border of Soho and Tribeca.

Kestutis Nakas was a writer, director, and actor who, like the Watchface performers, had
been a frequent presence at the Pyramid Club under the management of Bobby Bradley.
He created spectacles like The Andrew Carnegie Story, in which Kestutis as Mr. Carnegie
passed out real money to the crowd as he was carried aloft on the shoulders of his lackeys,
and a gory, all-star Titus Andronicus with Ann Magnuson, Bill Rice, and Steve Buscemi.
Kestutis’ Lithuanian heritage helped him convince the men who managed the Knights of
Columbus hall under Our Lady of Vilnius, the Lithuanian church near the Holland Tunnel
entrance, to allow Kestutis to book a performance series there every Friday night. The
postcard for the first of the new series, dubbed Gates of Dawn, announces performances by
Steve & Mark (Steve Buscemi and Mark Boone, Jr.), Jo Andres, a Lithuanian quintet called
Harmonija, and a list of names (James, Chazz, Iris, and sometime collaborator Joshua Fried).
Gates of Dawn postcard When opening night actually arrived, however, the program listed
Watchface for the first time, replacing the incomplete list of names. Gates of Dawn program

Watchface’s Greatest Hits, the first show under their new name, included ten of the group’s
favorite sections from the shows they had already created, including recent work like Case
and End of the World and resurrected pieces from their very earliest shows like 1984 and
House of Jahnke. Luckily, Kestutis arranged to videotape the performance at Gates of
Dawn. Since videotaping of Watchface’s early work was very rare, this tape of Watchface’s
Greatest Hits provides the only video document of many of these shows.

Watchface’s Greatest Hits was performed only once more, the following September at
Darinka.

For reasons of identification and promotion, new performances that were created after the
dubbing generally employed the name Watchface followed by a colon and the show’s title
or principal creator.