MATA co-Presents: MANO A MANO: an operatic monodrama by Paul Pinto
February 12-22, 2026
(Special Members/Donors Event: TBA)
Ellen Stewart Theatre @La MaMa
66 East 4th Street
New York, NY 10003
Tickets:
Adults: $35 Adults
Support the Artist Tickets: $50 – $75
Students/Seniors: $30
La MaMa Members:$10
10 @ $10 Tickets: First ten tickets to every performance are $10 each (limit 2 per person)
Ticket prices are inclusive of all fees.
A thingNY Production
Presented in association with Amanda+James, Anti-Social Music and MATA
An operatic monodrama of virtuosic chants, rants, songs and spectacle, surveying toxic masculinity through the ages by needling Anglo-Saxon epics with personal anecdote and pseudo-history.
Paul Pinto is a writer, composer, performer, opera-sermonizer, and multi-disciplinary dabbler. Kristin Marting is an award-winning director and writer of hybrid performance
Artist credits:
Written, Composed and Performed by Paul Pinto
Developed with and Directed by Kristin Marting
Lighting and Projection Design by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew
Sound Design and Mixing by Philip White
Associate Lighting Design by Alex deNevers
Performed with Erin Rogers (sax), Zach Herchen (sax), and Dennis Sullivan (percussion)
Line Produced by Amanda + James
Production Managed by Erica Schnitzer
Technical Directed by Ben Elling
Stage Managed by Katie Scibelli
Plucked from the tradition of the medieval storytelling bard, MANO A MANO is an operatic monodrama about toxic masculinity, needling Anglo-Saxon epics with personal anecdote, pseudo-history, Antonio Banderas movies, tangents about the Romans, boxing, and stories about New Jersey.
Writer/performer Paul Pinto embodies all the characters across a five-octave range of timbres: sweet, throaty and viscerally guttural. Posing the question "what if Sir Gawain and Beowulf were fighting over killing the same dragon?" he answers with ninety minutes of virtuosic chants, rants, song and spectacle, as he bobs and weaves between passages of puckishly quick verbiage and aching melancholia. Director Kristin Marting stages it in the round with the audience immersed in the action, surrounded by a mix of wild saxophone and percussion improvisation.
Crediting:
La MaMa presents
a thingNY production of
MANO A MANO: an operatic monodrama
Presented in association with Amanda+James, Anti-Social Music and MATA
With development support from Ancram Center for the Arts, ComPeung AiR, Con Vivo Music, Eastern Mennonite University, HERE, James Madison University, Mana Contemporary, Mount Tremper Arts, NACL, and Resonant Bodies Festival
Marketing support from American Opera Projects, Experiments in Opera, and Opera on Tap