|
Contact:
Janis Hashe, Cathy Carlton
For
immediate release: February 14, 2005 The Antaeus Company's Final Season at NewPlace Begins with Environmental Staging of Brecht Classic Audience members entering the staging area for The Antaeus Company's production of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children will encounter a soup kitchen, the live musicians of the Antaeus Orchestra, and a partially open-air journey through the classic tale of war and profit. "Mother Courage" will be staged in the "warehouse" area of the NewPlace theatre complex, a space originally designated for a 99-seat theatre, but which will now be torn down, along with the rest of the complex, in 2006, to make way for an apartment building. Says director Andrew J. Robinson, "There will be no 'high concept.' It will be rough theatre, funky, down and dirty." What the production will do is "tell the story of what happens when we ignore the signs and get greedy," he explains. Brecht's 1939 masterpiece, first staged in Zurich, has received thousands of productions around the world since that original staging. Brecht's epic tragicomedy is raucous and musical, showing the cruelty of war, the lure of profit, and just how much we can count on a mother's love. Twenty-four actors will be double-cast in "Mother Courage," with longtime Antaeus company member Anne Gee Byrd in the title role. Other cast members include: Rhonda Aldrich, Eugene Alper, John Apicella, Gigi Bermingham, Josh Clark, Ralph Drischell, Emily Eiden, Terry Evans, Bruce French, Harry Groener, Matthew Jaeger, Eric Johnson, Andrew Matthews, Adam Meyer, Nathan Patrick, Philip Proctor, John Sloan, Janellen Steininger, Katy Tyszkiewicz, Tim Venable, Geoffrey Wade, and Alicia Wollerton. The Antaeus Orchestra will play music by Dessau, Eisler, and Weill, as well as original work by company member Jan Powell. Designers include John Iacovelli, sets; Michele K. Short, costumes; Ellen Monocroussos, lighting; Chuck Olson, properties. What: Mother Courage and Her
Children |