Big Love
Production Ensemble 2006
The Department of Theater presents Big Love by Obie-award winning playwright Charles L. Mee, to be performed on Saturday and Sunday, March 25 and 26, at 7 pm with a post-show discussion with the playwright following the Sunday show. All performances will be in the Pearson-Hall Theater, Lang Performing Arts Center and are free and open to the public without advance reservation. There will be a reception following each performance.
"You Don't Own Me", sing fifty sisters who flee their arranged marriage. In this battle of the sexes (a modern re-making of Aeschylus' early Greek tragedy The Suppliants) one couple is able to work through complicated constructions of gender to find big love -- but not before plates are smashed, tomatoes are squished, pop songs are sung, and several men lie dead on the floor.
Big Love is directed by Assistant Professor of Theater, Erin B. Mee, and is Marsha Ginsberg's theatrical debut on campus as the Theater Department's new Resident Set and Costume Designer. The production includes lighting design by James P. Murphy, choreography by Janice Im '06, sound design by Charles Coes '06 and stage managers Elena Viboch and Stephanie Duncan. With a cast featuring Colin Aarons, Jackie Avitabile, Marilyn Batonga, Joseph Borkowski, Anne Coleman, Garth Griffin, Randall Johnston, Michael Karcher, Alicia Lemke, Allison McCarthy, Sofia Rivkin-Haas, Kate Sauvain, Jackie Vitale.
Charles L. Mee's plays, which include True Love, First Love, bobrauschenbergamerica, Vienna: Lusthaus, Orestes 2.0, Trojan Women A Love Story, Summertime, and Wintertime, have been produced throughout the United States and abroad by directors such as Anne Bogart, Ivo van Hove, Brian Kulick, Martha Clarke, and Erin Mee. He is the recipient of the lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and an Obie award for Big Love. His plays and a description of his process are available at www.charlesmee.org.
Erin B. Mee (the playwright's daughter) has directed a number of Charles Mee's plays at the Public Theatre in New York, New York Theatre Workshop, the Magic Theater in San Francisco, and elsewhere. She has directed in several of this country's other leading theaters including the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, as well as in more experimental theaters. In addition, she has also directed two productions in India with Sopanam, one of India's leading theater companies.
Marsha Ginsberg has previously taught at the Parsons School of Design, UCLA, Wesleyan University, and Dartmouth College. She is professionally active in both theater and opera design throughout the United States and in Europe. She has designed for New York Theatre Workshop, the Vineyard Theatre (NYC), The Mark Taper Forum (Los Angeles), Eureka Theatre (San Francisco), San Diego Repertory Theatre, San Francisco Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Long Beach Opera, Nationaltheater Manheim (Germany), Bayerisches, Staatsoper (Munich).
Location: Pearson-Hall Theatre
Dates: March 25, 2006 - March 26, 2006
Times: Saturday, March 25, 7PM
Sunday, March 26, 7PM
