Harvest
The Department of Theater and the William J. Cooper Foundation presented the North American premiere of the East Coast Artists' production of Harvest. Harvest, by Delhi-based writer and artist Manjula Padmanabhan, centers around Om, who, unemployed, signs up to be an organ donor for an American woman who takes total control of Om's life--from what he eats to whom he sees and how he uses the bathroom. Harvest is a hilarious but unsettling personalization of the politics of organ donation in a global economy. Harvest won the Onassis Prize for Theatre in Greece in 1997. It has been produced in Athens and in Delhi, but this is the first performance of the play in the Western Hemisphere, as well as its American professional premiere. This will also be East Coast Artists first appearance in the Philadelphia area. The production is slated to be presented at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club in New York City in January 2006.
Each performance is followed by discussion with the playwright, Manjula Padmanabhan.
The production is directed by Prof. Erin Mee, with a lighting design by Prof. James Murphy, both of the Department of Theater. The cast features Swarthmore alums Dmitri Bonaros '97 and Kate Hurster '03.
Location: Pearson-Hall Theatre
Dates: September 9, 2005 - September 10, 2005
Times: Friday, September 9, 2005, 8PM
Saturday, September 10, 2005, 8PM
Lectures
Harvest is presented in conjunction with a lecture by East Coast Artists Artistic Director Richard Schechner on the Ramlila of Ramnagar and related questions of South Asian aesthetics on September 6 at 4:15pm in the LPAC cinema.
Richard Schechner is University Professor, Professor of Performance Studies, and editor of The Drama Review at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He has directed both in the USA and internationally. In the 1960-70's Schechner founded and led The Performance Group, one of the leading experimental theatres of the past half century. In addition to his directing, Schechner is an internationally-renowned performance theorist and teacher.
A lecture by Erin B. Mee, professor in the Department of Theater at the College, will trace the rise of modern theater in India, which now centers on the theater of roots--a postcolonial movement to decolonize the theater--using religious ritual, classical dance, popular, entertainment, martial arts, and Sanskrit aesthetic theory and will be presented on September 7 at 4:15pm in the LPAC cinema.
RasaBoxes Workshop
Combining classical Indian ideas about acting and emotion, contemporary theories of emotion coming from psychology and neurobiology, and French theorist Antonin Artaud's demand that actors be athletes of the motions, the RasaBoxes are ECA's unique contribution to Western performer training.
Workshops led by ECA's Michele Minnick. Sept. 14 1-4, Sept. 15 4-7, Sept. 16 2-5, Pearson-Hall Theatre LPAC.
