Playing French Seattle now open !

[Tom Ansart]

We open October 20th! There's still lots of ways to be involved, ushering, selling tickets, concessions...
Here is the latest press release...
Tom

Steeplechase Productions presents:

Playing French Seattle 2009
Ethnic Cultural Theatre
October 20 - November 1

The third annual festival of plays written in French language will feature the work of Romanian born playwright Matei Visniec. The festival runs October 20 - November 1 at the University of Washington's Ethnic Cultural Theatre.

Two works by Visniec will be staged: "Le Deuxième Tilleul à Gauche" and "Old Clown Wanted." University of Washington doctorial candidate Otilia Baraboi will open the festival on October 20 and introduce Visniec's plays.

In September 1987, Visniec left Romania for France, where he was granted political asylum. His absurdist plays, written in French, have been staged in more than 30 countries. In Romania, after the fall of Communism, Matéi Visniec has become one of the most frequently performed authors.

The festival traces the origins of absurdism with an adaptation of Georges Feydeau's farcical one acts, a newly discovered romantic piece by Honoré de Balzac, and concludes with a staging of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days on November 1.

Additional information, including the festival schedule, is available at:
http://www.steeplechaseproductions.com
Festival tickets, priced at $25, can be purchase from brownpapertickets at:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/82169
or by searching under the event name:
Playing French Seattle
Individual day of show tickets can be purchased, subject to availability, at the theatre box office 30 minutes prior to each show for $15.

The 2009 festival is funded in part by the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and the University of Washington. The event is co-sponsored by the Alliance Française de Seattle.

What follows here is a synopsis of the plays to be staged and show times.

Feydeau Composé (adapted and directed by Cecile Casanova)
Staged in French Language Wednesday, October 21, at 8 pm.
Though critics at the time dismissed Feydeau's works as light entertainment, he is now recognized as one of the great French playwrights of his era. His plays are seen today as a precursor to the theatre of the absurd. This new adaptation by Cecile Casanova takes the best and juiciest parts of his three prominent one acts: "Léonie est avance", "Feu la mère de Madame", and "N'te promène donc pas toute nue!"

Balzac (adapted and directed by Tom Ansart)
Bilingual adaptation in English and French languages (supertitled) October 23, 25, 31 at 8 pm; November 1 at 3 pm.

Balzac's last play, never staged during his lifetime, was a forerunner of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot." Mercadet, a 19th century stock speculator, on the verge of economic ruin, attempts to marry his daughter to a rich marquis, and to convince his creditors that his former business partner, Godeau, has returned from the Indies with a fortune. Watch the comic machinations of this insidious character in his attempts to manipulate out of his self-created hell.

Deuxième Tilleul à Gauche (by Matei Visniec directed by Tom Ansart)

Staged in French language with English supertitles October 20, 22, 27, at 7:30 pm.

In two acts strictly parallel and complementary, a man and a woman make a spectator believe that they are responsible for the actions of their vis-à-vis. Puppeteers manipulated, they emphasize the reversals cause-effect / effect-cause, which can be applied to both the theater and life.

Old Clown Wanted (by Matei Visniec directed by Roger Tompkins)

Staged in English translation October 20, 22, 27, 28, at 8pm; October 31 at 3 pm.

Three elderly men arrive with suitcases in a windowless room. They have answered an advertisement stating "Small Part for an Old Clown". When no one arrives to interview them they start performing their old routines. Who is the best actor?


Happy Days (by Samuel Beckett directed by Leonid Anisimov)

Staged in English Language October 29, 30, November 1 at 8 pm.

Beckett is considered one of the last modernists in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd." Winnie, a woman no longer young, is embedded up to her breasts in a mound of earth. She lives in a deluge of never-ending light from which there is no escape.
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Seeking contact with francophone actors, directors.

[pierre]

D'autres infos ici : http://seattlefrancophone.info/viewtopic.php?p=4228#4228
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