PIECES

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09/10 season

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PIECES

The Author’s Voice and Salome

By Richard Greenberg & Chuck Mee

Directed by Zac Eckstein and Tina Meyers

(view official press release)

info:

Presented at TPS’ Theatre 4

December 4 - 21 | Fri/Sat/Mon | 8pm

$15 General Admission | $7 Students/TPS

Buy ticket online at Brown Paper Tickets or call 1-800-838-3006

Contact Zac Eckstein at 503 407 5012 or Zac@BackwardsCompany.org for press inquiries.

the plays:

In The Author's Voice, up and coming writer Todd is being courted by Portia, the stylish and sexy editor of his new, career-starting novel. When Portia invites herself back to Todd's apartment after a night of celebrating, it quickly becomes clear that Todd, although a beautiful and verbose author, has little to say beyond two-syllable words and flat, meaningless quotations from his own book. Add to that a strange smell coming from a door in his living room, and Portia is not as impressed. Once Portia leaves, we learn that not only is Todd bad at conversation, he also can't write to save his life. Which is why he keeps a disfigured, troll-like man (who he found on the street) in his closet to do all his writing for him. As Todd and Gene (the troll) struggle to make sense of the arrangement thev're set up with each other, it becomes more and more difficult to decipher who's the master and who's the capture.

Salome is a solo piece for one woman exploring a modern-day version of the biblical Salome, who famously seduced her own stepfather (at the request of her mother) in order to persuade him to order the death of John the Baptist, a prominent critic of the family. But don't be fooled by the archaic, oft assumed innocent, Salome described above. Chuck Mee's Salome is a wild example of modern feminism crammed together with a mix of sexual transgression, murder, horrid language, and pole dancing.

cast:

Todd (The Author’s Voice) - Jon Nawn

Gene (The Author’s Voice) - Ben Burris

Portia (The Author’s Voice) - Sharon Dummar

Salome (Salome) - Janessa Cummings

crew:

Stage Manager: Noelle Wilcox

Lighting Design: Sara Torres

playwrights:

Richard Greenberg is a Tony Award winning playwright who has to date penned more than 25 plays. His play Take Me Out traveled to multiple cities across the country before landing on Broadway in 2003 where it earned him the Tony Award for Best Play. Born in 1958, Greenberg grew up in a middle-class family on an island town east of New York City called Easy Meadow. He now lives in New York City where he is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre. Greenberg was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize twice and has won numerous accolades including the Oppenheimer Award for a debuting playwright, and the first Pen/Laura Pells Award for a mid-career playwright.

Chuck Mee is a playwright famous for his borrowing of texts and concepts and for his free and open display of downloadable work on the internet. While Mee does borrow many aspects of his writing, the end result is always something incredibly unique, and his borrowing is always cited. Mee has stated that his golden rule for artists producing his plays is: “of do unto my writing as I have done unto the writing of others.” In other words, Mee does not charge royalties to produce his work, and encourages directors and performers to take liberties with his scripts; adding, subtracting and morphing the text as they see fit. Mee, with his principle of “a free and democratic internet” and “things being owned in common,” is sometimes said to have struck a raw cultural nerve by making his work freely available.