Playground: The Hallie Flanagan Project Comes To Vassar 3/1

By: Feb. 15, 2011
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In conjunction with Vassar's 150th anniversary sesquicentennial celebration this year, the Experimental Theater at Vassar College will present three performances of Playground: The Hallie Flanagan Project, an original play by Mattie Brickman, directed by Vassar alumna Jen Wineman '00. The performances will be held in the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film's Martel Theater from Tuesday, March 1, through Thursday, March 3, at 8:00pm.

Playground: The Hallie Flanagan Project visits Flanagan at the beginning of her career at Vassar and in Russia, as she navigates life, love, and politics, discovering how the things that shape us also come back to haunt us.

Brickman noted that the play takes place "more than a decade before Hallie Flanagan would face the House Committee on Un-American Activities." Playground is set in 1927-during Hallie's groundbreaking production of Anton Chekhov's A Marriage Proposal-following her return from Russia, where she'd fallen in love with new theater, new ideas, and a certain scientist.

 

Hallie Flanagan, the subject of the play, was a Vassar professor (one of three who founded Vassar's Experimental Theater), and was well-known during 1930's for her "Living Newspaper" productions. She also was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to direct the Federal Theater Project as part of the WPA.

This will be the first fully-staged production of Brickman's play and the cast will be drawn from students of the Drama Department's Experimental Theater. The cast of Playground: the Hallie Flanagan Project will include Vassar students Julia Anrather '13 as Hallie Flanagan, Michele O'Brien '11 as Mrs. Flanagan, Evan Glenn '12 as Dr. Horsley Gantt, Tyler Glover '13 as Philip Davis, Charlie Nicholson '12 as Howard Wicks, Luke Slattery '13 as President Henry Noble MacCracken, Catherine Buxton '12 as Edna St. Vincent Millay/Caroline, Sarah Lazarus '13 as Paula/Lillian, Violeta Picayo '13 as Sue, Annie Creech '13 as Mary, Danielle Lemieux '12 as Ruth/Chubukov, Isaabella Batts '12 as Frieda/Lomov, Elizabeth Scopel '14 as Ginny/Natalia, and Alex Sarrigeorgiou '13 as Dory. The faculty advisor is Denise Walen, associate professor of drama.

While the performances are free to the public, advance reservations are required. To make reservations, call (845) 437-5599, visit the box office in person-located at the Hallie Flanagan Davis Powerhouse Theater on the Vassar campus-Tuesday through Friday, from 9:00am to 4:00pm, or email boxoffice@vassar.edu.  (Please note that the box office staff cannot respond on weekends.) For complete reservation information, visit the Drama Department website at http://drama.vassar.edu/productions/reservations.html.

 

About the Director

A 2000 graduate of Vassar College, Jen Wineman is a theater director based in New York City. In New York her work has been seen at the Abingdon Theater, Classic Stage Company, HERE Arts Center, the Culture Project, American Place Theatre, the University Settlement, and the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School. Regionally, she has directed at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Vassar & New York Stage and Film's Powerhouse Apprentice Program, WordBRIDGE, and for the past three summers: Telluride, Colorado. Recent directing credits include Sarah Ruhl's stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando and Sarah Ruhl's Late: a cowboy song, Shakespeare's The Tempest, Annie Weisman's Be Aggressive, and Kim Rosenstock's new play Every Other Hamlet in the Universe (Yale School of Drama). Wineman is a co-founder and board member of Studio 42, a New York-based theater company that focuses on producing new work by emerging artists. She received an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama (Julian Kaufman Directing Prize).

About the Playwright

As a playwright, Mattie Brickmans's productions include STARBOX, American Catnip, The Imaginary Audience, If Found Please Return to Charles Darwin, The Redundant Colon  (also performed), Civil War, Bill Clinton Goes to the Bathroom (or It Might As Well Be Spring) (also directed), and Max Out Loud, a children's musical adapted from books by Maira Kalman. Brickman is a 2010-2011 Writing Fellow at The Playwrights Realm and an associate artist of art.party.theater.company. She has been a playwright-in-residence at The Millay Colony for the Arts, Vassar & New York Stage and Film's Powerhouse Theater, and The O'Neill at Yale in Provincetown, MA. Her work has also been developed at The Lark. As a journalist, she has written for Money magazine, Santa Barbara Independent, and Montecito Journal. Brickman holds an M.F.A. in playwriting from The Yale School of Drama (Eugene O'Neill Scholarship) and a B.A. from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. She trained in ballet and modern dance and was the artistic director of Expressions Dance Company at Princeton. Brickman is from Santa Barbara, CA.

About the Play

Playground: The Hallie Flanagan Project
By Mattie Brickman
Directed by Jen Wineman
In 1926, more than a decade before Hallie Flanagan would face the House Committee on Un-American Activities, she was in Russia, falling in love with new theater, new ideas-and a certain scientist. Playground: The Hallie Flanagan Project visits Hallie at the beginning of her career at Vassar and in Russia, as she navigates life, love, and politics, discovering how the things that shape us also come back to haunt us. A dynamic and talented woman and Vassar professor, Flanagan Davis became famous in the 1930's for her "Living Newspaper" productions. Later she was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to direct the Federal Theater Project as part of the WPA. The Hallie Flanagan Project was commissioned by the Sesquicentennial Planning Committee, on the occasion of Vassar's Sesquicentennial celebration.The production is presented by the Drama Department's Experimental Theater. Each of the Experimental Theater Productions are produced as coursework for students who perform and work on the production crew, so they may learn all aspects of theater. Faculty and staff advise and oversee the experimental process. Reservations are requested as seating is limited. To reserve tickets, please visit the box office in the Hallie Flanagan Davis Powerhouse Theater on the Vassar campus, call (845) 437-5584 or (845) 437-5599, or email boxoffice@vassar.edu.
Three performances: March 1, 2, 3 at 8:00pm
The Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film, Martel Theater

About the Vassar Drama Department's Experimental Theater ?

The Experimental Theater is a place to explore theories learned in the classroom and to experiment with theatrical forms. In the tradition of pioneering stage director Hallie Flanagan, students are encouraged to experience and experiment with all aspects of the theater. Flanagan, who accepted a position to teach drama at Vassar in 1925, founded the Experimental Theater following her visit to the theaters of Europe in 1926 on a Guggenheim Fellowship (http://drama.vassar.edu).

Each of the Drama Department's Experimental Theater Productions are produced as coursework for most of the students who perform and work on the production crew, so they may learn all aspects of theater. Faculty and staff advise and oversee the experimental process.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations at Vassar should contact the box office at (845) 437-5599. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available. Directions to the Vassar campus are available at www.vassar.edu/directions.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

 

 




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