Mamai Theatre Company to Close Season with WOMAN AND SCARECROW

Mamaí Theatre Company closes its critically-acclaimed second season with the regional premiere of Irish playwright Marina Carr's WOMAN AND SCARECROW directed by Pandora Robertson.

In a play critics describe as "brilliant" and "imaginative," a dying woman is visited by a figure called 'Scarecrow,' an enigmatic character that might be her alter ego, or a morphine-induced hallucination, or the very thing keeping death at bay. This Irish journey of magical realism, mythology, and transformation features Co-Founders Derdriu Ring and Bernadette Clemens.

Director Pandora Robertson says WOMAN AND SCARECROW inspires her: "It gets at the humanity and heart of what can make us great: our vitality, grit, and sheer will power to hang on and value life despite its hardships and disappointments. We are able to find gratitude, forgiveness and love for each other and ourselves no matter how ridiculous and tragically flawed we are. Even in the jaws of death, Woman and Scarecrow eek out the poetry and humor from every last bittersweet moment. They never stop trying to get their story right. As Woman says, 'Now that's what I call a passion for living'."

In 2013 The Plain Dealer announced, "Mamaí Theatre Company...has made a howling entrance onto the city's artistic scene" and named their inaugural production, Medea, a top-10 theatre event of the year. In 2014 LandofCleve.net added, "In only a few short years, Mamaí Theatre Company has established themselves as a major player in the Cleveland theatre community."

Mamaí Theatre Company was founded in 2010 by Bernadette Clemens, Wendy Kriss, Christine McBurney, and Derdriu Ring. Mamaí (pronounced Mah' may) is the Gaelic word for "mother." Four working mothers, theatre artists, colleagues, and friends arrived at a place where it was time to create opportunities for themselves and their community. "Don't wait to create" became the inspiration for Mamaí Theatre Company. Our mission is to create intelligent, relevant classical theatre that offers an artistic home for Cleveland's theatre artists, and equal opportunity for women in the professional theatre community.