UC Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts Drama Department Stages THE LIQUID PLAIN, Now thru 2/8

UC Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts (CTSA) Drama Department will present Naomi Wallace's play THE LIQUID PLAIN from tonight, January 31 through February 8.

The production is commissioned through the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle and is the winner of the 2012 Horton Foote Prize for "Promising New American Play". Jaye Austin Williams, current Chancellor's Post-Doctoral Fellow, will guest direct. UCI Drama's production will be the second production of Wallace's play, as well as the California premier.

THE LIQUID PLAIN explores sexuality and the violence of the slave trade as we meet two runaway slaves on the docks of an 18th century Rhode Island port. Finding love and a neardrowned man, the mysteries of Adjua and Dembi identities come to light, as do the painful truths about the past and the present, which flow into the next generation. Set in 1791 in Bristol, Rhode Island, the lovers find the body of a drowned white man. In the second act (1837) an educated free black woman pays a visit from England discovering far more than she bargained for about her history and the nature of justice, love, and vengeance.

Jaye Austin Williams previously guest directed two main stage theatre productions at UCI including THE COLORED MUSEUM by George C. Wolfe in 2011 and most recently THE TRIAL OF DEDAN KIMATHI, by Nobel prize nominee, Ng?g? wa Th?ongo and M?cere M?go in 2014. Williams has been an actor, playwright, composer, and director since the late 1970s and brings her vast theatre experience and expertise on Black playwrights, a focus of her academic work, to the UCI stage. She began her graduate studies at NYU in 2006 and recently completed her Ph.D. in Drama and Theatre at UCI in 2013.

Drama Department Chair, Dr. Daniel Gary Busby said, "I am thrilled to bring this production to UC Irvine. I saw the world premier at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and while working there and was immediately enraptured with the heart and grit of the story. Given the current state of race relations in America, Wallace's historical story shows that we have long been in the grips of slavery; the vicissitudes of this nightmare continue to haunt us to this day."

THE LIQUID PLAIN will be presented in the Robert Cohen Theatre. Performance dates and times are January 31 and February 5 - 7 at 8:00 pm. February 4 at 7:30 pm. Matinees are February 1, 7, 8 at 2:00 pm. Tickets range from $11 - $15 and are available through the Box office at (949) 824-2787 or online at www.arts.uci/tickets.