INGMAR BERGMAN'S PERSONA, Featured at Here Arts Center, 8/2-8/5

"Ingmar Bergman'S PERSONA" is a new stage adaptation based on Bergman's shooting script for the film Persona. It is presented by the company should be called:, directed by Craig Baldwin and features recent Drama Desk Award winner Nick Westrate. The production will run for five performances only - August 2, 3 and 4 at 8:30pm, and August 4 and 5 at 4pm. Performances are at HERE, 145 6th Avenue (enter on Dominick, 1 block south of Spring). All tickets are only $15, available at (212) 352-3101 or www.here.org.

Ingmar Bergman's wrote Persona in nine weeks, while recovering from pneumonia. The 1966 film went on to be widely acclaimed as one of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th Century. Bergman himself said the the film "touched wordless secrets". The mysterious tale of a famous actress's mental breakdown and her recovery at the hands of a young psychiatric nurse has been ripped from the celluloid and rebirthed as a live theatrical trip through the remote recesses of the human psyche. Using Bergman's shooting script as source material, Ingmar Bergman'S PERSONA included dialogue that never made it into the final film, and Bergman's own screen descriptions and personal musings. This is the first professional stage adaptation of Persona in NYC.

The cast includes Nick Westrate, who was recently awarded a 2012 Special Drama Desk award for his versatility in Love's Labors Lost, Unnatural Acts and Galileo, Michael Rudko, who was in the Broadway productions of Mary Stuart and The Best Man, as well as Kevin Spacey's recent Bridge Project production of Richard III, and Aysan Celik, who has appeared in Paris Commune, The Black Eyed and Target Margin's Faust. Craig Baldwin (Associate Artistic Director, Red Bull Theater) directs and Dane Laffrey (Bullet for Adolf, The Maids, Tiger Be Still) designs set and costumes, with Cory Pattak (Associate Lighting Designer, Newsies) on lighting design.

the company should be called: is a newly formed collective of artists from mainstream theater, lead by Craig Baldwin, convening around works that traditional institutions might consider a risk, but we consider vital to the vibrancy of New York theater culture. With a specific interest in the adaptation, or reinterpretation of existing text, we are committed to a eschewing convention and finding a new theatrical vocabulary. The company's work began with a workshop of "MacB**h", a new version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, at Classic Stage Company. Following that "Ingmar Bergman's Persona" was workshopped at TheaterLab.

This production is part of the Summer Sublet Series of HEREstay, HERE's curated rental program, which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment, as well as technical support.

 

 

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