Back House Productions will present the world premiere of Anne Nelson's drama Savages. Performances will begin at the Lion Theatre (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues) on Wednesday, March 8th. The official opening night is set for Thursday, March 9th at 8:00 p.m., and performances will run through Saturday, April 1.
The play will mark Nelson's first New York production since her Off-Broadway success The Guys. Savages, "is a play about war and its consequences, for both victors and victims—exploring the narrow distance between the two. It is set in the midst of the Philippine-American Conflict in 1902, a war that was a defining moment for the Philippines but has been almost forgotten in the United States. The play explores the situation through the eyes of four characters: the general currying favor with Washington; the Marine major on trial for war crimes; the green young recruit; and the Filipina who is their most human contact to an alien environment," state production notes. The show will be helmed by Chris Jorie, who has collected dozens of regional credits."Savages is neither a pro-war nor an anti-war play—rather, it seeks to reflect the experience of counter-insurgency warfare through shifting perspectives of different conflicts, both familiar and unfamiliar. Savages is steeped in history, but leavened with humor and exoticism." Nelson, who won the Livingston Award for international reporting on the Philippines in 1989, said, "I had delved into Filipino history when I was working in Manila in the late 1980's, and in recent years I've been haunted by the way the American military experience there was a foreshadowing of things to come."
Nelson is the the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including a 2005-06 Guggenheim Fellowship and a New Harmony Dramatists Fellowship. Her books and articles have been published widely and her play The Guys, one of the first major plays to address the September 11th attacks, has been published and staged throughout the world over the past four years, starring actors such as Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Swoosie Kurtz, Helen Hunt, Dan Lauria, and Bill Irwin. It premiered at The Flea Theater on White Street, not far from the site of the World Trade Center. She adapted the play for a film version, directed by Jim Simpson, starring Sigourney Weaver and Anthony LaPaglia, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, September 11, 2002, and had its New York premiere at the New Directors series at Lincoln Center in April 2003. In addition to her theatrical pursuits, she was an award-winning reporter on the conflicts in Central America and the Philippines. As a war correspondent in El Salvador and Guatemala from 1980 to 1983, her reports and combat photography appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and in many other publications.
Back House Productions is a non-profit theatre company dedicated to the creation, development and production of bold new work for the theatre. Founded in 2000, BHP has developed over 15 new pieces including In the Heights, a hip-hop salsa musical. They have also produced a number of successful shows at venues throughout the city and abroad, including Freestyle Love Supreme (an innovative improvisational show that has won acclaim in NYC and at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival) and Striking Viking Story Pirates (a traveling production that has brought theatre into the lives of thousands of New York schoolchildren for the first time). Back House is the resident theatre company of the Arthur Seelen Theatre, located on the bottom floor of the Drama Book Shop.Tickets for all performances will be available through Ticket Central at 212-279-4200 (or online at www.TicketCentral.com).
