SHIVER to Play Boston Playwrights' Theatre, 6/18-28

Project: Project, Boston's ensemble-created theatre troupe, presents Shiver: A Fairytale of Anxious Proportions1, combining the worlds of academia, fairytale and the 1800's. The production runs June 18 - 28 at Boston Playwrights' Theatre (949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston).

This new play based on the Brothers Grimm's obscure tale "The Boy Who Went Forth to Learn How to Shiver" explores the concept of fear, juxtaposing fairytale horrors against real world anxieties. Stressed-out academic Charlotte travels to an ancient German archive library in order to dig deeper and learn more about the fairytale. However, instead of finding answers in a book, she tumbles into a world of movement, shadow-play and nightmares, as three stories magically intersect across time and reality. The play focuses on Charlotte, the anxious PhD candidate writing her thesis on the fairytale; the Brothers Grimm as they are writing the story despite one brother's failing health; and the boy himself, who desperately wants to experience fear for the first time in his life.

"When we were looking for inspiration for a new piece, a friend of mine from Minneapolis serendipitously dropped this obscure and unlikely fairytale in my lap," says Shiver director and Project: Project member, Jeffrey Moser. "The boy in the story isn't the traditional hero. He seeks out fear not in an attempt to conquer it, but rather in order to experience it for the first time. The moral of the tale is fascinatingly unclear - is it unfinished, does it have a deeper meaning, or is it all just one big sex joke?"

The ensemble members of Project: Project spent more than a year devising the play, which is one of the most mysterious of the Brothers Grimm's tales in that, unlike most fairytales, it doesn't teach a lesson or portray a moral... on its surface.

Tickets to Shiver: A Fairytale of Anxious Proportions are $20 and available online at https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/946932, via phone at 866-811-4111 or at the door of the Boston Playwrights' Theatre (949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston).