Photo Flash: Irondale Presents New English Translation of Wilde's SALOME

M-34 proudly presents the world premiere of director James Rutherford's new English translation of Oscar Wilde's SALOME, running August 25 - September 15, 2018 in a limited engagement at Irondale, Brooklyn's theatrical think-tank that fosters creativity. Irondale is located at 85 South Oxford Street between Fulton Street and Lafayette Avenue.

Previews begin August 25 for an August 29 opening. Performances are Tuesdays - Saturdays at 8pm. Tickets are $15. Purchase at https://www.M-34.org. Free tickets are being offered to residents of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill ½ hour before the show at the box office with ID (subject to availability). The running time is approximately 80 minutes. The show contains nudity.

A cloud cuts across the face of the moon. A woman dances to kill. A clown king's rule begins to crumble.

Rarely performed and relentlessly misunderstood, SALOME is Oscar Wilde at his most vulnerable, impenetrable, honest, mystifying. Written in raw, simple French, then dismally translated by Wilde's lover Bosie, for years the play was largely dismissed as a Victorian oddity, an excuse to show some skin. But in this new translation by director James Rutherford, SALOME reveals itself as a tragic parable of queer longing. Pouring his own doomed desires into the imprisoned prophet Iokanaan, the mercurial princess Salome, and even the vulgar paranoid Herod Antipas, Wilde explodes a Biblical footnote into a surreal moonscape of alienated passion. Eerily prescient, utterly mysterious, SALOME is a prophecy of social destruction, a parable of what nightmares erupt when we demonize desire, criminalize otherness, and look but never see.

The cast includes Laura Butler Rivera (Numbness at New Ohio Theatre), Marty Keiser(The Metropolitan Opera three-time principal guest artist), Feathers Taylor (Chloe Rossetti's Sunrider), Lisa Tharps (Romeo & Juliet at New Victory Theater), Patrick Cann (Metropolitan Opera), Ross Cowan (Sweat & Tears with M-34), Jon Froehlich (Artistic Director of Cloud of Fools), Charise Greene (Cannibal Galaxy: A Love Story at New Ohio Theatre), Rebecca Hirota (Vietgone at Manhattan Theatre Club), Lizzie King-Hall (Fiasco Theater), Louie Pearlman (hip-hop improv ensemble RoboPop!), Alexander Reed, Anthony Simone (Netflix's "Orange Is the New Black") and Jing Xu (Jomama Jones at Soho Rep).

The design team includes Jess Goldschmidt (Choreography), Wladimiro Woyno (Projection Design), Lara de Bruijn (Costume Design), Oona Curley (Scenic Design), Kate McGee (Lighting Design), Mike Costagliola (Sound Design), Santiago Orjuela Laverde (Scenic Design Associate) and Isaac VanCuren (Production Stage Manager). The production team includes Anna Brenner, Marty Keiser and Casey Robinson.

M-34 is a fake mustache, a white phosphorus grenade, a star cluster and a crosstown bus. It is a rotating ensemble of artists attempting to be rigorous, critical and curious in a culture that degrades all such values. We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars. Learn more at https://www.M-34.org.

M-34 has been featured in New York Magazine's Approval Matrix and their shows have been called "excellent and well worth a viewing" (Broadway World), "well worth the trip" (Backstage), "a company willing to take risks and produce impressive work" (Theatre Is Easy), "brilliantly performed" (New York Theatre Review) and "excellent...with tight acting and direction" (Out Magazine).

James Rutherford (director, translator) is an international stage director based in Brooklyn, and the founding artistic director of M-34. His recent work includes Sweat & Tears (JACK), All That Dies And Rises (IATI), The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway(Access) and 4.48 Psychosis (Magic Futurebox). James is a guest director at Stella AdlerConservatory, and an associate artist at Classic Stage Company, for whom he directed As You Like It. He has assisted Peter Brook, Richard Foreman and Andrei Serban. He's a proud son of Columbia University's MFA Directing program. Learn more at https://www.james-rutherford.com.

Jess Goldschmidt (choreography) is a writer, choreographer, and Gemini moon living in Glendale, CA and Brooklyn, NY. Her previous performance works include FACTS: a meditation on suburban tap (CPR 2017 Spring Movement Festival), Sweat & Tears (at JACK with M-34), Tall Women in Clogs (Edinburgh Fringe Festival) and W.R. Salome (Dixon Place). She is currently pursuing her MFA at California Institute of the Arts.

Located in the heart of the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District, Irondale is the home of the Irondale Ensemble Project and serves as a collaborative laboratory for non-traditional artists. Irondale's unique and transformational space has gained much attention as a place for both established and emerging artists to premiere major projects and showcase developing work. The Irondale Ensemble Project was founded in 1983 by Jim Niesen, Terry Greiss and Barbara Mackenzie-Wood and is one of the longest established permanent ensemble theaters in the country. The ensemble has created over 60 Off-Broadway productions from intimate chamber productions of Shakespeare to company devised epic work. Irondale's learning programs provide high quality, cutting edge workshops and school residencies designed to develop the artist in every human being. Irondale is accessible from the C train to Lafayette Ave., G train to Fulton St. or the B, D, M, N, Q, R, 2, 3, 4, 5 train to Atlantic Ave./Pacific St. More info at http://Irondale.org.

Photo Credit: Eileen Meny/Eileen Meny Photography

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