Trebuchet Players to Present WAITING FOR OTHELLO and DESDEMONA, 9/5-20

Trebuchet Players will perform Waiting for Othello and Desdemona September 5-20, 2014, at Company OnStage, 536 Westbury Square, in Houston, TX.

For its third full-length production, Trebuchet Players is moving from Shakespeare to Shakespearean adaptation. The first act of this double feature presents an entirely new work by local playwright Bryan Maynard, titled Waiting for Othello. In this work, the characters Iago, Roderigo, and Cassio appear in a tavern together in the minutes immediately preceding the first scene of Shakespeare's Othello.

After intermission, the scene will shift to Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief, by award- winning playwright Paula Vogel. Here we meet the three women of Othello: Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca. Vogel's revision asks: if Desdemona were not chaste, would she deserve to die? Does the audience's affection for Desdemona depend on her chastity, or can a woman who perpetrates sexual taboos still merit sympathy? Does the modern notion of "slut shaming" contradict feminist values?

Since the playwright's stylistic vision involves the emulation of cinema, director Kathy Drum has designed Desdemona to reflect the aesthetics of 1920s German expressionist film. Both Waiting for Othello and Desdemona will include live piano music performed by Aaron Cook.

Trebuchet debuted as a theatre company in 2012 with Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, at Super Happy Fun Land, featuring an original score composed and performed by members of Houston band Knights of the Fire Kingdom. Its next venture was Hamlet, directed by Kathy Drum in the style of a Gilded Age steampunk sideshow. Hamlet included original music composed by Alicia M. Cox and performed by herself and several cast members.

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