Voyage Theater Company Presents Staged Reading Of THE DAY MY FATHER KILLED ME

Voyage Theater Company/PARTS UNKNOWN Play Reading Series will present a staged reading via Zoom of THE DAY MY FATHER KILLED ME by Charlotte Boimare and Magali Solignat, translated by Amelia Parenteau, and directed by Lisa Rothe, Thursday, October 22 at 6pm. Please RSVP here. The performance will run approximately 50 minutes with no intermission. There will be a brief talkback with the playwright and director immediately following the reading.

Casting was provided by Stephanie Klapper Casting. The show stars Oceana James and Antonevia Ocho-Coultes.

The Day My Father Killed Me (Le jour où mon père m'a tué) is based on the true story of a popular singer and radio DJ in Guadeloupe who murdered his 18-year-old son. Devised as a documentary theater work, the play offers a diverse narrative account of the crime through a chorus of voices reflecting the complexity of familial conflict. Exploring fundamental themes of identity, power, and compassion in contemporary Caribbean society, this play emphasizes the universality of belonging through an intimate and intensely personal lens.

The translation of the play was commissioned by ACT (Actions Caribéennes Théâtrales), a project initiated by Stéphanie Bérard of Siyaj Company, Guadeloupe in collaboration with Frank Hentschker of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The Graduate Center CUNY, New York. The project was supported by the FACE Foundation.

CHARLOTTE BOIMARE (Playwright) was born in 1976 in Paris where she trained as an actor. As well as her work in film and television, she worked in theater with Dario Fo, Franca Rame, Jean-Luc Moreau, Christophe Botti, and Michel Laliberté. She has been acting in France in theatre, cinema and television since 1999. Her desire to tell stories also drives her to write her own texts. With co-author Magali Solignat, she wrote Touche-Moi in 2013 and Le jour où mon père m'a tué in 2017, which received the Textes en Paroles and ETC Caraïbes SACD Beaumarchais awards.

MAGALI SOLIGNAT (Playwright) was born in France in 1976 and has worked for many years in Guadeloupe as an actor, director, and conducting theater workshops in schools. Besides her work in theater with José Pliya and Jacques Martial and as an actor at the National Theaters of West Indies-Guyana, she worked in film with Peter Watkins. She is also a director, author and clown. With Charlotte Boimare, she has written several award-winning plays: Touche-moi, Le jour où mon père m'a tué, and Maïwen, 16 ans et demi.

Amelia Parenteau (Translator) is a freelance writer, translator, and theater maker based in New Orleans with a focus on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. An alumna of Sarah Lawrence College, she has worked with TCG, Ping Chong + Company, The Lark, The Civilians, the French Institute Alliance Française, Voyage Theater Company, and The Park Avenue Armory in New York; People's Light in Pennsylvania; the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut; and Théâtre du Soleil in France. She has translated dramatic works by Leslie Kaplan, Alain Foix, Sedef Ecer, the Théâtre du Soleil, David Lescot, Charlotte Boimare & Magali Solignat, and Penda Diouf. She is a member of the FENCE International Translation Network, ATLAS, and TCG, and she has been published in several magazines and journals including American Theatre Magazine, Asymptote Literary Magazine, Contemporary Theatre Review, Culturebot, HowlRound, and The Mercurian. Productions include America Is Hard to See, Life Jacket Theatre Company (HERE, 2018); (Projection) (Dixon Place, 2017); Liminal (New York International Fringe Festival, 2015); Louise, she's crazy, The Melancholy Players (Sarah Lawrence College, 2013).

Lisa Rothe (Director) is a NYC-based freelance theater director, coach and educator. She was nominated for SDC's Joe A. Callaway Award for Direction for Hold These Truths by Jeanne Sakata, starring Joel de la Fuente. This production has toured the country and won Theatre Bay Area Awards for Outstanding Direction, Performer and Production. Recent directing work has been seen at The Guthrie Theatre (Steel Magnolias), Kansas City Repertory Theatre (Fun Home and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Indiana Repertory Theatre (Amber Waves), Irish Repertory Theatre (Wild Abandon), Cincinnati Playhouse (Sooner/Later), Virginia Repertory Theatre (In My Chair); Theatreworks/Silicon Valley (Confederates, nominated for eight Bay Area Critics Circle Awards), Two River Theater (Ropes), People's Light (The Harassment of Iris Malloy) and Playmakers Repertory Theatre (Detroit '67). Lisa is the former Director of New Works at Kansas City Repertory Theatre; former co-Artistic Director of The Actor's Center in NYC; recent co-President of the League of Professional Theatre Women; Artistic Advisory Council of Epic Theatre Ensemble; Advisory Boards of Houses on the Moon and the Detroit Public Theatre; Usual Suspect with New York Theatre Workshop; member of the National Theater Conference; Artistic Affiliate and former Audrey Fellow with New Georges, and a Drama League and Fox Fellow alum. Lisa was also the Director of Global Exchange at The Lark for over five years, providing expanded opportunities for playwrights, aimed at advancing new work to production, both nationally and globally.

Stephanie Klapper (Casting)'s work is frequently seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway, regionally, internationally, on television, and in film. Working with Voyage Theatre Company gives her much joy and hope in the present, and for the future. Stephanie Klapper, along with her team, works with numerous companies such as Primary Stages, Mint Theater Company, New York Classical Theatre, La Femme Theatre Productions, Masterworks, Resonance Ensemble, and american vicarious, as well as others in NYC and in the regions and abroad. Stephanie Klapper Casting currently has a number of very exciting projects in various stages of creation. Stephanie is also a frequent teacher and guest lecturer at many colleges and universities around the country. Member: Casting Society of America and New York Women in Film.

OCEANA JAMES (Performer) is a St. Croix-born interdisciplinary theater-artist, dancer, and writer. Her work centers in min(d)ing "jumbie spaces"-the (in) between-spaces of resistance and reclamation. Oceana has successfully shown her one-woman experimental piece, For Gowie: The Deceitful Fellow, in Germany, Denmark, NYC and St. Croix, USVI-and is slated to return it to Europe in the upcoming show of renowned curator, Selene Wendt. Oceana recently presented her paper Weaving Jumbie Time: Translocational Storytelling and Praxis at the Royal Danish Art Academy of Fine Arts' Archives that Matter conference/residency. Oceana is a core-collaborator in choreographer Paloma McGregor's Building a Better Fishtrap and principal member of Sibyl Kempson's 7 Daughters Perf. Co. a theatre company that has just completed a 3-year residency (12 Shouts to the Ten Forgotten Heavens) at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Oceana's most recent residencies have been EmergeNYC at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University; El Residencial 2018 in Carolina, Puerto Rico (where she worked with Las Nietas de Nonó and other Caribbean artists), and Migrating Histories (curated by Monica Marin) on the island of St. Croix. Oceana grew up hearing stories/folktales and is proud to continue the long legacy and tradition of storytelling from the Caribbean.

ANTONEVIA OCHO-COULTES (Performer) is the artistic director of MA's Playhouse, a theater company that is committed to the production of Caribbean and Caribbean-American works with special attention to new works. Plays under her direction include three of which she is also the writer: Home, Nostalgia, and Sign Language and Swahili as well as Ti Jean and His Brothers by Derek Walcott. She has also served as a theater director at Saint Francis College where she directed The Memory of Water, Plaza Suite, Don't Talk to the Actors, And Then There Were None, and Don't Dress for Dinner. Acting credits include: Lysistrata, Ti Jean and His Brothers, Wicked Frozen, Kharma Kharms, and Tall Tales. Antonevia has a passion for acting, playwriting, singing, directing and is excited to be a part of this Caribbean-inspired project. She hopes to give voice to this work and this world that is vibrant and teeming with its unique theatrical energies.

VOYAGE THEATER COMPANY presents new and unheralded plays and playwrights from around the world, creating opportunities for collaboration between theater-makers of diverse cultures and disciplines. We serve our local community in New York City through professional productions, educational programming, internships, and discounted tickets for students and seniors. We present plays in multiple languages, and work in partnership with other non-profit organizations to broaden perspectives and build greater cultural equity across communities.

PARTS UNKNOWN Play Reading Series is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.