Bryn Mawr College Welcomes David Greenspan for The Myopia

The Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series continues its 2011-2012 season with a three-performance run of David Greenspan's acclaimed one-man tour-de-force, The Myopia: An Epic Burlesque of Tragic Proportions. This unique theatrical experience, featuring an artist hailed by playwright Tony Kushner as "one of the most talented theatre artists of my generation," will run Friday, December 2-Sunday, December 4 at the Hepburn Teaching Theater in Goodhart Hall, on Bryn Mawr's campus, 101 N. Merion Ave. Friday and Saturday's shows are at 8 p.m. Sunday's is at 2 p.m.

Tickets to individual events in the Bryn Mawr Performing Arts Series are $20, $18 for seniors, $10 for students with ID, and $5 for children under 12. Tickets are $10 for Dance Pass holders. Season subscriptions are $75 for seniors, $90 general. Tickets and more information are available online at www.brynmawr.edu/arts/series.html or by calling 610-526-5210.

In this celebrated show, Obie-winning actor and visionary Guggenheim-winning playwright David Greenspan creates a dazzling and disorienting work that, according to the New York Times, is "part splashy Disney musical crossed with a Greek tragedy and a kitchen-sink drama, or an evening of Samuel Beckett plays as staged by Florenz Ziegfeld."

Utilizing only a chair and a stage curtain, Greenspan brings 22 characters to life including President Warren G. Harding; Febus, who has attempted to write a musical about Harding for most of his life; Koreen, who was hidden away from the world in a gigantic tower (a la Rapunzel) by her controlling mother, Yetti; Febus's son Barclay, and others. Anchored by the Raconteur, the audience is guided through scenes at a frenetic pace and is hurtled from place to place: a fairy-tale landscape, the smoky back rooms of a hotel in Chicago in 1920, and beyond. Said Charles Isherwood in The New York Times, "The truism that theater is a place for collective make-believe has never seemed more true than at ‘The Myopia,'" David Greenspan's madcap, mind-bending odyssey into the poetics of the stage."

The play was produced by The Foundry in New York in January 2011 with direction by Brian Mertes and lighting by Peter Ksander.

Greenspan is a multi-award-winning playwright and performer. He has been honored with two OBIEs, a GLAAD Media Award and a Lucile Lortel and Outer Critics Circle nomination for his acting. As a playwright, his works have been recognized with two OBIEs and he is the recipient of the Revson, Guggenheim, McKnight, NYFA and Lucille Lortel Fellowships as well as The Alpert Award. Joseph Papp noted that, "David creates the kind of moments that you don't see on stage anywhere else."
About the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series

Since 1984 the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series has presented great artists and performances to audiences in the Philadelphia area, creating an environment in which the value of the arts is recognized and celebrated. Talks and workshops provided free to the public help develop arts awareness and literacy. The Series works to lower barriers to arts access through its partnership with Art-Reach, a nonprofit dedicated to improving arts accessibility for people of all ages and circumstances, and through its low ticket prices.

Partnering in recent seasons with such organizations as the Baryshnikov Arts Center, the Bryn Mawr Film Institute and the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series has presented performances and enriching events by such luminaries and visionaries as Meredith Monk, John Waters, Il Fondamento, the Khmer Arts Ensemble of Cambodia, and Urban Bush Women.

To post a comment, you must register and login.