This March, The Ghost Road Company presents the world premiere of its latest ensemble-devised production, The Bargain and the Butterfly. Inspired by American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, The Artist of the Beautiful, and under the direction of Katharine Noon, the Los Angeles-based theater company has created a beautifully haunting new play, which explores the delicate intersection of genius and madness. Performances will be held at Artworks Theatre (6569 Santa Monica Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90038) Tuesday, March 26 through Sunday, April 7, 2013.
In a world of shredded books and ticking time pieces, Annie, the brilliant, yet tense progeny of a scientist and a watchmaker, has one desire: restore the soul of her twin brother Owen who has been in a state of coma since birth. With blueprints for a synthetic soul in hand, she turns to a local glassblower to execute the central, delicate piece required for her design to function. However, progress falters as she confides in her new companion, and Annie begins to wonder if time may be running out.
This expertly crafted, ensemble-driven theatrical work looks at the choices we face involving individual survival and the survival of the human race through the prism of neurology, bio-genetics and psychology. In addition to using Hawthorne's The Artist of the Beautiful as its central source material, the company found inspiration through current discoveries in neuroscience, in particular research concerning a genetic anomaly present in both schizophrenics and highly creative people called the T/T variant on the Neuregulin 1 gene.Directed by Katharine Noon and developed by in collaboration with the ensemble, The Bargain and the Butterfly features Ghost Road Company members Ronnie Clark, Christel Joy Johnson and Brian Weir, alongside regular collaborators Jennifer Kays and Doug Sutherland. Also returning are longtime collaborators Maureen Weiss (production design) and Cricket Myers (sound design), who have both worked with the ensemble for the last six years. Ronnie Clark (lighting), Andrew Lia (stage management) and Mark Seldis (producer) round out the production team.
The Bargain and the Butterfly was developed in workshop by Katharine Noon, Sarah Broyles, Shaughn Buchholz, Ronnie Clark, Kim Glann, Christel Joy Johnson, Devin Kaper, Jen Kays, Mark Seldis, JoAnna Senatore, Doug Sutherland, Brian Weir, and Ronald Wingate. And as with all of Ghost Road's work, the visual and physical world of the piece begins to take shape with initial workshops and is developed alongside the story and characters.Following its world premiere at Artworks in March, The Bargain and the Butterfly will tour to Warsaw Poland in October of 2013. In 2014, the company will tour this work along with their three most recent productions: Stranger Things (2012), Elektra (2009) and Orestes Remembered (2009).The Ghost Road Company is a Los Angeles-based theater ensemble focused on devised work and dedicated to imagining what could be by exploring what is. Founded in 1993 by a group of CalArts Alumni, they have received numerous awards and accolades over the years. Utilizing a myriad of techniques, including the gestural work of Jerzy Grotowski and the effort/shapes of Rudolf Laban, they search for new inspiration in the current social landscape searching for objects, language and images that, in turn, are informed by the ensemble's individual experiences of the world, and through a devised process create something ultimately surprising and unexpected. For more information about Ghost Road, visit www.ghostroad.org.
