Catherine Filloux's HOW TO EAT AN ORANGE To Premiere At La MaMa

La MaMa ETC. will present the World Premiere of How to Eat an Orange, written by Catherine Filloux (Kidnap Road at La MaMa; Turning Your Body Into a Compass with CultureHub), directed by Elena Araoz (Alligator with New Georges/The Sol Project; Architecture of Becoming with WP Theatre), and performed by Paula Pizzi (underneathmybed at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater; Where's My Money? with Manhattan Theatre Club/LAByrinth Theater Company) at the Downstairs Theater at La MaMa (66 East 4th Street New York, NY 10003), May 30-June 16, 2024. 

How to Eat an Orange is a one-person play about the visual artist and activist Claudia Bernardi growing up in Argentina under the military junta, and her subsequent work digging up the past. A sensuous braiding of desaparecidos’ stories through the lens of a survivor. Histories are woven together in a kaleidoscopic play that depicts how both families and justice may be reconfigured. We time travel, subverting and countering realities. This theater piece is a fight for excavation, the archeology of a lifetime--of lifetimes. 

For the past three decades French Algerian American award-winning playwright, librettist and activist Catherine Filloux has been traveling to conflict areas writing plays that address human rights. Through the lens of this new world premiere play, originally commissioned by INTAR, Catherine frames her hope as a changemaker.

The creative team will include Set & Prop Design by Daniel Landez (The Lehman Trilogy with Huntington Theater Company), Projection Design by Milton Cordero (Kyle Jarrow’s The Spongebob Musical), Sound Design by Nathan Leigh (Nat Turner in Jerusalem at New York Theatre Workshop), Lighting Design by María Cristina Fusté (associate designer on Jagged Little Pill on Broadway) and Costume Design by Suttirat Anne Larlarb (Slumdog Millionaire; No Time to Die) with Production Stage Manager Milan Eldridge. How to Eat an Orange is a proud participant in New Georges’ Supported Productions program, in which New Georges provide resources, mentorship and an institutional platform to its affiliated artists who are producing their work independently.

Tickets and More Information 

Performances will take place on Thursday, May 30 at 8pm, Friday, May 31 at 8pm, Saturday, June 1 at 8pm, Sunday, June 2 at 4pm, Thursday, June 6 at 8pm, Friday, June 7 at 8pm, Saturday, June 8 at 8pm, Sunday, June 9 at 4pm, Thursday, June 13 at 8pm, Friday, June 14 at 8pm, Saturday, June 15 at 8pm, and Sunday, June 16 at 4pm. Tickets ($30) are available for advance purchase at www.lamama.org/shows/how-to-eat-an-orange-2024. The performance will run approximately 80 minutes, with no intermission. 

About the Artists

Catherine Filloux (Playwright) For the past three decades French Algerian American award-winning playwright, librettist and activist Catherine Filloux has been traveling to conflict areas writing plays that address human rights. Filloux’s new play White Savior was nominated for The Venturous Play List and her many plays have been produced around the U.S. and internationally. Catherine’s world premieres at La MaMa include Luz, Selma ’65, which toured the U.S., and Kidnap Road. She is the librettist for four produced operas, broadcast on Cambodian national TV, on Broadway on Demand, and selected for Opera News Critic’s Choice. Orlando won the 2022 Grawemeyer award--the first opera at the Vienna Staatsoper by a women composer/librettist team. Filloux’s new musical Welcome to the Big Dipper (composer Jimmy Roberts, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change) premieres Off-Broadway this coming November at the York Theatre in New York City; a NAMT finalist. Catherine has worked as a playwright in countries including Bosnia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Haiti, Iraq, Morocco, Northern Ireland; and in Sudan and South Sudan on an overseas reading tour with the University of Iowa's International Writing Program. Filloux received her French Baccalaureate in Philosophy with Honors in Toulon, France, and is the co-founder/co-director of Theatre Without Borders. www.catherinefilloux.com 

Elena Araoz (Director) is a stage director of theater, opera, multi-media performance, and theatrical large-scale immersive events, working internationally, Off-Broadway, and across the country. Elena is attracted to epic stories, and her productions are critically acclaimed for huge dance-like theatrics and acutely naturalistic acting. She is thrilled to be reuniting with Catherine Filloux after directing her Kidnap Road, also at La MaMa. Recent productions include the first of its kind 3D immersive audio-only opera No One Is Forgotten: An Immersive Opera (Dallas Opera), Senator Bill Bradley’s documentary film Rolling Along, on which Elena served as Artistic Consultant (HBO/MAX), the bilingual production of Espejos: Clean (Studio Theatre), the award winning Anna in the Tropics (Barrington Stage), and the award-winning How to Melt ICE (Boundless Theatre / New Perspectives Theatre). 2024 will mark the sixth national tour of her musical production of Sugar Skull and the premiere of When Light Bends with Media Art Xploration. Elena’s productions have been seen at BAM, New York City Opera, Vancouver Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Prague Shakespeare, New York Theatre Workshop Next Door, Bucharest International, Cherry Lane Theatre, Noble Theater Bridge in Beijing, Florida Grand Opera, to name a few. Her multimedia piece The Manic Monologues (McCarter Theatre) was nominated for the Drama League Award. Elena serves as the Producing Artistic Director of Princeton University’s Theater and Music Theater Season. She is a founding member of the Obie-winning The Sol Project. www.elenaaraoz.com  

About La MaMa

La MaMa has been honored with 30+ Obie Awards, dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie Awards, Villager Awards, the 2018 Regional Theatre Tony Award, and most recently a 2023 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Special Citation. We are a creative home to artists and resident companies from around the world, many of whom have made lasting contributions to the arts, including Blue Man Group, Bette Midler, Ed Bullins, Ping Chong, Jackie Curtis, André De Shields, Adrienne Kennedy, Harvey Fierstein, Diane Lane, Playhouse of the Ridiculous, Tom Eyen, Pan Asian Rep, Spiderwoman Theater, Tadeusz Kantor, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Mabou Mines, Meredith Monk, Peter Brook, David and Amy Sedaris, Julie Taymor, Kazuo Ohno, Tom O'Horgan, Andrei Serban, Liz Swados, and Andy Warhol. La MaMa's vision of nurturing new artists and new work from all nations, cultures, races and identities remains as strong today as it was when Ellen Stewart first opened the doors in 1961.