Aurora Stewart de Peña's LOVE STORY to Have World Premiere at The Tank
The production is directed by Rose Burnett Bonczek.
The Tank NYC and Voyage Theater Company will present the World Premiere of Love Story by Aurora Stewart de Peña, directed by Rose Burnett Bonczek at The Tank, Thursday, April 23-Sunday, May 17.
Maria is dead, but she's still on the call sheet. She's trapped inside a play that keeps restarting itself, where scenes from her life are rehearsed and revised by the people who loved her. Conversations loop. Arguments reset. Stage directions are sentient. Maria watches as their memories turn her into a character, a plot device in the stories of the people she loved. As the play slips between rehearsal, recollection, and imagined afterlives, Maria tries to wrest back authorship of her own story. She argues with monologues, questions the rules of the world she's trapped in, and refuses to become a symbol of loss. Love Story navigates what comes after death, when love refuses to let you step into your light.
"I keep telling people that Love Story is a comedy about grief," says playwright Aurora Stewart de Peña. "After the loss of someone I loved very much, I was struck by the absurdity of my brain. In planning their funeral, I caught myself getting annoyed with the departed - that they weren't weighing in on critical decisions. I imagined the powerlessness of being dead in these moments, while all the people you love the most are in their deepest pain and strife."
"I first encountered Aurora's writing over 20 years ago when she submitted several one-minute plays to the inaugural Gone in 60 Seconds International One Minute Theatre Festival," adds director Rose Burnett Bonczek. " It was love at first read. Her characters were so distinctive - each filled with longing, humor, and eccentricities."
Videos