Columbia Stages Presents MEDEA, Opening 1/28

Columbia Stages' presents their production of Euripides' MEDEA, translated by Michael Collier and Georgia Machemer and directed by Alicia Dhyana House, atThe Riverside Theatre (91 Claremont Avenue b/w 120th and 122nd Streets).

The production features an ensemble cast of 17 including Jessica Bates*, David Elyha*, Jillian Lynn Johnson, Meera Rohit Kumbhani, Jason Martin, Asher Muldoon, Joy Notoma,Anjili J. Pal, Janet Prince, Monica Santana,Alexis Savino*, J. H. Smith III*, Tai Verley,Emily Ward, Lucy York, and Broadway veterans Michael Tommer* (Fiddler on the Roof, Medea) and Obie Award-winner Arthur French* (Dividing The Estate, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Death of a Salesman, The Iceman Cometh).

Victim of a man's world. Child butcher. Refugee. Lover. Monster. Behind the 2000 year-old myth of jealousy and revenge, there was once a real person. Discover MEDEA.

The creative team also includes: set designer Ji-Youn Chang; lighting designer Joe Novak; sound designer/composer Amy Altadonna; costume designer Lara de Bruijn; dramaturg Rachael Rayment; choreographer Banaue Miclat; and assistant director Sarah Michelson.

The show officially opens on Wednesday, January 28th at The Riverside Theatre (91 Claremont Avenue b/w 120th and 122nd Streets).

ALICIA DHYANA HOUSE (Director) received her B.A. from San Francisco State University and is currently an M.F.A. candidate in directing at Columbia University. Ms. House is the recipient of the Richard Rodgers Fellowship and the Rose Biller Scholarship; and in 2008, she received a Kennedy Center Directing Fellowship to participate in a director/designer intensive with Ming Cho Lee. Assistant directing work includes: Sir Peter Shaffer's Equus,directed by Thea Sharrock for Broadway and Charles Mee's Under Construction, directed by Anne Bogart, at the Humana Festival (ATL) this spring.

Her work has been seen at HERE, Martin Segal Theatre, The Looking Glass Theatre, International Theatre Festival in Italy, American Theater of Actors, Atlantic Stage 2, and South Oxford Space. At Columbia University Ms. House directed Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, and The Past is Today But Further Off (site-specific). Recently Ms. House's production of Nick Mwaluko's Mwena was part of Culture Project's Women Center Stage 2008 where she was selected as one of four emerging female directors.

From 2001-2006, Ms. House was the Humanities Manager in the Department of Education and Humanities at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). While there, she curated many programs, such as Spoken Word: Expression in the Right Direction at BAM Harvey Theater for thousands of NYC teens. Ms. House has taught theatre at Barnard College,Whittier College, and in Asia at People's Theatre Festival Society and The Arts with the Disabled Association (Hong Kong), the Stone Commune Theatre Company (Macau,China), and at Thammasat University (Thailand).

COLUMBIA STAGES (Producer) is the producing arm of the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies of Columbia University's School of the Arts. Columbia Stages annually presents a season of graduate actor and director productions as well as a festival of new plays by emerging playwrights. The theatre program at Columbia University's School of the Arts offers M.F.A. degrees in acting, directing, playwriting, dramaturgy, stage management, and theatre management and producing. The goal of the program is to provide each student with the foundation for a career in professional theatre as well as the tools to embrace an ever-changing theatrical landscape and shape the future of theatre.

www.ColumbiaStages.com