50 Brides Battle 50 Grooms in Villanova's BIG LOVE, 11/11-23

Villanova Theatre will present Charles L. Mee's intensely theatrical Big Love, based on The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus, directed by Harriet Power, and on stage November 11 - 23, 2014. Audiences are cordially invited to attend this wild wedding of mythic proportions - but will all 50 couples make it down the aisle?

In a spectacular adaptation The New York Times calls "comedic, gymnastic, musical, sensual, shocking and redemptive," Charles L. Mee brings to life the oldest surviving play in the Western canon. The play centers on 50 young brides who are set to marry their 50 cousins against their will. The plot borrows, in large part, from Aeschylus' 470 BC drama, but features inspiration from a variety of other sources.

According to Mee, "I like plays that are not too neat, too finished, too presentable. My plays are broken, jagged, filled with sharp edges, filled with things that take sudden turns, careen into each other, smash up, veer off in sickening turns. That feels good to me. It feels like my life. It feels like the world." In Big Love, an army of Greek women, led by fierce Thyona, pragmatic Lydia, and romantic Olympia, flee their forced nuptials to the coast of Italy, where they seek refuge in a villa along the coast. The would-be grooms pursue their reluctant brides, descending upon their hideaway in regalia better fit for combat than for matrimony. And thus begins a battle of the sexes like never before. Will the brothers win back their brides? Can the sisters hold them off? Will this story end in a 'happily ever after'?

Mee has transformed this ancient Greek myth (known alternately as The Danaids or the Legend of Io) into something utterly new, utterly fresh, and utterly surprising. Using a story as old as time, Mee catapults its message firmly into the 21st century, exhilarating audiences with the myth's startling timeliness. In a media-soaked world rife with terms like "feminism," "rape culture," and "language of consent," Mee explores the ages-old struggle for women's liberation using movement, spectacle, and stream-of-consciousness monologue. Mee never allows the play to settle on a single message, creating one of the most nuanced, sensitive, and brave theatrical portrayals of gender politics in contemporary dramatic literature.

According to Barrymore award-winning director Harriet Power, "Big Love, my 'silver anniversary' production at Villanova (number 25) is a thrill to bring to life with Sarah Sanford and our superb team of designers, technicians, and students - as exciting as the very first play I directed on this stage a quarter-century ago (Marvin's Room featuring Fr. Peter Donohue!). Charles Mee, the playwright, dares to ask the big questions in Big Love: how can we love despite fear? How can we, men and women both, overcome centuries of male domination, privilege, violence? How do we express our individuality yet honor our social and civic responsibilities? And finally - is it possible to love one another "till death do us part"? Mee, by turns brilliant, poetic, subversive, outrageous, and romantic, has created one of the boldest works I know, and I hope audiences will savor his wild, wise play as much as we have loved bringing it to life."

Villanova brings Mee's magical mayhem to life with the help of a talented team of award-winning designers: Sarah Sanford (Movement/Choreography), Daniel Boylen (Scenic Design), Rosemarie McKelvey (Costume Design), Jerold Forsyth (Lighting Design), John Stovicek (Sound Design), and Alex Cordaro (Fight Choreographer), with additional support from Neill Hartley (Dialect Coach) and Jill Jacobs (Dramaturg). The design team creates a world as fanciful, elegant, and outrageous as Mee's script. Flight suits peel away to tuxedos, slashed wedding dresses disintegrate into undergarments, trees grow from pianos, ladders descend from the heavens, and enormous works of art - ancient and modern - hover above the action.

Power directs a huge and hugely talented cast of 20 including second-year acting scholar Mitchell Bloom, Hallie Martenson, Meghan Winch, Sophia Barrett, Jim Hawkins, Julia Salvo, Samantha Thompson, John K. Baxter, and John Hala. They are joined by first-year acting scholars Kyle Fennie and Stephen Matthew Tornetta, Zachary Shery, Meg Trelease, Megan Rose, Elise D'Avella, Alix Rosenfeld, Christopher Sun, and Villanova undergraduates Jaclyn Siegel and Luke Hensley. Alumnus (and former Brian Morgan Award winner) Ahren Potratz returns to the Villanova stage as a guest artist. Actors appearing in the six main roles (Bloom, Martenson, Winch, Barrett, Fennie, and Shery) have been participating in physical and improvisational theatre workshops with director Harriet Power and movement coach Sarah Sanford (of Pig Iron Theatre Company) for more than a month to ready their bodies for the onslaught of performances.

Dr. James J. Christy, Barrymore Award-winning director, Professor Emeritus and former Chair of Villanova's Theatre Department will join the director, cast, and crew for Speaker's Night immediately following the November 20th performance (see bio information below).

Big Love runs at Villanova Theatre from November 11- 23, 2014. Villanova Theatre is located on the Villanova University campus in Vasey Hall (at Lancaster & Ithan Aves.). Performances will be held Tuesdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets run $21-$25, with discounts available for seniors, students, M.A. in Theatre alumni, and groups. Tickets may be purchased at the Villanova Theatre Box Office (M-S, 12 -5 p.m.) in person, by phone: (610) 519-7474, or online at www.villanovatheatre.org.

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