Highways, Inc. Presents Meditations: Eva Hesse, Opens 9/24

Highways, Inc. presents Meditations: Eva Hesse by Marcie Begleiter, a new play and interdisciplinary performance work inspired by the life and times of the influential mid-20th century artist. Meditations: Eva Hesse, directed by David Watkins, opens Friday, September 24, 2010 at 8:30 p.m. with additional performances Saturday, September 25 at 3 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 and are available at http://www.highwaysperformance.org or by calling 310.315.1459. Highways, Inc. is located at the 18th Street Arts Center at 1651 18th St. Santa Monica, CA 90404.

In conjunction with Meditations: Eva Hesse, Permissions, an exhibit showcasing the work of L.A. based artists influenced by Hesse will open at Highways Gallery on September 25th. Eva Hesse Spectres 1960 , an exhibition of Hesse's rarely seen paintings will also open at UCLA's Hammer Museum on September 24th.

The first theatrical piece based on this ground-breaking American artist, Mediations: Eva Hesse takes us through the last day of the artist's life with a Dying Eva laboring to complete her final exhibit. Moving in and out of memory, Hesse's life plays back in a series of episodes reflecting earlier incarnations--including Young Eva confronting a traumatic childhood, and Adult Eva's complex relationship with her husband, artist Tom Doyle, and an intensely focused creative process. In the end, an unlikely angel of death appears to help her make peace. Through the expressionistic evocation of Hesse's story, Meditations explores the profound human desire to create meaningful work.

Eva Hesse's life was marked by extraordinary professional achievements as well as heart-breaking personal challenges. Escaping Germany in the 1930s on one of the last Kindertransports, she was reunited with her family in New York. After studying at Yale, she and her husband Tom Doyle, were invited to live and work for a year in an abandoned German textile mill, surrounded by remnants of the Nazi industrial machine. In that environment, filled with shadows of her old life, Eva began making some of the 20th century's most beautiful and influential sculptures. She died of a brain tumor at age 34, just as her work was being widely recognized.

Marcie Begleiter, writer and designer of the piece, is an interdisciplinary artist whose work has been presented in Los Angeles and New York. Her plays have been short listed for national awards including the Dorothy Silver Playwriting Award and the Padorowski National Playwriting Competition. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Art Center College of Design and was the Founding Director of the Integrated Learning Program, an interdisciplinary design curriculum at Otis College of Art and Design. She also is one of the founding faculty of the International Film School in Cologne, Germany. A second edition of her bestselling book From Word to Image, Storyboarding and Filmmaking Process, was published in 2010 by Michael Wiese Publications.

David Watkins, Jr. (director) is a Los Angeles-based director and writer. David has directed plays at The Ark, Celebration Theatre, The Black Box and The Complex in Los Angeles. He is a founding member and writer at Fierce Backbone, a company dedicated to developing new dramatic works for the stage, and David currently serves there as Head of the Directors Unit. He has directed over half a dozen premieres of new works and considers this an area of specialty. Most recently, David was a guest director at CalArts for a developmental production of Farm Noir by Amy Tofte. His directing can be seen later this fall at Theatre of Note in Limitations of Genetic Technology by Luis Reyes.

Highways Performance Space is Southern California's boldest center for new performance. In its twenty-second year, Highways continues to be an important alternative cultural center in Los Angeles that encourages fierce new artists from diverse communities to develop and present innovative works. Recently described by the Los Angeles Times "a hub of experimental theater, dance, solo drama and other multimedia performance," Highways promotes the development of contemporary socially involved artists and art forms. Annually they co-present approximately 250 performances by solo dramatic artists, small theater groups, dance companies and spoken word artists. They also curate and exhibit approximately 12 contemporary visual art exhibits per year with work that explores the boundaries between performing and visual art forms.