OUR COUNTRY To Make World Premiere at Rose Bruford @ Upper Church

Drawing on sources from Greek tragedy and classic Westerns, including personal recordings and re-enactments of childhood memories, Our Country takes the life story of two siblings as a starting point to understanding the issues dividing the U.S today.

Created by Annie Saunders and Becca Wolff in Los Angeles and New York City (where work-in-progress performances were presented in the influential Public Theatre's Under the Radar Festival earlier this year), Our Country layers a complex soundscape pulled from recordings of the performer and her younger brother with source texts from Sophocles' Antigone to Once Upon A Time in the West. Equally important to the piece is movement created by the company with Jess Williams (Frantic Assembly) resulting in a show that makes the personal political.

California's marijuana country: the still-Wild West. Annie conducts a forensic exploration of 'the facts' about her outlaw weed-farmer brother. This genre-bending work then slips into disputed territory: childhood memories. Sleight of hand, athletic virtuosity and a scenic coup de théâtre transform the stage into a dreamscape. The borders between self and other vanish and reappear and small disputes quickly grow violent, recalling younger days: as siblings, as a nation, as a democracy - how far have we really come?

Creator/Director Becca Wolff said "In the wake of our most recent presidential election, progressive white Americans are finally having to face it that well-meaning liberalism can't save us. We have to fight for something better. In Our Country, we're looking at the fight within a family that reflects this fight within our nation. And we're urgently asking -- can a house divided against itself stand?"

Creator/performer Annie Saunders said "It feels incredibly risky, talking about these specific, personal things through a universal, ancient, epic lens. But in America now, it's time to talk. It's time to get real, to shine a light on the spectres of the past and throw a line into the possibilities of the future. Now more than ever, what we refuse to face destroys us. What we resist persists."

Annie Saunders is a director, performer and collaborative live artist. She is the artistic director of Wilderness, which has presented its acclaimed immersive performance The Day Shall Declare It site-specifically in Los Angeles and in London in a disused engine shop and the derelict offices of the BBC. The company has also presented work at REDCAT, the San Francisco Playhouse and the Getty Villa and created original commissions for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Opera Omaha. She has devised and performed original work with Neil Bettles (Frantic Assembly), the Lyric Hammersmith, Bush Theatre, Theatre Delicatessen, Latitude Festival, Charing Cross Theatre, and the Cafe de Paris. Annie recently directed devised opera The Wreck for Opera Omaha, Nebraska. She is a core collaborator with Lars Jan's Early Morning Opera and has appeared in Holoscenes, The Institute of Memory (TIMe) and Abacus (Summerhall 2016). She trained at the University of London and RADA.

Becca Wolff is a California-based director and co-founder of Tilted Field Productions. Projects include Giovanni Adams' critically acclaimed solo Love Is a Dirty Word (Z Space, SF & VS Theater Company, LA) and the Kilbanes' rock opera Weightless (piece by piece productions, Encore/Z Space). She has developed and directed new plays and premieres by Chris Chen, Lauren Yee, Harvey Fierstein, Jen Silverman and Sarah Gubbins at venues including ACT, Theatreworks and Z Space. With Tilted Field, she created the electro-opera, The Last Days of Mary Stuart composed by Los Angeles band TONY. Her work has been named in 'Best Of lists' in the San Francisco Chronicle and LA Weekly. She has been nominated for the Princess Grace award, won Outstanding Solo Show & Outstanding Musical at the NYC Fringe for No Static at All and Usher respectively, was nominated for Ovations and the Los Angeles Critics' Circle awards for Love is a Dirty Word and for the Theatre Bay Area and Bay Area Critics Circle awards for The Kid Thing and Hookman. She is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and co-creator of SCOTUS Theater.

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