Meena's Dream next week in the MFA in Performance festival
Anu
Hello everyone!
I haven't been posting much because I've been in grad school the last three years, but I'm coming out soon, and looking forward to performing more, and definitely sharing this new play with many people!Next Thursday-Saturday I debut a new play-in-progress called Meena’s Dream. Thursday is the January 31 is a FREE show, kicking off a three week festival with great performances by 6 other students. Check it out, it will be worth the trek!
(Trust me that there is something for everyone here…)
Each week, two shows each time.
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MEENA’S DREAM by Anu Yadav: A fantastical coming-of-age journey of a young Indian American girl set to live music
LET IT FLO! by Caroline Clay: The life of black radical feminist Flo Kennedy by this Broadway talent
Both shows feature together:
THURS JAN 31 7pm – FREE. Must RSVP. Email me at anu...@umd.edu
FRI FEB 1@7pm;
SAT FEB 2@ 2 & 7pm
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THE TRAMP’S NEW WORLD by Rob Jansen: A writer struggles to complete his work in this ode to silent film, physical comedy and the great Charlie Chaplin.
SACRED SOIL by Dave Demke: Against the backdrop of a harsh and beautiful landscape, the story of a man struggling to make sense of the violence around him
THURS FEB 7@7pm – FREE. Must RSVP. Email me at anu...@umd.edu
FRI FEB 8@7pm
SAT FEB 9@ 2 & 7pm
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THE SOUND OF SMOKE THE SOUND OF SMOKE by Nick Horan: Drag performer Eva Mann, haunted by the ghosts of her past, seeks a new life in Nazi-controlled Germany.
CAFÉ by Claudia Rosales: A young Cuban-Honduran woman escapes small town life in pursuit of a dream only to find she must confront her past to reconcile her future.
COFFEE AND BISCUIT by Teresa Bayer: An adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll's House, in which one woman’s perfect Technicolor reality crumbles around her, told with puppets and live actors.
THURS FEB 14@7pm FREE. Must RSVP. Email me@ anu...@umd.edu
FRI FEB 15@7pm
SAT FEB 16 @2pm & 7pm
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ABOUT THE SHOWS
JAN 31- FEB 2
MEENA'S DREAM by Anu Yadav: Meena’s mother Aisha is getting sicker while Hindu God Lord Krishna pleads for help in his epic hour of need. A fantastical coming-of-age quest set to a live score combining South Indian classical traditions, contemporary jazz and indie rock. By DC based performer Anu Yadav.
LET IT FLO! by Caroline Clay: A solo tour-de-force about the life of black radical feminist lawyer Florynce Kennedy, who coined the statement, “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament!” by Helen Hayes award-winning Broadway actress Caroline Clay.
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FEB 7-FEB 9
THE TRAMP’S NEW WORLD by Rob Jansen: From his office atop the 50th floor of the Chrysler Building, Pulitzer Prize winning author James Agee struggles to complete a screenplay that tells the story of Charlie Chaplin’s “Tramp” character as the lone survivor of a super atomic blast. Using projection, physical comedy, music and silent film technique, The Tramp’s New World adapts a lost screenplay for the stage described as “so dark it was without precedent” and tells the story of a writer’s struggle to find redemption through his art.
SACRED SOIL by Dave Demke: Sacred Soil poses a question: “Can we be redeemed by violent means?” The play tells the story of a young man struggling to make sense of the violence that is around him and a part of him. In the end, what is revealed to him suggests the truth about hope and love. Demke says, “With this story, I want to show that the landscape of the human heart is also harsh and beautiful, complex and paradoxical, and it is the spiritual path that makes sense of it all.”
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FEB 14-16
THE SOUND OF SMOKE by Nick Horan: using projections and shadow play, this theatrical event challenges the audience’s conception of sexuality, truth and identity. Dance movement, song, text and imagery will illuminate a dark period in the world’s history that in many ways mirrors our world today. Horan says, “I want to engender an environment of glorious decay right on the edge of collapse and in doing so allow the audience to walk the tightrope with me as I portray a transvestite who loved too hard and lost it all.”
CAFÉ by Claudia Rosales When Erendira’s brother, Miguel, tracks her down after three years in order to tell her of their beloved Abuela’s death, she begins a journey of forgiving both her brother and herself. In the play, Rosales uses the ritualistic tradition of preparing Cuban coffee as a way to symbolize the struggle of constructing cultural identity for many first-generation Americans as they reconcile familial obligation with individual desire. “through flashback, dream-like lighting, verse, music, movement and food I want to arouse in people the desire to question their own cultural upbringing.”
COFFEE AND BISCUIT by Claudia Rosales: Coffee & Biscuit is a Technicolor variation on Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House set in the 1950’s in which we see Nora Helmer’s perfect world of Hoovers and Jell-o molds topple around her. This physical, quirky romp, featuring both puppets and live actors, provokes its audience to examine the gender roles constructed by society and the media, by putting Ibsen’s classic story against 20th century feminist thought, playfully tearing at the seams of convention.
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ABOUT THE FESTIVAL: The Festival of New Works introduces the world to seven strong, diverse and unique artistic voices. The presented artist-scholars are the first cohort of students to graduate from the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies' Master of Fine Arts in Performance Program at the University of Maryland, College Park. The culturally rich, inaugural Festival of New Works features seven devised performance pieces and will be presented in the Kogod Theatre at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center February 1-16. For tickets, festival schedule and information: phone 301.405ARTS or contact claricesmith.umd.edu