FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: October 14, 2003
Contact: Christa Skiles
Public Relations Director
513-345-2242, ext. 232
ACCLAIMED METAMORPHOSES CREATOR MARY
ZIMMERMAN WILL VISIT THE CINCINNATI PLAYHOUSE PERSPECTIVES SERIES
(CINCINNATI) – Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman,
adapter and director of the critically acclaimed play Metamorphoses,
will visit the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park on November 2 to discuss
the evolution of the show from university production to Broadway smash.
Her presentation, part of the pre-show lecture series Playhouse Perspectives,
will take place beginning at 5:00 p.m. in the Marx Theatre.
Mary Zimmerman won her Tony Award for the direction of Metamorphoses.
She is also the winner of Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for the
show. In 1998, she received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Fellowship, popularly known as a “Genius Grant.” She is also the
winner of 10 Joseph Jefferson Awards, including best production and best direction.
Ms. Zimmerman is a member of the Lookingglass Theatre Company of Chicago,
an artistic associate of the Goodman Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre
and a professor of performance studies at Northwestern University. Other
works that she has adapted and directed include The Odyssey, Arabian
Nights, Journey to the West, Secret in the Wings and Eleven
Rooms of Proust. She co-created the opera Galileo Galilei with
composer Philip Glass, which has been produced at the Goodman Theatre,
the Brooklyn Academy of Music and London’s Barbican Theatre. Her
play The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci closed recently after
a run at New York’s Second Stage Theatre.
Performed in a shimmering pool of water that spans the stage and stretches
across time, Metamorphoses weaves a contemporary and often humorous
sensibility through the Greek and Roman myths of Ovid. Love, loss, triumph
and transformation are the themes that tie together these timeless stories
of Midas and Psyche, Aphrodite and Apollo, among others.
Metamorphoses originated in Chicago where it premiered at
the Lookingglass Theatre Company. The play then toured to Seattle Repertory
Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Mark Taper Forum and Second Stage
Theatre before its Broadway run. Co-produced with The Repertory Theatre
of St. Louis, this is the first major regional theatre production of Metamorphoses since
the show closed on Broadway earlier this year.
Playhouse Perspectives is now in its seventh season of bringing the nation’s
finest theatre artists and scholars to the Playhouse to provide context and
discussion that enhances the theatergoing experience. Playhouse Perspectives
takes place on the second Sunday in each Marx Theatre production’s schedule.
No reservation is required, and audience members do not need a ticket to Metamorphoses to
attend the lecture. Playhouse Perspectives is made possible thanks to a generous
gift from Roderick and Barbara Barr.
Metamorphoses runs through November 21. For more information
about Playhouse Perspectives or to purchase tickets to Metamorphoses call
the Playhouse Box Office at 513/421-3888 or toll-free in Ohio, Kentucky
and Indiana at 800/582-3208. Call 513/345-2248 for TDD accessibility.
For single tickets purchased by telephone through the Playhouse box
office, there is a $2 convenience fee per call. Tickets also can be
purchased on the Playhouse web site at www.cincyplay.com.
Playhouse artists fly to and from Cincinnati on Delta Connection COMAIR, the
Playhouse’s official airline.
The Playhouse is supported, in part, by the generosity of the tens of thousands
of individuals and businesses that give to the Fine Arts Fund.
The Ohio Arts Council helps fund the Playhouse with state tax dollars to encourage
economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.
The Playhouse also receives funding from the City of Cincinnati.
###
|
