New School for Drama Presents NEW VISIONS, 12/8-11

The New School for Drama presents the second annual New Visions Drama Directing Festival, featuring three full-length plays spanning eras and styles, performed in repertory.  The festival, which runs from December 8 through December 11, highlights the work of graduating MFA directing and acting students.  All performances are free and open to the public. 
 
"Building on the success of last year's inaugural festival, New Visions 2010 presents a diverse trio of plays that demonstrate the breadth of our students' talent," said Robert LuPone, Director, The New School for Drama. "Each production showcases our graduating directors' personal vision, while at the same time reflecting the unique, collaborative atmosphere we foster at The New School for Drama."
 
Students in The New School for Drama's MFA in directing experience hands-on work in all elements of theater, from directing to theater history, from dramaturgy to acting. The directing track is designed to build necessary skills in play analysis, defining and executing the given circumstances, and shaping a production around the director's idea of the story of the play.
 
The New School for Drama's MFA acting program offers a comprehensive education in the art of acting. This track offers intensive training in all aspects of internal and external disciplines, as well as in the individual and collaborative application of classical and modern texts. Acting and Directing are two of the three MFA programs at The New School for Drama, alongside Playwriting, which enables all students to work collaboratively to develop their skills as professional artists. In the spring, The New School for Drama will offer a playwriting festival, where students from all three disciplines will collaborate on the production of new work.
 
FESTIVAL SCHEDULE
DON JUAN COMES BACK FROM THE WAR by Odon von Horath, translated by Christopher Hampton, directed by Tim Butterfield
December 8, 7:00 p.m.; December 10, 9:30 p.m.; December 11, 3:00 p.m.
Don Juan, the notorious philanderer and survivor of the trenches, returns from the front to a world composed of women- only to have his newly found romantic ideal slowly destroyed with each encounter as he desperately seeks his one true love.
 
MEDEA by Euripides, translated by Michael Collier and Georgia Machemer, directed by Katie McHugh
December 8, 9:30 p.m.; December 9, 7:00 p.m.; December 11, 7:00 p.m.
When Euripides' Media is abandoned by her husband, she is driven to kill her own sons for revenge.  This staging incorporates Japanese butoh movement to provide new insight into this classic tragedy.
 
THE COUNTRY by Martin Crimp, directed by Paul Takacs
December 9, 9:30 p.m.; December 10, 7:00 p.m.; December 11, 9:30 p.m.
Who is the comatose woman Richard has found on the roadside?  Why has he brought her into his house?  Exactly who is telling the truth and who is lying?  The Country is a spare, well-crafted dissection of desire and despair.
 
New Visions Drama Directing Festival Performances are on December 8 through December 11 at The New School for Drama Theater, 151 Bank Street, 3rd floor. The performances are free but reservations are recommended. Call Ticket Central at 212.279.4200 or visit www.ticketcentral.com.
 
About The New School for Drama
At The New School for Drama, the instinct to create is revered. Through its interrelated three-year MFA program in acting, directing, or playwriting, the school is forging the next generation of dramatic artists. A faculty of working professionals brings to the fore each student's unique and original voice and helps them establish a rooted sense of who they are as individuals and as artists. The New School's history in the dramatic arts began in the 1940s, when the Dramatic Workshop, led by founder Erwin Piscator and a faculty including Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, fostered artistic voices as distinctive as Tennessee Williams and Marlon Brando. For more information, visit www.newschool.edu/drama