Colombari to Present Theatrical Adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE
The performance will be held on October 13.
By: Blair Ingenthron Oct. 02, 2024
Everything That Rises Must Converge, by Southern American author Flannery O'Connor, was created for the stage by Karin Coonrod. Compagnia de' Colombari will perform Everything That Rises Must Converge in Brooklyn at St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church (234 Congress Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201) on October 13 at 6pm as part of a U.S. tour from October 1-13, which follows a tour in Rome, Italy, September 18-21. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased HERE. The theatrical adaptation will be witnessed for the first time in Texas, Ohio and North Carolina, with performances at two New York State detention centers and a return to New York City, Colombari's home base.
Everything That Rises Must Converge is a tragic-comedic seat-shifting dance between Blacks and whites on a bus in America's deep South, performed verbatim as written in O'Connor's original 1961 text. Seven diverse actors bounce between characters and the chorus, witnessing, embodying and responding to the uncomfortable situations in O'Connor's story, where generations, cultures, and staunchly held beliefs clash and self-righteousness, ingrained fears and prejudices conflict with the most profound human need: to love and connect.
Everything That Rises Must Converge draws upon the platitudes perpetuated by an older culture and the misery of disenfranchised youth. The collision of generations and races on a bus ride mines an existential truth: "If you know who you are, you can go anywhere." The story examines and overturns hideous cultural assumptions, and the theatrical adaptation puts these assumptions in relief, exposing–through comedy and sorrow–the necessity for a new consciousness. In Everything That Rises Must Converge, love takes no prisoners; everyone must converge.
This year marks Compagnia de' Colombari's 20th anniversary season, and the triumphant return of Everything That Rises Must Converge to Rome for four performances with workshops and talkbacks fifteen years after its premiere at the International Flannery O'Connor conference in Rome, organized by the Poetics and Christianity Project in 2009. The show has toured the USA and internationally since and is embarking on a tour across America through October following the performances in Rome. It will be witnessed in Texas and North Carolina for the first time, with performances at two New York State detention centers and a return to Colombari's home base, New York City. The theatrical adaptation was first developed at the University of Iowa in 1998, at Sundance Theatre Lab in 1999, and Off-Broadway to sold-out audiences at New York Theatre Workshop in 2001.
Karin Coonrod is the sole adaptor of O'Connor's works for theatre, given permission directly from the estate. She felt called to bring O'Connor's–a compelling, courageous, and controversial writer–worlds and words to the stage after encountering her stories at age 19 in an American literature class. To Coonrod, O'Connor is the American Dante, from the red clay of Georgia to the realm beyond.
Throughout 2024, Compagnia de' Colombari is celebrating 20 years of generating spectacle, disrupting and reconstructing texts and spaces under the direction of Karin Coonrod with a robust Anniversary Season. Of Coonrod's direction, The New York Times proclaimed, “this experimental director has a knack for transforming high concepts into accessible theater” and calls her “a theater artist of far-reaching inventiveness.” Other season highlights include the world premiere of KING LEAR at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in June, the sold-out NYC debut at La MaMa ETC in July, and multiple U.S. tour dates for Whitman on Walls! (WoW!).
The performance is $25 and is open to the public. 55 minutes in duration. For tickets: https://tinyurl.com/ETRMC
For more information, visit: https://www.colombari.org/productions/everything-that-rises-must-converge
About Flannery O'Connor (Author):
American author Flannery O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, along with many reviews and commentaries. When she died in 1964 at age 39, America lost one of its most gifted writers at the height of her powers. The New York Times deemed her story Everything That Rises Must Converge one of “the few masterpieces in the form in English.” Her Complete Stories won the 1972 US National Book Award for Fiction. Next year, 2025, marks the 100th anniversary of O'Connor's birth, and her words remain as resonant as ever.
About Karin Coonrod (Director & Adaptor) is the founding Artistic Director of Compagnia de' Colombari and has directed on stages worldwide. Notable productions include KING LEAR (International Festival of Arts & Ideas; La MaMa ETC); Henry VI, Love's Labor's Lost (Public Theater, NYSF); King John, Julius Caesar (Theater for a New Audience); Enrico IV (American Repertory Theater); Everything That Rises Must Converge (New York Theater Workshop); texts&beheadings/ElizabethR (Folger Theatre; BAM/Next Wave Festival); and The Merchant of Venice (Venice, Italy; International Festival of Arts & Ideas; Peak Performances at Montclair State University; The Hopkins Center; Dartmouth University). Coonrod, with Compagnia de' Colombari, has launched new theater traditions in Orvieto, Italy and brought works into detention centers, jails, schools, pubs, libraries, parks, museums, galleries, piers, churches, and the streets. The book The Transnational Theatre of Karin Coonrod (Bloomsbury Press UK) is currently in development. She teaches directing at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.
About Compagnia de' Colombari:
Compagnia de' Colombari is an international collective of performing artists, generating theater in surprising places for over 20 years under the vision of director Karin Coonrod. Colombari intentionally clashes cultures, traditions and art forms to bring fresh interpretations to the written word. It is founded on the twin principles that the magic of great theater can happen anywhere and be accessible to everyone. Colombari was born in Orvieto, Italy, in 2004, where the company re-imagined the medieval mystery plays and performed them in the streets and piazzas. The company launched a parallel theatrical experience at its New York City home base that same year. Colombari's 20th anniversary season focuses on unique theatrical adaptations of works by Walt Whitman, Flannery O'Connor and William Shakespeare. Compagnia de' Colombari's 20th Anniversary Season programs are made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, The Eucalyptus Foundation, and support from our donors.
COMPANY OF ACTORS:
Christopher McLinden
Paul Pryce
CREATIVE & Production Team CREDITS:
Adaptor and Director: Karin Coonrod
Assistant Director & Music Director: Carlton Terrence Taylor
Costume Designer: Karin Coonrod and the company
Hat Design: Oana Botez
Costume Coordinator: Damarius Kennedy
Lighting Design: Christopher Akerlind
Production Stage Manager: Kasper
Company Manager: Anna Crivelli
Compagnia de' Colombari:
Artistic Director: Karin Coonrod
General Manager: Jennifer Harrison Newman
Development Manager: Sofia Crouch
Publicist, Marketing & Communications Manager: Cindy Sibilsky
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