St. Ann's Warehouse to Present Schaubühne Production of WHO KILLED MY FATHER

St. Ann's Warehouse will present the U.S. premiere of Who Killed My Father (Qui a tué mon père), written and performed by Édouard Louis, directed by Thomas Ostermeier, and produced by Schaubühne Berlin and Théâtre de la Ville Paris, May 18-June 5. Who Killed My Father reunites the internationally acclaimed French author and celebrated German director following their collaboration on the theatricalization of Louis' autobiographical novel History of Violence, a Schaubühne production that St. Ann's Warehouse introduced to American audiences in 2019. In Who Killed My Father, Louis appears for the first time professionally as a performer, "[holding] the stage for 90 minutes with genuine instinct and feeling" (The New York Times, writing about an earlier version of the work in Paris in 2020). The activist artist brings audiences inside his relationship with his damaged father, many of whose ailments Louis traces to the contemporary French government's cruel neglect of its working class.

St. Ann's Warehouse Artistic Director Susan Feldman says, "This is our most recent encounter with Édouard Louis, whose profound empathy for the working poor has broken our hearts time and again. In Who Killed My Father, he literally brings his politics home, with rage and love for his infirm father, broken by a system that shows no mercy."

"Throughout my entire childhood, I hoped you'd disappear," Louis declares in this bold new work. A disgust lies deep within him-for his violent, alcoholic, right-wing father, whose homophobic outbursts traumatized him as he was growing up gay in the French provinces. But when the author confronts his now seriously ill father, his anger is transformed into compassion: "You can no longer get behind the wheel, are no longer allowed to drink, can no longer shower unaided without it presenting an enormous risk. You're just over fifty. You belong to the precise category of people for whom politics has envisaged a premature death." The former perpetrator has become a victim whose propensity for violence now appears to be more a consequence of relentless humiliation.

Using the broken body of his father as a starting point, Louis undertakes a defiant rewrite of the recent political and social history of France. It is a chronicle of an ongoing murder, of a deliberate mutilation by neoliberal "reforms" brutally perpetrated on the bodies of the workers who are their victims: A polemical and rebellious outcry against the neglect, exclusion and physical violence of a class-ridden society-and, at the same time, an intimate declaration of love to a person who makes it almost impossible to love him.

In the first collaboration between Ostermeier and Louis, the "meticulously made...beautifully performed...elegant and frightening" (New York Magazine) History of Violence, the author was played by an actor (Laurenz Laufenberg) in a German-language, multi-performer adaptation of his book revisiting a violent sexual assault and processing it in a sociopolitical context. In Who Killed My Father, Louis speaks as himself.

The Who Killed My Father creative team includes Sébastien Dupouey and Marie Sanchez (Video Designers), Nina Wetzel (Stage Designer), Caroline Tavernier (Costume Designer), Erich Schneider (Light Designer), Sylvain Jacques (Composer), Florian Borchmeyer and Elisa Leroy (Dramaturgs), and Elisa Leroy and Anne Arnz (Producers).

Performance Schedule, Running Time, Tickets, and COVID-19 Protocol

Performances of Who Killed My Father take place May 18-June 5: Tuesday through Saturday at 7:30pm and Sunday at 5pm. There will be a matinee performance on Saturday, June 4 at 2pm.

Critics are welcome Friday and Saturday, May 20 and 21, at 7:30pm for an official opening on Sunday, May 22, at 5pm.

Running time is approximately 90 minutes.

Tickets, starting at $45, are now on sale exclusively to St. Ann's Warehouse members. To become a member, visit stannswarehouse.org or call 718.834.8794.

As the official card of St. Ann's Warehouse, American Express® Card Members have access to exclusive pre-sale tickets before the general public, from Wednesday, March 9 at 12pm ET through Tuesday, March 15 at 11:59pm ET, at stannswarehouse.org.

Tickets will go on sale to the public Wednesday, March 16, at 12pm ET stannswarehouse.org and 718.254.8779.

To reach full capacity safely, ID and proof of full vaccination will be required of all audience members. Booster shots are required for those eligible. Visit the St. Ann's Warehouse Health & Safety page for more information.

St. Ann's Warehouse is located in Brooklyn Bridge Park | 45 Water Street | DUMBO | Brooklyn, NY 11201.

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