Open Stage to Present GIDION'S KNOT, 10/4-26

Open Stage of Harrisburg presents GIDION'S KNOT by Johnna Adams October 4 - 26, 2013. This opens Season 28 at the professional theatre located at 223 Walnut St, on the Street level of the Walnut Street Garage in Downtown Harrisburg. This production will be aRegional Premier of GIDION'S KNOT, which was a finalist for 2013 Steinberg-ATCA Award for Best New Play. Written by Johnna Adams and directed by Open Stage Executive Artisitc Director Donald Alsedek, the plot centers on the aftermath of a fifth grader's suicide after he is suspended for a violent, graphic piece he wrote and passed around class.

The Play: Over the course of an unexpected parent/teacher conference in a 5th grade classroom, a mother and her son's teacher have a volatile conversation about Gidion. Was he a bully? A victim? A protector? Or, was his imagination too powerful a tool for the adults around him? As his story is uncovered, the women try to construct an explanation for his behavior and come to terms with who, or what, is at fault. GIDION'S KNOT is a heart-wrenching, devastatingly beautiful work about the power of words and freedom of expression.

The Playwright: Native Texan Johnna Adams' plays are an eclectic menagerie containing meditations on grief, wild farcical verse plays, southern gothic supernatural plays and hard to explain, in-your-face tragicoms. She is the 2011 recipient of the Princess Grace Award and a 2012 Finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. As a playwright so far, she has mingled with an all-inmate cast at the Mitchellville Theatre Project at the Iowa Women's Correctional Institution (IN THE ABSENCE OF ANGELS, 2006) and participated in a fully nude talkback in front of a nude audience at the Naturist Society's Western Naturist Gathering at the Lupin Naturist Club (NUDE ON THE BEACH, 2002). Other plays include GIDION'S KNOT;THE ANGUISHER; HRIPSIME; HUED MOLL; LICKSPITTLES, BUTTONHOLERS AND DAMNED PERNICIOUS GO-BETWEENS; THE ANGEL EATERS TRILOGY (Angel Eaters, Rattlers, and 8 Little Antichrists); SANS MERCI, COCKFIGHTERS and THE SACRED GEOMETRY OF S&M PORN. She is a past Reva Shiner Award winner, winner of the OC Weekly's Best Original Play award (twice), finalist for the Princess Grace Award, finalist for the Christopher Brian Wolk Award, finalist for the National Art's Club's Playwrights First Prize; finalist for the William Saroyan Prize and New York Innovative Theatre Award nominee. Johnna graduated from the DePaul University Theatre School with a BFA in Acting and is currently pursuing an MFA in Playwriting at Hunter College with Tina Howe and Mark Bly.

The costumes and set are designed by Gwen Alsedek, with lights by Tristan Stasiulis. Trish Baillie plays fifth grade teacher Heather Clark and Karen Ruch plays Corryn Fell, Gidion's mother and a professor of medieval poetry.

GIDION'S KNOT plays October 4-26 in the intimate Angino Family Theatre at Open Stage of Harrisburg, 223 Walnut Street, located on the street level of the Walnut Street Parking Garage in downtown Harrisburg.

Admission is $30 (21 for Students with ID). For advanced ticket purchase, call our Box Office at 717-232-OPEN (6736) or visit openstagehbg.com. The theatre lobby opens one hour prior to performance. This season is funded, in part, by the Cultural Enrichment Fund, the capital region's united arts fund. Open Stage of Harrisburg is a member of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for non profit professional theatre.

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