Tickets Are on Sale Now for Trap Door Theatre's DECOMPOSED THEATRE

This winter, Trap Door Theatre will collaborate with eight directors to create a series of episodes adapted from Matei Visniec's Decomposed Theatre Or The Human Trashcan. From Dec. 3, 2020, to Feb.4, 2021, a unique adaptation from Visniec's "dialogic spectacle of monologues" will be performed live on Zoom between the resident Chicago ensemble and an international group of guest performers and directors.

Trap Door has invited directors Josiah Davis, Marian Masoliver, Michael Mejia, Zachary Nicol, Cristina Pronzati, Catherine Sullivan, Nicole Wiesner, and Katarzyna Winska.

Stage management will be provided by Anna Klos and Gary Damico. Makeup design by Zsófia Ötvös, costume design by Rachel Sypniewski, and light design by Richard Norwood.

"Decomposed Theatre considers the fragments of a shattered mirror and the journey to restore the original object. Once, the mirror was perfectly whole: It reflected the heavens, the world, and all of our souls. Then it shattered. No one knows when, why, or how. The challenge before us now is to reconstruct that original, although no one has ever seen the mirror in its perfect state," Visniec says.

All performances will be approximately 25 minutes and live at 8 p.m. Central Standard Time. Tickets are $15, or $100 for all eight episodes, and available for purchase here: https://trapdoor.ticketleap.com/decomposed-theatre/ One ticket grants admission to one performance. To see all eight shows, attendees will need to purchase a ticket for each week. Each episode will be available for streaming after the initial live performance.

Matei Visniec, playwright, poet and journalist, was born in Romania in 1956, and now lives in Paris. He began writing for the theatre in 1977. Early in his career, Visniec's plays were banned by the Romanian censors. In 1987 he was invited to France by a literary foundation. While there, he asked for and received political asylum. After the fall of communism in Romania, in 1989, Visniec became one of the most performed playwrights in the country. Visniec gained international attention in 1992, with productions of Horses at the Window in France, and Old Clown Wanted at the "Bonner Biennale". Since then, Matei Visniec's work has been produced in France, Germany, United States, Denmark, Austria, Poland, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Brazil, Romania, and Moldavia. Most recently, his play the word progress on my mother's lips doesn't ring true was the winner of the "Best Play in the Off-section" at the Avignon Festival in 2009.

Episode 1: Directed by Katarzyna Wińska. Thursday, Dec. 3 at 8 p.m

Katarzyna Wińska (she/her) was born in Warsaw, capital of communist Poland in 1953. Since 1977, she has had M.A. in applied linguistics at the Warsaw University and is the wife of Tomasz Wiński, who produces her mixed-media poetry and is the discoverer and curator of all the natural spaces she has applied in her work. Since 1995 (in democratic Poland), she has been conceiving and directing two independent, non-profit, non-permanent-stage theater troupes' performances: Teatr Opera Buffa with people with schizophrenia, organizing voyages to insanity and back. For example, to Edinburgh and Elsinore with performances of Hamlet; Kinoteatr Bluboks with amateurs and professional actors performing adapted plays or those written by herself. She has published two glamour extravaganza magazines with reviews of 25 years of writing, filming, and performing.

Episode 2: Directed by Zachary Nicol Thursday, Dec. 10 at 8 p.m

Zachary Nicol (they/them) constructs texts across media that address scrutiny, identification, illegibility, and presentation. Their performance, writing, video, and print work has been presented in Chicago, Portland, Toronto, and online. Nicol is a 2020 Artist-in-Residence at Annas Projects and has participated in residencies at ACRE and Links Hall. They work frequently as a collaborative and performing artist in dance, theatre, and film. Recent contributions include projects with Anna Martine Whitehead, Mlondi Zondi, Aram Atamian, Kim Brandt, Alexandra Pirici, Jonas Becker, Ginger Krebs, Elise Cowin, and Catherine Sullivan, among others. Nicol lives and works in Chicago.

Episode 3: Directed by Michael Mejia Thursday, Dec. 17 at 8 p.m.

Michael Mejia (they/them) studied acting and music performance at Indiana University before coming to Chicago. Mejia is the company manager for Trap Door Theatre, where they are also a proud ensemble member. Their actor credits include The White Plague, Love and Information, The Killer, The Old Woman Broods, Monsieur D'Eon is a Woman at Trap Door Theatre; Proxy at Underscore Theatre; Kingdom at Broken Nose Theatre; Little Shop of Horrors at Stoughton Village Players; Hair at Harper Ensemble Theatre. Mejia is also a musician who writes and plays guitar and piano.

Episode 4: Directed by Marian Masoliver Thursday, Jan. 7 at 8 p.m.

Marian Masoliver (she/her) has more than thirty years of experience as an international actress, theatre director, drama teacher, and writer. She began her career studying with the 20th-century physical theatre master Jacques Lecoq at his school in Paris. After that she toured extensively around Europe and the USA, working in the field with top theatre companies such as Kneehigh Theatre, UK, and La Fura dels Baus, Spain. In 1999, she co-founded the Actors Space with Simon Edwards, which has become an internationally renowned center in Barcelona dedicated to the research, training, and creation of theatre and film. Mansoliver is the director of the center, where she teaches acting, directing, and writing for theatre and film.. Since 2014, she has also been collaborating with The Prem Rawat Foundation, making documentaries about their Peace Education Program in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

Episode 5: Directed by Nicole Wiesner Thursday, Jan. 14 at 8 p.m.

Nicole Wiesner (she/her) joined the Trap ensemble in 1999 and currently serves as the Managing Director. Her directing credits for the company include Minna, The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, Phèdre, Monsieur D'Eon is a Woman, The Old Woman Broods, and The White Plague. Some of her favorite Trap acting credits include First Ladies (dir. Zeljko Djukic, Joseph Jefferson Citation: Outstanding Actress); OVERWEIGHT, unimportant: MISSHAPE (dir. Yasen Peyankov); and the title roles in The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant; Nana (dir. Beata Pilch) and Alice in Bed. (Director Dado). Regionally, she has appeared at The Goodman Theatre in 2666, directed by Robert Falls and Seth Bockley; Shining City directed by Robert Falls; and Passion Play, directed by Mark Wing- Davy (After Dark Award, Outstanding Performance), at Steppenwolf Theatre in The Book Thief (dir. Hallie Gordon), South of Settling (dir. Adam Goldstein) and Dublin Carol (Dir. Amy Morton); as well as Lookingglass Theatre, Court Theatre, Next Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre, Epic Theatre.

Episode 6: Directed by Cristina Pronzati Thursday, Jan. 21 at 8 p.m.

Cristina Pronzati (she/her) has been involved in theatre and film in NY ever since her college days. This is not her first Trap Door experience: she played Helen of Troy in Troy Women and joined the company cast for Catherine Sullivan's production of Ice Floes of Franz Josef Land at the hauntingly beautiful Angel Orensanz Foundation in the Lower East Side in NYC, a memory she treasures. She appeared in a Martin Scorsese film, The Age of Innocence; she wrote, directed and acted in her own short film, Rendez Vous; and loved singing as Loretta Lynn in the corky AMC reality series Into Character. She most recently enjoyed playing Medea with the Hudson Valley Performing Arts Lab in Poughkeepsie; Antigone /Creon in Antigone, and Betty in Living Closely, an original collaborative piece she co-wrote, with The Middle Company in Cold Springs. She also appeared in the community-driven magical production of Our Town, by the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival.

Episode 7: Directed by Josiah Davis Thursday, Jan. 28 at 8 p.m.

Josiah Davis (he/him) is a director, choreographer, actor. His work strives to intersect expressive movement, live music, emerging technology, and ritual to breathe new life into physical storytelling. Asking, how do we create space for people to be in sync when we are pulled apart by invisible systems? He is the Associate Artistic Director of On The Verge Theatre Company-Santa Barbara, a New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellow, a Theatre Lumina company member, a graduate from Brown/Trinity MFA Directing and the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television.

Episode 8: Directed by Catherine Sullivan Thursday, Feb. 4 at 8 p.m.

Catherine Sullivan's (she/her) solo exhibitions, collaborations, performances, and films have been presented at Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Secession, Vienna; Tate Modern, London; Opéra de Lyon; Trap Door Theatre, Chicago; Metro Pictures, New York and Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels among others. She has participated in the Whitney, Moscow, and Gwangju biennials; Berlin International Film Festival; International Film Festival Rotterdam; and BFI London International Film Festival. Awards include the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, the United States Artists Walker Fellowship, Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Award, and most recently, a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is an associate professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.

Trap Door Theatre is committed to seeking out challenging and obscure works. Whether a forgotten European classic, an international project rarely seen in the United States, or an untarnished piece of American literature, Trap Door seeks diverse voices and presents them through innovative expression. We mix established and imaginative techniques to illustrate the absurdities of living in today's society.

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