World Premiere of 'Beholder' at Trap Door Theatre

Trap Door Theatre
In cooperation with the Goethe Institut
Presents

Synopsis Below From the Trap Door Website

"Beholder is inspired by the notebooks and letters of painter Paula Modersohn-Becker and her friend poet Rainer Maria Rilke. The script also takes inspiration from Rilke's poem Requiem for a Friend.

A love story on many levels, Beholder explores how Paula's continually evolving relationship to her work is reflected in her relationship to herself and to the people in her life. A year after Modersohn-Becker's death, Rilke sequestered himself in his room for three nights, and wrote the 259 line poem Requiem for a Friend. The poem is an outcry against her death, as well as a tribute to her greatness and vision as an artist.

During her short career Modersohn-Becker's art was hardly known, although she produced over 400 paintings and at least a thousand drawings and graphic works. In art categories, she is hard to  place. She is a rare individualist, a precursor to the German expressionist movement and a synthesizer of German and French sources. She describes her own development as a move towards "great simplicity of form."

Playwright Prestininzi and director Hendrickson have been collaborating for over 12 years. Together they form a director/ playwright team of shared reverie, theatrical vision and the belief in the persuasion of intimacy and commitment."

Beholder
Featuring Betsy Zajko as Paula
With Jason Huysman, John Kahara, Judy Loyd, & Kristen Williams Smith
 
Music Composed by Alison Chesley
Lighting Design by Gina Patterson
Assistant Directed by Emily Lotspeich
 
Opens: Thursday May 15th
Closes: Saturday June 21
Runs: Thursdays, Fridays, & Saturdays at 8pm
Admission: $20 (2 for 1 on Thursdays)
Info and reservations: 773-384-0494

Trap Door Theatre Artistic Director: Beata Pilch

This project is partially sponsored by The Goethe Institut, a City Arts Program 1 grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, The Alphawood Foundation, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The Mayer and Morris Kaplan Family Foundation, The Rothman Family Foundation, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
 

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