Echo Theater Company's FUGUE Runs Now thru 3/22

How can composers Arnold Schoenberg, Piotr Tchaikovsky and Carlo Gesualdo balance the chaos of their creativity with their need for love? Playwright Tommy Smith and director Chris Fields (the team behind last season's Firemen, named one of the "Best Stage Plays of 2014" by Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty) trace three real-life love triangles in a passionate tale of intrigue, jealousy and music. The Echo Theater Company presents the world premiere of Fugue, opening tonight, Feb. 14 (Valentines Day) at the Echo's Atwater Village Theatre home.

Set simultaneously in 20th century Austria, 18th century Russia and 17th century Italy, Fugue interlaces three tales of ill-fated romance in counterpoint, a polyphonic telling that reveals each composer's breathtaking genius - as well as the demons that drive his creativity.

"Tommy has woven together a fascinating story about creativity, sex and violence," says Fields. "Each of these men is dealing with an obsessive inner chaos that at once fuels his genius and destroys him. In the end the chaos wins."

Arnold Schoenberg (portrayed by Troy Blendell) remains one of the most controversial figures in the history of music. Famous for devising the 12-tone technique, he inspired fanatical devotion from students, admiration from peers like Mahler, Strauss and Busoni, riotous anger from conservative Viennese audiences and unmitigated hatred from his many detractors. In 1908, he and his wife Mathilde (Amanda Street) turned to painting, and the two became students of Richard Gerstl (Jesse Fair). Mathilde and Gerstl had an affair and ran off together. After the Schoenbergs reconciled (with the help of Schoenberg disciple, composer Anton Webern), Gerstl set fire to his work and killed himself by hanging and plunging a kitchen knife into himself.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Christopher Shaw), wrote some of the most popular themes in all of classical music, his compositions celebrated for their powerful emotion and lush melodies. In 1877, struggling with societal pressures to repress his homosexuality, Tchaikovsky married a young music student named Antonina Milyukova (Alana Dietze). The marriage was a catastrophe, with Tchaikovsky abandoning his wife within weeks of the wedding. During a nervous breakdown, he unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide and eventually fled abroad. One of Tchaikovsky's most intimate relationships was with his nephew, Vladimir "Bob" Davydov (Eric Keitel), to whom Tchaikovsky dedicated his masterpiece, the Symphony No. 6 "Pathétique." The composer died of cholera ten days after its premiere, or - as some contend - from drinking poison in accordance with a death sentence conferred on him by his classmates from the School of Jurisprudence, who feared the relationship would bring shame on the institution.

Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza (Karl Herlinger) was an Italian composer, lutenist, nobleman and notorious murderer from the late Renaissance. He is famous for his intensely expressive madrigals, which use a chromatic language not heard again until the 19th century - and for committing what are possibly the most famous murders in musical history. Informed of his wife's infidelity, Gesualdo laid a trap and, with the help of his servants, brutally stabbed his wife (Jeanne Syquia) and her lover (Justin Huen) in bed.

Tommy Smith is a graduate of the playwriting program at the Julliard School and a member of the Dorothy Stein New American Writers' Group at Primary Stages. His other plays include Firemen, Zero. PTSD, Pigeon, The Wife, Sextet, Caravan Man (music and lyrics by Garbiel Kahane), Demon Dreams, A Day in Dig Nation and Air Conditioning. His work has been produced at Ensemble Studio Theatre, P.S. 122, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Here Arts Center, Access Gallery, Washington Ensemble Theatre, Magic Futurebox, the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference, the Public Theatre, La Mama, the Warhol Museum, MCA Chicago, ICA Boston, On the Boards and PICA. Tommy is the recipient of the PONY Fellow at the Lark, a two-time winner of both the Lecomte du Nouy Prize and the MAP Fund, a recipient of an E.S.T. Sloan Grant, a winner of the Page73 Productions Playwriting Fellowship and a recipient of the Creative Capital Award. Playwright Craig Lucas, writing for the New York Theatre Review, proclaimed that Smith "is writing in the shadow of our most daring and politically incendiary of martyred playwright saints."

The Echo Theater Company, under the leadership of founding artistic director Chris Fields, was anointed "Best Bet for Ballsy Original Plays" in the LA Weekly's 2014 Best of LA issue. To date, Fields and the Echo have produced 58 plays, 44 of them world premieres and 29 of them commissioned, and introduced Los Angeles to playwrights David Lindsay-Abaire, Adam Rapp and Sarah Ruhl among many others. Fields most recently directed the world premiere of Smith's "unthinkable love story," Firemen, as well as the Los Angeles premieres of Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's Bob and the world premiere of Gary Lennon's A Family Thing, for which he took home an LA Weekly award for Best Director of a Comedy. Other notable directing credits include Eat Me by Jacqueline Wright (six LA Weekly nominations including Best Director); the Los Angeles premieres of Kate Robin's Anon and Jessica Goldberg's Body Politic (four Ovation nominations); and the world premiere of Padraic Duffy's The Illustrious Birth. After a two-decade itinerant existence, Fields moved the Echo to Atwater Village Theatre last January, its first permanent home, where the 2014 season included three critically acclaimed world premieres: Smith's Firemen, named to "Best of 2014" lists by both the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles theater site Bitter Lemons; Mickey Birnbaum's Backyard, named "Best of 2014" by KCRW and Ticketholders, and Better by Jessica Goldberg, also on KCRW's "Best of 2014" list. Fields is also the founder of the Ojai Playwrights Conference, where he served as artistic director until 2000, and he is a respected acting teacher whose students have included such luminaries as Peter Facinelli, Danny Strong, Dave Giuntoli, Zach Quinto, Christine Estabrook, Kirk Acevedo, Emily Bergl, Sprague Grayden, Mitch Pileggi, Sarah Carter, Emily Rose, Michael Learned, Ethan Embry, Sarah Jane Morris, Meghan Ory, Grant Shaud and Scott Wolf.

Scenic design for Fugue is by Amanda Knehans; lighting design is by Matt Richter; sound design is by Drew Dalzell; costume design is by Michael Mullin; graphic design is by Elizabeth Hale; and the production stage manager is Samantha McCann. Chris Fields and Rebecca Eisenberg produce.

Fugue runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m., Feb. 14 through March 22. There will be one preview performance on Friday, Feb. 13 at 8 p.m. All tickets are $25. Atwater Village Theatre is located at 3269 Casitas Ave in Los Angeles, CA 90039. On-site parking is free. For reservations and information, call (310) 307-3753 or go to www.EchoTheaterCompany.com.

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