Curious Frog Theater Co Presents THE MAIDS at Studio 606, Opens 4/24

CURIOUS FROG THEATRE COMPANY is pleased to announce their production of Jean Genet's THE MAIDS, directed by Tracy Cameron Francis. THE MAIDS will play a three-week limited engagement at Studio 606 (300 W. 43rd @ 8th Avenue, 6th Floor). Performances begin Saturday, April 24 and continue through Saturday, May 8.

As Jean-Paul Sartre describes in his introduction, "The most extraordinary example of the whirligigs of being and appearance, of the imaginary and the real is to be found in Genet's The Maids...Two maids both love and hate their mistress. They have denounced her lover to the police by means of anonymous letters. Upon learning that he is to be released for lack of proof, they realize their betrayal will be discovered, and they try to murder Madame. They fail and want to kill themselves. Finally, one of them takes her life, and the other, left alone and drunk with glory, tries, by the pomp of her posturings and language, to be equal to the magnificent destiny that awaits her."

The production features scenic design by Laura Taber Bacon, costume design by Emily Lippolis, and lighting design by Michael Megliolia. Julian Mesri is the sound designer, Chelsea Chorpenning is the properties designer, Gae Song is the assistant stage manager, Nic Musolino is the technical director and Laura Gomez is the stage manager. Reneé Rodriguez is the producer and Tara Clark is the associate producer.

THE MAIDS plays the following regular schedule through Saturday, May 8:

Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m.
Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. **Please note April 22 is at 8:30p**
Fridays at 7:30 p.m.
Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.
Sundays at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are $25 and are now available online at brownpapertickets.com or by calling (347) 410-9840. Tickets may also be purchased in-person at The Loft ½ hour prior to performance.

Wednesday night is only $15 and benefits Clean The World (http://cleantheworld.org/). Audience members should register online and bring soap or shampoo for the charity to receive the ticket discount.

306 8th Avenue between West 25 & 26th St in Chelsea is conveniently located across the street from the C and E subway station and on the M7 bus route.

Running Time: 90 minutes

Website: www.curiousfrog.org

Join Curious Frog Theater Company and the Opera Singers Initiative on Thursday April 22, 2010, from 7pm to 10pm, at NY Studio Gallery, 154 Stanton Street, NYC for their SPRING PREVIEW SALON. Cost: $35 Single/$55 Couple ($35 at the door, per person). Just how much art can you see in two hours? Last year's preview featured classical music, opera, two dance groups and two different scenes (classic and contemporary) -- arguably the best arts deal you will get downtown this year. Afterward, you can meet all the various performers and the behind the scenes folk as well. Good people, good food, good drink --all for a good cause. So get while the getting's good. The proceeds will support the spring production of The Maids, as well as the rest of Curious Frog's 2010 Season. Everybody loves a party. The Spring Preview wouldn't be much of a shindig without a little food and drink. Last year's preview was an SRO affair, before and after. And since we're holding it a little later in the year, you can be sure we will have a balmy spring evening to send you home to.

BIOGRAPHIES

Jean Genet (Playwright) (December 19, 1910 - April 15, 1986) was a novelist and exponent of the theater of the absurd. Discovered and championed by the existentialist Jean Paul Sartre, Genet was an orphan, thief, and homosexual who had spent most of his youth in prison. There he developed his personal credo: to harden himself against pain. Reversing the Christian mystic's ascent toward a state of holiness, Genet in the 1930s embarked on a satanic pilgrimage with the goal of reaching the lowest possible state of evil. The Thief's Journal (1949; Eng. trans., 1964) is his record of this journey, in which no aspect of suffering, sordidness, and degradation was spared him. While still in prison, Genet wrote his first novel, Our Lady of the Flowers (1943 and 1951; Eng. trans., 1963), a transposition and sublimation of the elements of his life. Likewise, in Miracle of the Rose (1943 and 1951; Eng. trans., 1966), his heroes--monsters and saints--represent aspects of the men he knew in prison, as well as extensions of himself--rootless, troubled personalities in revolt.

Genet's plays are the finest products of his art, mature reappraisals of the themes treated in his novels. In The Maids (1947; Eng. trans., 1954), Deathwatch (1949; Eng. trans., 1954), The Balcony (1956; Eng. trans., 1957), The Blacks (1958; Eng. trans., 1960), and The Screens (1961; Eng. trans., 1962) are seen conflicts between illusion and reality, life and death, good and evil, the strong and the weak, the old and the young, the conscious and the unconscious. Although hedonistic and ostensibly amoral, these plays nevertheless approach religious ritual and can best be understood as sacred drama, through which the audience's deepest feelings are aroused by sharing in the theatrical ceremony. As with ancient Greek theater or the Mass, the audience is offered the possibility of transformation as a result of participation. Genet is the inventor of a highly personal metaphoric imagery with a unique structure of mysterious relationships and analogies and an extraordinary violence and cruelty that produce energetically rhythmic dramatic sequences. His plays, always shocking but never vulgar, have been a powerful force in the renewal of modern drama. (http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Theatre/Genet/genet.shtml)

TRACY CAMERON FRANCIS (Director) is a director based in New York who also works regionally and internationally. She is the co-founder of Hybrid Theatre Works with which she is currently running a theatre workshop at the International Center in New York working with recent immigrants. Recent directing credits include a staged reading of "Kingmakers" by Betty Shamieh ( Negro Ensemble co.) , "T.A.B." (Manhattan Repertory Theatre) "Rough For Theatre I", "Death Comes For A Wedding", "When All The Trees Are Gone" (Williamstown Theatre Festival Workshop), "Psalms of A Questionable Nature" (NY International Fringe Festival), "A Marriage Proposal" (Egypt), " The Comedy Course" , "Pharoah" NY ArabAmerican Comedy Festival, "Rubbayat", "Train" (The Noor Festival). Assistant Directing: "The Seagull" (NAATCO), "After the Revolution" (Williamstown Theatre Festival), "Blue Before Morning" (TerraNova), "The Black Eyed" (New York Theatre Workshop). She has a B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and Theatre from Fordham University, and was a participant in LaMama's International Directing Symposium in Italy.

CURIOUS FROG's mission is to present new, modern and classical works with the goal of showing a new, multicultural perspective through non-traditional casting that does not hinder understanding or believing a work, but rather enhances the work in an innovative manner and fosters fresh perceptions.

 

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