Scandinavian American Theater Company Presents the US Premiere of BELOVED

Scandinavian American Theater Company (SATC) will present the US Premiere of BELOVED by acclaimed Swedish playwright Lisa Langseth. The play was originally produced in Stockholm starring Noomi Rapace (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Prometheus) and later adapted into the film Pure starring Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl, Tomb Raider), which won the Swedish equivalent of the Academy Award for Best Screenplay. Translated by Charlotte Barslund and directed by Kathy Curtiss, previews begin August 4 at The Lion Theatre at Theatre Row. Opening night of this limited-run Off-Broadway engagement is slated for Wednesday, August 8.

Katarina is a restless young woman trapped in a mundane daily routine and a passionless relationship. When she meets a celebrated conductor at a prestigious opera house, she climbs the social ladder in search of an enlightened, heightened and pure reality. BELOVED depicts the challenges of a modern woman in search of herself and the shifting power dynamic that exists between a younger woman and a successful older man that she admires. Is this a passionate love affair or a brutal game of power, gender and class? Darkly humorous and sexually graphic, BELOVED leaves you asking: what are you willing to sacrifice to achieve a fulfilled life?

Writer Lisa Langseth is known for her complex portraits of women. "It makes me angry that women tend to diminish themselves," notes Langseth. "The self-destructive person is interesting and terrible. BELOVED is about a person who searches for her own destruction."

BELOVED stars Ellinor DiLorenzo with a production team that includes Albert Bendix (producer), Lisa Renee Jordan (set and costume design), Evan Kerr (lighting designer) Rychard Curtiss (sound design and stage manager), and Caitlyn Dominguez (assistant stage manager).

Lisa Langseth is a playwright and director from Sweden. Her other plays include Klimax and Pleasure, both produced by the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theater. She is the screenwriter and director of the feature films Pure, Hotel and Euphoria, all starring Alicia Vikander. Langseth was awarded the 2010 Guldbagge Award for Best Screenplay (the Swedish equivalent of the Oscar) for her work on Pure, a screen adaptation of BELOVED, and a nomination for Best Director.

Kathy Curtiss is a director/producer, Artistic Director of Renaissance Now Theatre & Film with a Ph.D. in Directing Classics and Experimental Movement Works. Kathy works in script development for both theatre and film, with companies such as the Oracle Theatre, The Oberon Theatre Company. She has directed at the New York International Fringe Festival, The Michael Chekhov Theatre Company, The Santa Barbara and Park City Shakespeare Festivals, The Drilling Company for New Works' urban-experimental Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, and served as the fight director for Bryant Park Shakespeare.

Ellinor DiLorenzo is an actor, writer and comedian originally from Sweden and is currently based in New York. A longtime member of the Scandinavian American Theater Company. She is also an active performer in New York's comedy scene, doing sketch, improv and stand up at venues including Upright Citizen's Brigade, The PIT, and Creek & The Cave. Recently she became a series regular of the popular sci-fi adventure podcast Androids & Aliens produced by The Glass Cannon Network. She recently starred in the Swedish Stone Age movie Hallonflickan.

Scandinavian American Theater Company (SATC) is a non-profit theater Off-Broadway theater company founded in 2009 to introduce the works of the newest generation of Scandinavian playwrights and theater artists to US audiences. SATC presents contemporary plays and inventive takes on the classics from the Nordic region, which includes Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland. Past productions include the World Premiere of Bastards of Strindberg and the US premieres of The Baroness by Thor Bjørn Krebs, Then Silence by Arne Lygre, Gorilla by Rhea Leman, Pinocchio's Ashes by Jokum Rohde, The Fundamentalist by Juha Jokela, Home Sweet Home by Andreas Garfield and The Returning by Fredrik Brattberg. For more info visit www.satcnyc.org.

BELOVED runs August 4 - 18 on the following schedule: Tues. at 7pm; Weds - Fri. at 8pm; and Sat. at 2pm & 8pm with an added performance Sun. August 5 at 3pm. The Lion Theatre at Theatre Row is located at 410 West 42nd Street at 9th Avenue in Manhattan. Running time is 80 minutes. Tickets are $35 available at 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com.

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