The Cherry Artists' Collective To Livestream Freek Mariën's THE WETSUITMAN

The Cherry Artists' Collective, an industry leader in streaming and hybrid performance, will present the English Language Premiere of The Wetsuitman, written by Belgian playwright Freek Mariën, translated by David McKay, and directed by Samuel Buggeln (Hotel Good Luck).

The production will be in-person and live streamed from The Cherry Artspace (102 Cherry Street, Ithaca, NY), March 25-April 3 with performances on Friday, March 25 at 7:30pm, Saturday, March 26 at 7:30pm, Sunday, March 27 at 2:30pm, Thursday, March 31 at 7:30pm, Friday, April 1 at 7:30pm, Saturday April 2 at 2:30pm & 7:30pm, and Sunday, April 3 at 2:30pm. All showtimes EST.

Tickets ($25 livestreaming/$35 in-person) can be purchased in advance at www.thecherry.org. The performance will run approximately 100 minutes, with no intermission.

On the coast of Norway, an architect walks his dog. What looks like an oil slick by the cliffs turns out to be a wetsuit, a human bone protruding from the leg-hole. The Wetsuitman begins as a Scandinavian crime thriller, and unpeels like an onion, switching between perspectives and genres to become a profound and interlayered meditation on identity, expectation, race, and migration.

The cast will feature Eric Brooks*, Marc Gomes*, Karl Gregory*, Amoreena Wade, and Sylvie Yntema. *Appearing courtesy of the Actors' Equity Association.

Freek Mariën (Playwright) is an author and theatremaker, and co-founder of theatre company Het Kwartier. For his theater texts Freek Mariën has been awarded, amongst others, the international Kaas en Kappesprijs (2012), the Prijs voor de Letterkunde Oost-Vlaanderen (2014) and the Taalunie Toneelschrijfprijs for Waiting and Other Exploits (2015). In 2019 The Wetsuitman was nominated for the Toneelschrijfprijs.

Samuel Buggeln (Director) is one of the country's pre-eminent directors of new works from Europe and Latin America. Over the past five years as Artistic Director of the Cherry Arts he has helmed important recent plays from France, Germany, Argentina, Québec, Serbia, Mexico and El Salvador. In NYC he is an Artistic Associate at the New Ohio Theatre: directing credits at the New (and original) Ohio include the world première of The Eyes of Others (Bulgaria); the Off-Broadway première of Conor McPherson's Rum & Vodka; the Drama Desk-nominated Cressida Among the Greeks, and for the Obie Award-winning Ice Factory Festival, his adaptations of Queneau's Le Vol D'Icare and Duras' Les Yeux Bleus Cheveux Noirs, as well as Hater (his translation of Molière's Le Misanthrope, since published and multiply produced). Recently translated and directed George Kaplan by French playwright Frédéric Sonntag, and co-translated recent works by Argentine playwrights Santiago Loza and Rafael Spregelburd (variously published in The Mercurian, and by Oberon and Seagull Books). He is an alum of the Lincoln Center Directors' Lab, a member of the international theatermakers' network The Fence, co-chair of the English-language committee of Eurodram, and has been a faculty guest artist at NYU/Tisch, Hunter College, SUNY Albany, Ithaca College, and Cornell University. www.buggeln.net

The Cherry Artists' Collective is a self-governing ensemble of Ithaca-area professional artists, which was recently featured in American Theater for their innovative approaches to digital theatermaking. The Collective develops new performance works that are radically local, radically international, and formally innovative. In recent years, the Collective has presented new plays from countries including France, Germany, Serbia, El Salvador, Mexico and Argentina, and commissioned innovative new performance works (including headphone walking-plays and plays incorporating video) from Ithaca-based writers. Since the pandemic began the Cherry has built audiences around the country and the world for their innovative streaming and hybrid productions. The Collective is supported by The Cherry Arts, a not-for-profit arts facilitator and presenting organization. The Cherry supports a wide range of artists and arts organizations, in a variety of disciplines, primarily by hosting them and their work, in The Cherry Artspace. The Artspace is a flexible, multidisciplinary arts and performance venue located at 102 Cherry Street on the banks of the Cayuga Inlet in Ithaca's West End. www.thecherry.org

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