Women's Project will open its season with Aliens with Extraordinary Skills, a world premiere dark comedy that centers on a clown from the unhappiest country in the world, Moldova, who pins her hopes on a U.S. work visa by creating balloon animals, will open tonight September 30th (for a run through October 26) at Women's Project, 424 West 55th Street. The show began previews on September 22nd.
Aliens with Extraordinary Skills, however, could just as easily be described as an historical drama: it is written and directed by both a playwright and a director who are actually aliens with extraordinary skills and is inspired by a real event.
The play is written by Saviana Stanescu, a Romanian poet, journalist and playwright who first came to the United States in 2001 under a Fulbright Scholarship. Her O1 Visa says she has "extraordinary abilities in the arts."
The director, award-winning theater artist and Bosnian emigre Tea Alagic, now has her green card, but she left, or rather escaped, her home country ten years ago for a different reason (see the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague for details).
Unlike the characters in the play, neither is being chased by Homeland Security or receiving deflating deportation letters. But they can't leave the United States without making sure all their paperwork is in perfect order or they may not be allowed back in. Ms. Stanescu may have to leave next year if her visa isn't renewed.
And for neither is English a first language.
She pins her hopes on a US work visa by creating balloon animals.
"Is this anyway to produce a comedy?," said
Julie Crosby, Producing Artistic Director of
Women's Project whose first language is English but finds her knowledge of French and Latin quite helpful during production meetings. "It is because these women have something to say and
Women's Project has, for 31 years, turned its stage over to women with extraordinary skills. Saviana has been developing Aliens with Extraordinary Skills in the
Women's Project Playwrights Lab for two years. She may be Romanian, but her play is U.S. born."
Saviana Stanescu is one of the best know TV journalists in Romanian (she's been described as the Diane Swayer of Romania), her plays have been produced at home and all over the world in many languages.
"So I had to start from the scratch over here, in my 30s," Ms. Stanescu has said. "I had to live in small dorms with a shared bathroom placed far away on the other side of the floor at International House, I had to work hard on my English language. But it is extremely important for me to tell my dramatic stories in American-English, to reach larger audiences, to make my voice really heard by the world."
Her inspiration for Aliens with Extraordinary Skills came from reading American newspapers. "In Orlando, Florida, an Ukrainian and a Romanian got arrested for smuggling aliens under fake 'aliens with extraordinary skills in the circus' visas. They created a bogus circus! When those guys got caught, the illegal immigrants received deportation letters," she said.
Ms. Stanescu 's plays have been widely presented internationally and in the U.S. Recent New York productions include Waxing West (2007 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Full-length Script), YokastaS Redux at La MaMa Theatre, Flag Stories at TBG Theatre, Suspendida at the Ontological Theatre, Balkan Blues at the NYC Fringe Festival, Aurolac Blues at HERE Arts Center and the Site-specific I Want What You Have as part of
Women's Project's Girls Just Wanna Have Fund$ at the World Financial Center. She teaches at NYU's School of the Arts. She has also published six books of poetry and drama including Google me! (poetry), Black Milk (four plays) and The Inflatable Apocalypse. Her own web page is
www.saviana.com .
Tea Alagic is a director is a director, writer, and actor who has worked all over the world, including Mexico City's Dramafest, Dublin's Abbey Theater Paris's Theatre du Soleil and London's Royal National Theater. She received a BFA in acting from Charles University in Prague and a MFA in directing from Yale School of Drama. She is a Soros Fellow.
Her directing credits include Zero Hour (which she wrote) for Yale University Theater, Speaking Our Mind for New Theater New Haven and The Brothers Size by Tarrel Alvin McCraney for The Public Theater in NYC, The Studio Theater in Washington D.C, and The Abbey Theater in Dublin.
Women's Project produces theater created by women, providing a forum for women's perspectives on political, social, and cultural topics. Founded in 1978 to address the conspicuous under-representation of women in the American theater, countless artists have achieved significant recognition at WP, including Anne Bogart,
Eve Ensler,
Lynn Nottage,
Maria Irene Fornes,
Leigh Silverman,
Suzan-Lori Parks, and
Anna Deavere Smith. In its 30 years, WP has staged over 570 productions, and in 1998, WP purchased a historic off-Broadway venue--the
Julia Miles Theater--making WP the first and only women's theater company to hold the keys to its own stage.
Tickets are $15-42 and are on sale now at Telecharge
www.Telecharge.com or 212.239.6200. The
Women's Project box office at 424 West 55th Street opens September 15. To become a WP member, click
www.WomensProject.org or call the Members Hotline at 212.765.2105.
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