THE KARAMAZOVS To Premiere in March at New Ohio Theatre

Writer and director Anna Brenner, along with her company Other Shore, are set to premiere The Karamazovs, a freewheeling distillation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, at the New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street, Manhattan). The Karamazovs maps a modern American story about siblings coming to terms with the death of their father onto the passionate rivalry that rests at the heart of the 19th century novel. Previews for The Karamazovs begin on March 4, with an opening set for March 6, for a limited run through March 21, 2020. Tickets are on sale now at thekaramazovs.com.

Part murder mystery and part spiritual quest, The Karamazovs looks at how individuals come into their own, and struggle to create an identity that is pure and free of their family's history. In a playful marriage of the experimental and the classical, The Karamazovs uses text, movement, and live video, along with a total disregard for the arcane gender roles of Dostoevsky's novel, to ask how a a person can be good in today's world.

In a small town in the middle of the country, Fyodor Karamazov is dying. His children (Alyosha, Viv, and Dmitri) return home to settle a dispute about money. Despite carving out new lives for themselves (Alyosha has found refuge in religion, Viv is a queer intellectual, and Dmitri is a charismatic screw-up) each is in the midst of their own personal crisis. Their attempts at connection are complicated further when Dmitri is charged with murder and they are forced to reconcile their need for justice with their capacity for love.

The Karamazovs looks at the gaps in the novel's story, where abuse and misogyny are accepted, and subverts them as Liz, Fyodor's caretaker, narrates the play. This act reclaims the novel, allowing audiences to see The Karamazovs as a story about individual resilience, and ultimately, the unshakeable interdependence between all people.

The cast of The Karamazovs features Tymberly Canale as Liz, Ross Cowan as Dmitri, Rachael Richman as Alyosha, and Mary Tuomanen as Viv.

The creative team for The Karamazovs includes set and lighting designer Oona Curley, composer and sound designer Elizabeth Atkinson, costume designer Oana Botez, projection designer Yana Biryukova, props designer Buffy Cardoza, video associate and graphic designer Tatiana Stolpovskaya, choreographer Tymberly Canale, and dramaturg James Rutherford.

Thirteen performances of The Karamazovs will take place March 4-21 at the New Ohio Theatre, located at 154 Christopher Street in Manhattan. Critics are welcome as of March 4 for an opening on Friday, March 6. $20 tickets are available online at thekaramazovs.com or by calling OvationTix at 212-352-3101. Standard ticketing fees apply.

About the Artists

Anna Brenner (writer and director) creates ensemble-based theatrical work inspired by a broad range of forms including plays, contemporary and classic literature, film scripts, interviews and found text. Her work includes The Karamazovs, In This Hope: A Pericles Project (The Welders, DC), Peter Gil-Sheridan's Cockfight (Fordham University), The Glass Menagerie (Theatreworks Colorado), Eliza Bent's The Hotel Colors (Bushwick Starr), 3 Women (Columbia Stages), Terra Incognita (CPR), Disquiet (Living Theatre), Are We Here Yet? (PS122), and The Misanthrope (PS 122, undergroundzero Audience Award). She has developed new work with playwrights Sylvan Oswald and Mia Chung at New Dramatists, MJ Kaufman, Peter Gil-Sheridan, Otso Huopaniemi, John Douglas Weidner, Jason Pizzarello, and Morgan Gould.

Brenner collaborated with Laurie Anderson to curate the Stone Open House, and as the Artistic Associate at Classic Stage Company, she directed and produced Brecht Fest, Subject to Fits (A response to Dostoevsky's The Idiot), Crime and Punishment, Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest and Chuck Mee's Global Warming. She is an alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, resident artist of undergroundzero. Residencies include: Drop, Forge, & Tool, Drama League, Space on Ryder Farm, PlayPenn, Chicago Arts Incubator Lab.

Tymberly Canale (choreographer | Liz) was a collaborative member of the experimental dance theater company Big Dance Theater for 21 years performing in many venues around the world including a solo performance at Mass MoCA and The Menil Collection in Houston. In this company, she developed many original roles, including working with Mikhail Baryshnikov in an adaptation of Chekhov short stories in Man in a Case that debuted at Hartford Stage and toured the U.S. in 2014. She choreographed and performed at The Whitney Museum in Sibyl Kempson's 12 Shouts to the Ten Forgotten Heavens from 2016-2018. Most recently, she was seen in Athena Kokoronis's Domestic Performance Agency at The Kitchen and The New School. Canale creates her own interdisciplinary performance work and is an adjunct dance faculty member at Marymount Manhattan College.

Ross Cowan (Dmitri) is a Brooklyn-based actor who has previously appeared in FLY (co-production between Pasadena Playhouse, The New Victory, and Crossroads Theatre Company), Hamlet (St. Louis Repertory Theatre), Salome and The Importance of Being Ernest (Hemingway) (M-34 productions), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Backroom Shakespeare Project), Red, Arsenic & Old Lace, The Importance of Being Earnest and, most recently, It's a Wonderful Life at Portland Stage in Maine. Cowan is also an associate producer and designer for Sohei Productions, a human-rights-based documentary film company. www.RossCowan.com

Rachael Richman (Alyosha) is an actor, writer, and theater-maker. Credits include: Aunt Leaf (HERE Arts Center/Hudson Opera), Love and Geography (HERE Arts Center), Soulographie (La Mama), Body Drama (Whitney Museum), Offending the Audience (The Flea Theatre), Performa 11 (Abrons Arts Center), AOI and Are We Here Yet? (PS 122), To Kill A Mockingbird and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Bristol Valley Theatre), A Noh Christmas Carol (Theatre of Yugen), Funeral Game (Potrero Stage), The Speakeasy SF (Palace Theatre), and Man of La Mancha (Custom Made Theatre), for which she received a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Principal Actress. As a founding member of Fixed Agency she co-created the immersive mixed-reality adventure Private(i) at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. With the Art Monastery Project, she co-devised Prime, which continues to tour internationally.

Mary Tuomanen (Viv) is a graduate of the Lecoq School of Movement Theatre in Paris and the 2017 recipient of the Haas Emerging Artist Award. Her solo work has been performed at the Annenberg Center (Saint Joan, Betrayed, 2014), FringeArts, and the Kimmel Center Innovation Studio (Hello! Sadness!, 2015), among others. In 2015 she became a founding member of Philadelphia's first producing playwright's collective, Orbiter 3, whose production of her play Peaceable Kingdom won the Philadelphia Award of the Virginia Brown-Martin Fund. Both Peaceable Kingdom and her play Marcus/Emma: Marcus Garvey and Emma Goldman Have Hot Hot Sex (Interact Theater) received nominations for Best New Play at the 2017 Barrymore Awards. As a performer, she has worked in many regional theaters including the Arden, Interact, Azuka, the Wilma, People's Light, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, and many productions with the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, including collaboration on Contradict This! which came to LaMaMa in June 2019. She starred as young Andy Warhol in Opera Philadelphia/Bearded Ladies premiere of Andy: A Popera. She is a company member of Applied Mechanics, a radical immersive theater ensemble in Philadelphia. www.appliedmechanics.us

The theatre is accessible from the #1 train to Christopher St. or A, B, C, D, E, F or M train to West 4th St. For info visit NewOhioTheatre.org.

Previews:

March 4, 5 at 7:30pm

Opening:

Friday, March 6 at 8pm

Regular:

March 7, 13, 14, 20, 21 at 8pm; March 10, 12, 13, 18, 19 at 7:30pm; March 15 at 3pm

New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street, Manhattan)

$20; thekaramazovs.com; 212-352-3101

To post a comment, you must register and login.