Theater For The New City's Dream Up Festival 2018 Presents The World Premiere Of MOVING BODIES

Theater For The New City's Dream Up Festival 2018 Presents The World Premiere Of MOVING BODIES' La Marquise du Chatelet and Voltaire's Laws of Attraction Written by Lorraine Liscio Directed by Myriam Cyr August 26-September 16 How Newton got it wrong and how a woman came to fix it.

Schedule: (total 8 performances) Opening Performance Sunday August 26, 8 PM Thursday August 30, 6:30 PM Wednesday September 5, 6:30 PM Friday September 7, 9 PM Saturday September 8, 2 PM Sunday September 9, 3:30 PM & 8 PM Sunday September 16, 2 PM Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue (between 9th & 10th Streets) Tickets: $18; $15 for seniors & students Reservations: 212.254.1109 or www.dreamupfestival.org

Starring Lee Mikeska Gardner as Emilie du Chatelet and Saxon Palmer as Voltaire Composer: David Beck Lighting Design: Carolyn Wong Costumes: Catherine Stramer
Love and science - can a woman have both? Paris 1740, the Age of Enlightenment. When the Marquise du Chatelet and Voltaire take opposing sides in a controversy over Newtonian physics, sparks fly and one of the greatest love affairs of the eighteenth-century takes flight.

The world premiere of "MOVING BODIES," written by Lorraine Liscio and directed by award-winning Myriam Cyr, will take place in eight performances, August 26 through September 16, presented by Theater for the New City, Crystal Field, Artistic Director, as part of the Dream Up Festival. Lee Mikeska Gardner, award-winning actress and artistic director of the Boston Nora Theater stars as Emilie du Chatelet; Theater for the New Audience actor Saxon Palmer is Voltaire; David Beck will perform live his original music and selections by Bach, Vivaldi, and Mozart.

Defiant, excessive, and real, the unapologetic scientist Emilie du Chatelet fought for her place as one of her century's greatest scientists with work that endures to this day. Moving Bodies reclaims Emilie's story and tells how she fought for love and science and why as a woman she was never allowed to have both.

It is Paris 1728, and Secretary of the Academy of Science affirms Newton's calculation of the force of moving bodies: Force=Mass x Velocity. When Emilie du Chatelet corrects his mistake in an open letter printed in the Journal of Science: Force=Mass x Velocity squared, the Secretary strikes back. "Your female condition is the source of your illusions." But Emilie is right - Newton got it wrong. No longer could men claim that the female body clouds female reason. Set against one of the greatest love stories of the eighteenth century, with two of the greatest minds the world has ever known, Moving Bodies is a Dangerous Liaisons of another kind.

Playwright Lorraine Liscio has recently started writing for the theater. Her other plays are City of Ladies (about Christine de Pizan), short version performed at the Cloisters' Medieval Play Festival; The Sheltered Fire (the letters of Heloise and Abelard); and Gono Superiore. Her publications include: Paris and Her Remarkable Women, and literary journal articles on Toni Morrison, Marilynne Robinson, Nadine Gordimer, Eudora Welty, Georges Bernanos, and Stephane Mallarme. For the past six years she has been a member of Pulse Ensemble Theatre under the direction of dramaturge Lezley Steele. Liscio was formerly Adjunct Professor in English and Director of Women's Studies at Boston College and teacher of Romance Languages at UVM and Syracuse University.

Poet Laureate Myriam Cyr is a theater director, critically acclaimed writer, and award-winning actree intent on promoting female narratives whose works include Letters of a Portuguese Nun, named "book of the Month" by The Guardian and translated into eight languages. She recently directed SimonSays at The Culture Project with Brian Murray, which The New York Times hailed as "thrilling," and last year Cyr brought I Am Antigone to Theater for the New City.

As an actress, Cyr was a member of Steven Berkoff's company at the Royal National Theatre and played Salome opposite Al Pacino. She is currently producing Hedda Gabler for Universal Studios in a screenplay adaptation by Oscar and Tony Award winner Christopher Hampton.

The 9th Annual Dream Up Festival is being presented by Theater for the New City from August 26 to September 16. An ultimate new work festival, it is dedicated to the joy of discovering new authors and edgy, innovative performances.

The Festival does not seek out traditional scripts that are presented in a traditional way; rather, it selects works that push new ideas to the forefront. Dream Up Festival founders are Crystal Field and Michael Scott-Price.
www.dreamupfestival.org

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