World Premiere Play LOVE, MEDEA to Debut in New York Next Week

split/decision (Rachel Shuey, Founding Producer) starts the first full week of the New Year by kicking off their very first season with a world premiere play. In Peter Gray's Love, Medea, the title character finally reclaims her own narrative after millennia of being villainized in Euripides' now-canonical original text. Directed by Michael Alvarez, the epic narrative of classical drama's most infamously mischaracterized woman begins performances Monday, January 6 at The Center at West Park (165 West 86th Street) for a limited run through January 18. Tickets, starting at $25, are available at CenterAtWestPark.org.

In Love, Medea, the quintessential woman scorned, notorious for killing her own children, arrives to chart her own story. Turning the epic tale you know on its head, this new adaptation is a quest for the title character's uncharted odyssey as she seeks to heal the wounds left behind after being stripped of her homeland and her voice. Brash as bronze, soft as rain, and epic as the odysseys previously reserved for Greek heroes, Love, Medea is a fearless, genre-bending voyage into the depths of a woman's wreckage and the world she left behind, all in the name of Jason and of love.

"In the earliest versions of Medea's complicated mythology, she didn't actually kill her children," says Michael Alvarez. "Rather, she wanted to save them, but was betrayed by the goddess Hera in the ritual of rebirth. In Peter Gray's beautifully tragic adaptation, we come to realize that it was, in fact, love that both drove and broke Medea-but what exactly does love mean?"

A multi-disciplinary production company, split/decision is invested in work that speaks to our civic conversation and expands the notion of community engagement. Love, Medea tackles two of our most prominent contemporary issues: gender and immigration. Having left everything she knows and sacrificing her heart to put a man's story before her own, Medea's "otherness" and search for her authentic self is a narrative that still plays out every single day in America and around the world.

Francesca Fernandez McKenzie (Gloria: A Life) leads the cast as Medea. She is joined by Nolan Burke, Aaron Jay Green, and Michael Raver. Part theatre piece, part dance show, and part haute couture runway, Love, Medea will also include three dancers from The Metropolitan Opera: Dwayne Brown, Hector Cerna, and Lukasz Zieba. Choreography is by Mara Driscoll.

Set design for Love, Medea is by Anna Driftmier; lighting design is by Pei-Yu Lai; costume design is by YuanYuan Liang; and sound design is by John Millerd.

The split/decision production of Peter Gray's Love, Medea will play The Center at West Park (165 West 86th Street, entrance on Amsterdam Ave.) from January 6-18. The performance schedule is as follows: evenings at 8pm, with one Saturday matinee at 2pm. Please note: there are no performances on Wednesday, January 8 and Monday, January 13. For tickets and more information, please visit: https://www.centeratwestpark.org/events/love-medea

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