Kimmel Center to Present World Premiere of HELLO! SADNESS!

The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts announces the world premiere of Hello! Sadness!, a one-woman comedy debuting in SEI Innovation Studio on Thursday, June 11, Friday, June 12 and Saturday, June 13 at 8p.m. Written and performed by Philadelphia theater artist Mary Tuomanen, with direction by Annie Wilson, this solo performance is the fruition of Tuomanen's participation in the 2014 Kimmel Center Theater Residency with celebrated poet and performance artist Dael Orlandersmith.

The play features Tuomanen on stage challenging and creatively reinventing the female archetype through her own humorous dramatizations of varied historical characters. Joan of Arc, Emily Dickinson, the FBI, the Black Panther Party, New Wave star Jean Seberg, saints, sex workers-and a dog named Blanco-all make cameos in this charming, uniquely crafted endeavor. A seasoned Philadelphia-based choreographer, Annie Wilson infuses creative movement into Tuomanen through this new work, inspired by the French novel, Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan, and poem, "À peine défigurée," by Paul Éluard, whose opening lines begin with "Adieu tristesse/Bonjour tristesse...."

"Hello! Sadness! brings the 2014 Kimmel Center Theater Residency full circle," said Kimmel Center President and CEO Anne Ewers. "We are excited to welcome Mary Tuomanen back to SEI Innovation Studio for the world premiere of her new work, Hello! Sadness. The Kimmel Center is proud to serve as an incubator and producer for thought-provoking theater talent to develop new works."

Kimmel Center Artistic Director Jay Wahl adds, "Mary Tuomanen is a talented Philadelphia artist who is reinventing theater. Her evening performance offers a forceful, charismatic stage presence that carries Philadelphia audiences through intelligent, funny dialogue and dramaturgy, offering her own fresh perspective of feminism."

Hello! Sadness! is a comedic exploration of Mary Tuomanen's personal struggle to create a play about Joan of Arc. It tackles the strange role of various androgynous female figures in history who are artists, activists or otherwise liberated and therefore labeled as crazy - and Tuomanen's dissatisfaction with this and other sexist labeling. The work was made in collaboration with Aaron Cromie and Rebecca Wright.

For a behind the scenes interview with Mary Tuomanen about Hello! Sadness! and the 2014 Kimmel Center Theater Residency, visit http://youtu.be/LgJdQCbOWI4

"Hello! Sadness! started as a meditation on Why I Don't Want To Write About Joan Of Arc, and became a piece about the question: how can we achieve social justice in our lifetimes? How can we face failure without giving up, or going nuts?," said Kimmel Center Theater Residency artist Mary Tuomanen, " I am really inspired by people of action, activists, righteous soldiers like Joan of Arc. Hello! Sadness!traces my hilarious missteps, neurosis, prat-falls and general failure on the journey to try and be more like her."

"Many young women throughout history have been persecuted for demanding respect of their own personhood," continues Tuomanen about Hello! Sadness! "It's a struggle that continues today-particularly with young black men, with queer/trans people, and folks speaking out against inequality.Hello! Sadness! is funny, but it also comes from a desire to confront all of this. It's a great honor to be able to present this material at the Kimmel Center, and to have been part of the Dael Orlandersmith 2014 Theater Residency, where this all began."

Hello! Sadness! is the second production the Kimmel Center has produced on stage in SEI Innovation Studio as a result of the 2014 Theater Residency. The Kimmel Center also produced Obie-Award winning playwright and actress Deb Margolin's 8 Stops, which made its world premiere in Philadelphia last spring, and more recently in March 2015 premiered in New York City at the Cherry Lane Theater to rave reviews from The New York Times, The Public Record, and NY Theater Review.

The 2015 Kimmel Center Theater Residency continues this season in partnership with New York City's renowned Joe's Pub at The Public, and will be held in SEI Innovation Studio from June 21-July 2 with scheduled public readings to take place July 1-2.

Tickets for Hello! Sadness! are available for $23 and can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at kimmelcenter.org, at the Kimmel Center box office at Broad & Spruce Streets (open daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.).

Kimmel Center's inaugural Theater Residency was made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Hearst Foundation and Linda & David Glickstein.

Mary Tuomanen is a Philadelphia-based theater artist who graduated from L'Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq in 2008. She creates and tours original work with her company, Applied Mechanics (Vainglorious 2013, We Are Bandits, 2014) as well as with theater artist Aaron Cromie (A Paper Garden 2011, Saint Joan, Betrayed 2013). She and Aaron received a two-year grant from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage to develop The Body Lautrec - a meditation on the art and maladies of painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, which was developed in residency at the O'Neill National Puppetry Conference premiered in Fringe 2014. As a performer, she has worked with Actor's Theatre of Louisville, the Arden Theatre, The Riot Group, People's Light and Theatre Company, New Paradise Laboratories, the American Philosophical Society and the Centre Pompidou. In September she will be playing the role of young Andy Warhol in Andy: A Popera (Bearded Ladies/Opera Philadelphia). In Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre's 2011 season Mary became the first woman to perform the role of Hamlet in Philadelphia since Charlotte Cushman, 150 years before.

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