Leading Irish Dramatist Marina Carr Visits Pittsburgh to Celebrate Premiere of WOMAN AND SCARECROW

The Pittsburgh premiere of Marina Carr's Woman and Scarecrow is even more noteworthy since the acclaimed playwright is coming to Pittsburgh for the production. Artistic and Executive Director Alan Stanford extended an invitation to Marina to participate in the final week of rehearsal and the show's opening.

"We're fortunate that a playwright of Marina's caliber is able to join us. It is akin to having Beckett with us as we staged Waiting for Godot or Wilde with us as we rehearsed Lady Windermere's Fan - a thrill, a terror, and an honor all at once."

Marina answered, "I'm hugely excited to come to Pittsburgh. I've never been. Also, I'm thrilled to be working with Alan Stanford, a great theatre artist whom I have admired for years. I'm also curious to have a look at your city."

While in Pittsburgh, Marina will be working with Alan and the cast of four: Nike Doukas as Woman, Karen Baum as Scarecrow, Sharon Brady as Auntie Ah, and James FitzGerald as Him. The play focuses on a very particular moment in time - "a sacred moment" as Marina has called it, as a woman tries to reconcile herself to death before her time. Woman-a mother of eight children and wife to a philandering husband-is conversing with her companion, Scarecrow, whom only she can see. She considers all that might have been and all that will go on without her. The once-benign wardrobe in her bedroom takes on a menacing role, as Scarecrow battles what lurks inside to buy Woman just a little more time.

Marina will be celebrated at a dinner on Thursday, July 10 to be held at the Pittsburgh Athletic Association (PAA) on Fifth Avenue in Oakland. Limited seats are still available and can be reserved by calling PICT's office or via the PICT website. Marina will attend the opening night performance on July 12 and the reception that follows. She will participate in the "talkback" with the cast and director that follows the July 13 matinee performance (approximately 4:15pm). And as a farewell to Pittsburgh, Marina will conduct a free reading on the evening of July 13 at 7pm in the Henry Heymann Theatre. Included in her reading will be selections from Marble, By the Bog of Cats, The Cordelia Dream, and 16 Possible Glimpses.

Marina Carr won the Susan Blackburn Smith Prize in 1996-7 for her play Portia Coughlin (which PICT produced in 2001, its Pittsburgh premiere). This award is given annually to recognize women who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre. Marina also won the E. M. Forster Award, which provides a $20,000 prize for a young English writer to stay in the United States. Her other plays include Marble, Ullaloo, The Jai, By the Bog of Cats, Ariel, Meat and Salt, On Raftery's Hill, Low in the Dark, The Cordelia Dream, and The Giant Blue Hand. She is a member of Aosdána, and has been Writer-in-Residence at the Abbey Theatre and Trinity College, Heimbold Professor at Villanova University, and the Class of 1932 Fellow at Princeton for 2008.

More info can be found here: http://picttheatre.org/.

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