Naomi Wallace's THE LIQUID PLAIN Premieres at OSF Tonight

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival will open the world premiere production of Naomi Wallace's The Liquid Plain tonight, July 6 at 8:00 p.m. in the Thomas Theatre. The play is directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah, artistic director at Center Stage in Baltimore, Maryland.

"Naomi has given us an astounding work," Artistic Director Bill Rauch said. "I passionately believe in this play and think it is one of the fiercest, most beautiful and most important pieces of new writing that OSF has ever produced. I am truly honored to have this group of amazing artists collaborating on this play."

As with all American Revolutions plays in production, the playwright has been in residence, participating in the rehearsal process and working on the script with Kwei-Armah, the cast and crew. The residency has brought an incalculable deepening and thoughtfulness to the creation of The Liquid Plain.

Wallace's story is set in the late 1700's in Bristol, Rhode Island-a state that played a dominant role in the international slave trade. On the docks of Bristol, two resourceful former slaves, Adjua and Dembi, are waiting for the captain and the vessel they have hired to return them to Africa. They haul a dead man out of the water, but as they remove his clothes to sell them, he returns to consciousness. What follows is a fiercely-told tale of individuals and cultures, irrevocably changed as a result of the slave trade. Wallace weaves a revelatory story born from the ruthless legacy of slavery-as Tony Kushner said of her work-"beautiful, harsh, moving, brilliant political poetry."

Director Kwei-Armah said of the play, "I am fascinated by the transatlantic slave trade: the complexities, the pain, the systems of wealth-generation juxtaposed against the mechanisms of dehumanization. From Liverpool Joe to the senator for Rhode Island, from the political and personal stories of those free and of those bound, from those building legacies to those trying to remember them, Naomi investigates all with poetic cunning. The play's depth is in its ability to make this story as exciting as anything set in that era I have read."

The cast of The Liquid Plain features June Carryl as Adjua, Kimberly Scott as Dembi, Danforth Comins as Cranston, Armando Durán as Balthazar and William, Kevin Kenerly as Liverpool Joe, Bakesta King as Bristol, Josiah Phillips as Nesbitt, Richard Elmore as Gifford, and Michael Winters as James De Woolf.

Scenic design is by Brenda Davis, costume design by Constanza Romero, lighting design by Christopher Akerlind, projection and video design by Alex Koch, associate projection and video design by Dave Tennent, and composition and music design by Victoria DeIorio. Julie Felise Dubiner is dramaturg; David Carey is voice and text director; and U. Jonathan Toppo is fight director. D. Christian Bolender is stage manager, assisted by Karl Alphonso.

Production Sponsors are Yogen and Peggy Dalal, The Goatie Foundation and The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Production Partners are Sid and Karen DeBoer, The Kinsman Foundation and Michael and Leslie Schroeder. This production of The Liquid Plain is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Liquid Plain received The Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award and the 2012 Horton Foote Prize.

The Liquid Plain will be produced at Center Stage in 2014 and run from April 16 through May 25.

The Liquid Plain was commissioned by American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle, OSF's 10-year program of commissioning up to 37 new plays about moments of change in United States history. The Cycle is funded in part by grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Development of The Liquid Plain was supported in part by a grant from The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

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