APOSTROPHE is Now Playing at Whidbey Island Center For The Arts

 

Whidbey Island Center for the Arts presents the regional premiere of Los Angeles playwright Liza Powel O'Brien's Apostrophe. Developed at the 2020 Ojai Playwrights Conference, the play runs June 10-25, 2022 on the WICA Mainstage.

About Apostrophe

At a prominent private high school with a troubled past, a legendary drama teacher employs unorthodox and intimate methods with her star student; a reforming headmistress uses silence and erasure to protect the vulnerable; a father tries to protect a daughter; and two friends lurch bewildered through the unnamed spaces between girlhood and womanhood. Apostrophe asks: How do we protect ourselves from the people we love? What gets lost when we try?

"As the mother of a teenage daughter and a former teenager myself, my fascination with and love for people who could be called girls or young ladies or, perhaps, "future women" runs deep," says playwright Liza Powel O'Brien. "Adolescence is an exquisitely complicated time of development. Feelings and thoughts are as big as they'll ever be, and drama lurks everywhere."

"I wrote this play in 2020, before the shootings in Buffalo, Uvalde and Tulsa - before a highly visible and unjust war broke out in Ukraine. And before learning the news that a woman's sovereignty over her own body, nearly 50 years after finally being granted to her, has been reconsidered and, indeed, already revoked in portions of our country. All of which is to say: Life, for these young people, gets more complicated and intimidating every day. And yet - they are resilient. And hopeful. And joyous. Even now, when childhood is more fragile than ever and the future as uncertain as it could ever be, these brilliant creatures find a way to soldier on - often giggle while they do it."

About the Playwright & Director

Playwright Liza Powel O'Brien, a Seattle native, has developed and presented work at The Blank Theatre, Unscreened LA, Naked Angels LA, Ojai Playwrights Conference and Hedgebrook on Whidbey Island. She was a member of the Writers' Room at The Geffen Playhouse and the Echo Theater Playwrights Lab 2021, and holds an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University.

Vito Zingarelli directed WICA's production of Red in 2020. Prior to that, he directed The Understudy and love is a place: an E.E. Cummings cabaret. He shared his thoughts about Apostrophe: "Finding this story and having the opportunity to collaborate with a playwright-in-residence along with a talented care of theater artists to bring a new play to life has been a rewarding journey."

Apostrophe Fact Sheet

What: Whidbey Island Center for the Arts presents Liza Powel O'Brien's regional premiere Apostrophe, directed by Vito Zingarelli. W

When: June 10-25, 2022 (Opening Night: Friday, June 10 at 7:30 PM. The playwright will be in attendance). June 9 Preview is Pay What You Will at the door.

Where: Whidbey Island Center for the Arts is located at 565 Camano Avenue in Langley, Washington.

Schedule & Tickets: Available online and at the Box Office (360.221.8268).

 

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