University of Washington School of Drama Explores Sex and Gender in Sarah Ruhl and Virginia Woolf's ORLANDO

The University of Washington School of Drama will present Sarah Ruhl's adaptation of Orlando by Virginia Woolf, directed by School of Drama Professor and CIVIC REP Artistic Director L. Zane Jones. The production runs April 28th - May 7th at the historic Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theatre on the University of Washington campus.

Orlando, the fifth show in the School of Drama's 2016-2017 mainstage season, explores sex, love, and identity in a story that spans centuries. Orlando is a handsome, young English nobleman favored by queens and princesses. The poem he's trying to write isn't going well; otherwise, he's having a very nice life. When he consorts with a gypsy, however, things take a strange turn: he awakens from a seven-day sleep transformed into a woman...and an immortal.

Virginia Woolf's Orlando is one of literature's most beloved fantasies-a love letter, a biography, and an epic poem that Woolf called, "too long to be a joke and too frivolous to be taken seriously." Sarah's Ruhl's dreAmy Adaptation is a fun, sexy, gender-bending romp through 300 years of literary history.

Orlando features vibrant music, moments of improvisation, physical exploration and performances, and an ensemble of undergraduate actors. Director Jones says, "I am looking to present this play with inspiration found in the styles that each of the two writers present. It is a dream, a romp, a carnival, and a fantasy. The story evokes a playful and profound feeling that comes from the representation of these two writer's distinct voices."

Orlando
Adapted by Sarah Ruhl from the novel by Virginia Woolf
Directed by L. Zane Jones

Preview Performances: Tuesday April 25 & Thursday April 27, 7:30 PM
Opening Night: Friday, April 28, 7:30 PM
To request press comps, please contact Holly Arsenault at hollypla@uw.edu or 206.221.6797
Regular Performance Dates:
Saturday, April 29, 7:30 PM
Sunday, April 30, 2:00 PM + pre-show lobby talk with Prof. Stefka Mihaylova, PhD @ 1:00 PM
Wednesday, May 3, 7:30 PM
Thursday, May 4, 7:30 PM
Friday, May 5, 7:30 PM
Saturday, May 6, 7:30 PM
Sunday, May 7, 2:00 PM

Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theatre

NE 45th St & 17th Ave NE, University of Washington Seattle campus
Link to map and directions: https://drama.washington.edu/facilities/glenn-hughes-penthouse-theatre

Tickets:
General Admission: $18 in advance, $20 at the door
Student/Senior/UW: $12 in advance, $14 at the door
TeenTix: $5 at the door (sign up at teentix.org)
Ticket link: https://drama.washington.edu/events/2017-04-25/orlando

Cast (School of Drama BA Students)
Orlando Annie Willis
Sasha Gabi Boettner
Ensemble Daphne Sage Gomez, Wyatt Hazel, Katrin Hosseini, Alyssa Karounos,
Hannah Probst, Logan Wahl, NIna Williams-Termachi, Weijing Zhou

Creative Team
Scenic Designer Matthew Webb, MFA Lighting Design
Costume Designer Meleta Buckstaff, MFA Costume Design
Lighting Designer Kenrick Fischer, MFA Lighting Design

MORE ABOUT L. ZANE JONES
Master acting teacher and director L. Zane Jones serves as Artistic Director for CIVIC REP, a creative collective committed to working with classic texts and new work for the stage. CIVIC REP has produced three shows: A Streetcar Named Desire and The Two-Character Play, at New City Theater (now 18th & Union), and a lauded production of Caroline Bird's adaptation of The Trojan Women this past January at The Slate Theatre. All three were directed by Jones. She studied directing and feminist theory at the University of Southern California, earning her MFA in Directing there before joining the performance faculty, on which she served from 1994 - 2012. Zane's theatre career began in Chicago, where she earned a BFA in Acting at the conservatory formerly known as the Goodman School of Drama (now called the Theatre School at DePaul University). She has worked extensively as an actor in theatre, film, and television for over 30 years, and has directed over 30 productions at USC and in Los Angeles and Seattle. Zane was Co-Founder and Artistic Director of WORKSHOP 360, a theatre company based in Venice, California, where she directed, produced, and acted in Caryl Churchill's Vinegar Tom, Euripides' Hecuba, Karen Hartman's Gum and The Mother of Modern Censorship, Brighde Mullins' Fire Eater and the West Coast Premiere of Betty's Summer Vacation by Christopher Durang.

MORE ABOUT VIRGINIA WOOLF
Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English writer and one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influentiAl Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929), with its dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

MORE ABOUT Sarah Ruhl
Sarah Ruhl's plays include Stage Kiss, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (Pulitzer Prize finalist, Tony Award nominee for best new play), The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize Finalist, 2005; The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2004), Passion Play (Pen American award, The Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center), Dead Man's Cell Phone (Helen Hayes award), Melancholy Play (a musical with Todd Almond), Eurydice, Orlando, Demeter in the City (NAACP nomination), Late: a cowboy song, Three Sisters, Dear Elizabeth, and most recently, The Oldest Boy and For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday. Her plays have been produced on Broadway at the Lyceum by Lincoln Center Theater, off-Broadway at Playwrights' Horizons, Second Stage, and Lincoln Center's Mitzi Newhouse Theater. Her plays have been produced regionally all over the country, with premieres often at Yale Repertory Theater, the Goodman Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theater, and the Piven Theatre Workshop in Chicago. Her plays have also been produced internationally and have been translated into over twelve languages.

Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her MFA from Brown University, where she studied with Paula Vogel. An alum of 13P and New Dramatists, she won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2006. She was the recipient of the PEN Center Award for a mid-career playwright, the Whiting Writers award, the Feminist Press' Forty under Forty award, and a Lilly Award. She proudly served on the executive council of the Dramatists Guild for three years, and she is currently on the faculty at Yale School of Drama. Her book of essays on the theater and motherhood, 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write, was a Times Notable book of the year.

ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF DRAMA
The UW School of Drama develops innovative and courageous artists and scholars poised to be the creative leaders oftomorrow.

For 75 years it has served as one of this country's leading training institutions for theatre artists and scholars. The School of Drama offers MFA degrees in acting, design, and directing, a four-year undergraduate liberal arts education in Drama, and a PhD in theatre history and criticism. Faculty and alumni have founded theatres such as ACT Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Empty Space Theatre, Jet City Improv, and more recently, the Washington Ensemble Theatre, Azeotrope, and The Horse in Motion. The School of Drama is a laboratory for leading-edge performance research, attracting internationally renowned guest artists like Anne Washburn, Chay Yew, Whit MacLaughlin, and PearlDamour, offering students the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from masters in their field and forge critical connections to the world of professional theatre.

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