Sandglass Theater Opens Voices of Community Series, 5/6-8

Sandglass Theater's Voices of Community Series opens May 6-8 with the highly anticipated return of Lyena Strelkoff. An acclaimed actress and dancer from Los Angeles, CA, Lyena, who performs in her wheelchair, is one of the countries foremost spokespeople for those with disabilities. Lyena will begin her two-week stay in Vermont at Sandglass Theater with three empowering performances of her acclaimed solo, Caterpillar Soup, a searing, honest, irreverently funny, and irresistibly uplifting play about her two years after a life-changing spinal chord injury. Friday and Saturday, May 6 and 7 at 8pm, and Sunday, May 8 at 3pm. Tickets are $15 general and $12 for students and seniors.

With humor, hope, candor and courage, Caterpillar Soup offers an evening of story, revealing the transformational power of loss and celebrating life in all its messiness. Within the context of spinal cord injury, Caterpillar Soup is a story of destiny and a powerful love unshaken by tragedy. Written and performed by Lyena Strelkoff, Caterpillar Soup reveals her two-year odyssey in search of wholeness after being paralyzed, and the ultimate triumph of her spirit. More than entertainment, Caterpillar Soup is nourishment... for the mind, heart and soul.

This year, Sandglass Theater received a Community Fund Grant from the National Performance Network to bring Lyena back. The goal is to continue the conversations that began to emerge two years ago as people spontaneously explored together the turns in their own life stories-loss, transformation, healing, and thriving in circumstances outside their control-- that were sparked by hers. Lyena and Dean Purvis (her husband and collaborator) will work in the community for two weeks collecting stories from groups of people who chose to come together to share. The small group gatherings will be facilitated by someone from within each group who has been trained in advance. Lyena and Dean will participate in the story circles by sharing parts of their own stories. They will gather themes and images that they hear from others. At the end of the two weeks they will present what they have learned with the community in a "sharing performance" on May 21st, which will evolve as the process unfolds.

Voices of Community: A Performance series on Diversity, now in its 7th year, is presented by Sandglass Theater. Through performances and workshops, the series serves to create a sustained dialog between nationally acclaimed artists and our local community members about issues of diversity and identity. The series is made possible by funding from The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Performance Network.

The theater has limited wheel-chair seating, please call in advance to reserve those seats.

For more info on the dialogue or the performances, and to make reservations please contact Sandglass Theater at (802) 387-4051 or info@sandglasstheater.org.

 

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