Seattle Performs - Playing French Seattle, Steeplechase Productions

Short description

Two contemporary French plays, performed in French with English supertitles, will be staged at the Ethnic Cultural Theatre (3940 Brooklyn Ave, NE, Seattle, 98105) Thursday, November 8th through Sunday, November 11th .

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Tickets

Price range: $5 - $18
Seniors: $12
TPS: $12

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Last viewed on October 15, 2008, 7:27 pm
It was last updated on October 17, 2007, 6:20 pm
It was originally posted: 2007-10-17 20:45:35
By Steeplechase Productions

DESCRIPTION

This is the first of an anticipated annual festival of French plays being produced by Steeplechase Productions, in conjunction with Playing French Seattle, a Registered Student Organization of the University of Washington. The event is co-sponsored by the Alliance Française de Seattle, the University of Washington’s Department of French and Italian Studies and Office of Minority Affairs and is funded in part by a grant from 4Culture.

Although written independently by different playwrights, directors Margaretta Lantz and Tom Ansart are collaborating to link the plays, sharing an ensemble cast:

Philipp Aurand, Kate Blizinsky, Megan Cooper, Elizabeth Dorn, André Golard, Gin Hammond*,Azra Iskakovic, David Klein* , Eleanor Moseley* , Kris Murray, Robert Reidl.

*Member Actors Equity Association

“Nous Etions Assis sur le Rivage du Monde” (“We were sitting on the edge of the World”) by José Pliya
A woman returns to a beach of her childhood and encounters a man who claims it is now a private place. Her two friends arrive and try to explain that the rules of the game have changed. The conflict builds to explosion. Is it possible for man and woman, people of different races to communicate, understand one another?

“L’atelier d’écriture” (The Creative Writing Workshop) by Césare Orioli
An incompetent professor organizes a writing workshop on three successive weekends. Students resist his imposed constraints, desiring debate and criticism, and rebel. The professor collapses under the challenge; does the workshop ultimately succeed?

“’Latelier d’écriture’ is a comedy about a creative writing workshop where students read pieces they have written and offer critiques. One of the students fantasizes about a scene on a beach. We are suggesting that “Nous Etions Assis sur le Rivage du Monde” is the work of Audrey, a student in the class who then plays the role of la femme in the second play” explains Ansart. “So Eleanor Moseley is playing the role of a woman who is a character in a play written by the character she plays in the first play, all in French. It’s a typical French fringe production.” Ansart and Kris Murray, President of Playing French Seattle have recently returned from a study abroad program through the University of Washington where they met playwright Cesare Orioli in Paris. “Cesare visited our class on three successive weekends while we took turns writing and reading pieces we had written,” says Murray. “Life imitates art and vice versa. Pourquoi? Pourquoi pas?”

Tom Ansart, Steeplechase Productions/Playing French Seattle
(206) 935-8261

Steeplechase Productions