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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 5th, 2011
Contact: Osheen Jones
[email protected]
Columbia University School of the Arts,
Theatre Arts Program
Presents
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
Written by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Directed by JAMES RUTHERFORD
January 26–29, 2011
The Riverside Theatre
91 Claremont Avenue
Between 120th and 122nd Streets
$15 General Admission/$5 Seniors
FREE with Columbia University ID or any other valid student ID
Hermia and Lysander share a forbidden love, for which the law threatens their lives. They flee to the supposed safety of the forest, where they become the unsuspecting
victims of a pair of warring deities, all too eager to punish wandering mortals for their
own jealous mistakes. Exposed to this wild new divinity our plucky twentysomething lovers are transformed into single-minded maniacs, driven by passion and
wrath. Or, as Sondheim might put it: “Comedy Tonight.”
James Rutherford (MFA 2011) collaborates with experimental puppetry and
performance collective Piehole to question more romantic and lighthearted
interpretations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by highlighting the play’s sexual
violence. This production vigorously embraces the play’s negativity: Helena crawls
seductively towards Demetrius, cooing “spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me...”
Rutherford’s dreamland begins with the forceful rape of Hippolyta the Amazon
Queen and culminates with a fully realized puppet-show of Ovid’s Pyramus & Thisbe
(conceived and executed by Piehole, taking on the roles of the mechanicals). Not a
production for the faint hearted, this Dream brings out the brutal, dark, and vulgar
elements that lie beneath the surface.
James Rutherford (Director) will be receiving his MFA in Directing from Columbia
University this coming Spring. Recent projects include Goethe’s Faust, Chekhov’s Uncle
Vanya, Kafka’s A Letter To My Father, and the original piece E(a)rnest/Hemingway based on
the work of Hemingway and Wilde. James recently assisted Andrei Şerban on Love’s Labor’s
Lost and Three Sisters and has studied with Richard Foreman (Ontological/Hysteric)
and Włodzimierz Staniewski (Gardzienice). Up next is As You Like It at Classic Stage
Company, where James is an Associate Artist. Rutherford received his bachelor’s degree from
Brown University.
Piehole (Collaborator) is a Brooklyn-based collaborative theater group that draws from
puppetry, video, and physical theater. Their debut show, Tod & I, premiered at the Brick
Theater in 2008, with an extended run and praise from The Village Voice, followed by a
critically lauded show in the Philly Fringe. Also in 2008, Piehole member Tara
Ahmadinejad’s S.H.A.V.E.D. was selected as a “Best Bet” in the Philly Fringe by the City
Paper. Piehole went on to create Tenticle: A Canticle, a multimedia performance event
featuring a person-eating tent puppet, as part of Electric Pear’s Synesthesia 2009 at The Wild
Project in NYC. In Fall 2009, Piehole’s (The American Museum of) Love & Geography, an
interactive show based on an old Norwegian play and American roadside museums, wowed
audiences at HERE Arts Center and the Philly Fringe. Their recent work-in-progress show 2
Stories that End in Suicide performed at Zora Space in 2010, and is slated for a run at The
Brick Theater in March 2011. Piehole is excited to bring their unique aesthetic to James
Rutherford's take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Columbia Stages.
Tickets for events at The Riverside Theatre can be purchased online
(www.ColumbiaStages.org); by phone (212.870.6784); or by visiting the box office of The
Riverside Theatre. Box Office hours are Thursday-Saturday, 4-8pm; Sunday 12-4pm and 1
hour prior to all performances.
Performance Schedule: (all performances at The Riverside Theatre, 91 Claremont Avenue
between 120th and 122nd Sts.)
Wednesday, January 26th at 8pm
Thursday, January 27th at 8pm*
Friday, January 28th at 8pm
Saturday, January 29th at 2pm & 8pm
* On Thursday, January 27th there will be a Talk Back in Riverside Theatre with the director
and cast immediately following the performance. RSVP to [email protected].
Columbia Stages is the producing arm of the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre
Studies of Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Columbia Stages presents a season
of graduate actor and director productions as well as an annual festival of new plays by
emerging playwrights. The theatre program offers MFA degrees in acting, directing,
playwriting, dramaturgy, stage management, and theatre management and producing. The
goal of the program is to provide each student with the foundation for a career in
professional theatre as well as the tools to embrace an ever-changing theatrical landscape
and shape the future of the theatre.
For more information, visit www.ColumbiaStages.org