PRESS CONTACT: Peggy Kearns Dean
t: 571.216.5136 | e: ScenaMedia@gmail.com
Scena Theatre presents a series of short plays in Rep. by two theatre giants and Nobel Laureates of the 20th Century—Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter.
Washington, DC, March 14, 2019 — The Directors of Scena Theatre are thrilled to continue their 32nd Season in DC with Beckett Trio, Part 2 and Pinter Rep—a dueling series of short plays by Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter featuring a talented cast of Scena patron favorites. Both productions will be performed in repertory on alternate nights from April 8 through May 5 and both are directed by Scena’s Artistic Director Robert McNamara.
Press Night / Opening of Pinter Rep is Monday, April 8, 2019, 8:00 pm, at the ATLAS Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE, DC. Members of the DC-area Press are asked to please RSVP to ScenaMedia@gmail.com to reserve your seat—or another performance through May 5.
Press / Opening of Beckett Trio, Part 2 is Thursday, April 11, 8:00 pm, also at the ATLAS. Members of the DC-area Press are asked to please RSVP to ScenaMedia@gmail.com to reserve your seat—or another performance soon thereafter.
Beckett Trio, Part 2 features three classics by Samuel Beckett, one of Ireland's greatest writers ever: Ohio Impromptu, Come and Go, and Catastrophe. Beckett is the architect of absurdism, and his brazen form of black comedy comes alive and thrives as we explore his various themes of resistance against authority. In Ohio Impromptu, we savor the poetic retelling of a lost love and a dream of death by the elusive Mr. Warrilow. Come and Go is deemed one of Beckett’s most perfect plays with tight, crips dialogue that reveals longtime secrets between three longtime friends that date back to childhood. And, in Catastrophe, we see Beckett’s resolute opposition to tyranny as a menacing autocratic director and his eager assistant sacrifice a helpless protagonist to the State.
Pinter Rep features four potent short plays One for the Road, Mountain Language, The New World Order, and Pinter’s final play, The Pres and an Officer (US PREMIERE). One for the Road is an enthralling piece where a fascist interrogator torments a prisoner, his wife and child. In Mountain Language, words are used as weapons by an occupying force in order to kill subjects—yet the oppressed are forbidden to speak the Language. In The New World Order, two state officials routinely torture a bound and gagged prisoner to cleanse the world for democracy. Finally, The Pres and an Officer is Pinter's final play that was recently discovered on a yellow pad Pinter used for writing, and it explores the powers of the Presidency. Political, at times, Pinter and director McNamara will provoke your brain and stoke your emotions by portraying power and terror—and its consequences.
McNamara is eager to show patrons these classics featuring a large, talented cast. He has 40 years of experience directing European dramas and is thrilled to bring two masters of modern drama back to DC. “Beckett and Pinter are among my favorite playwrights as their work is rich with subtext and complex relationships. Interestingly, Pinter used to send his scripts to Beckett for his review and insight.” McNamara once directed Beckett’s first play, Eleutheria as well as an innovative run of his Radio Plays. Then, the highly-acclaimed Beckett "Festival of Plays” was staged in collaboration with the internationally renowned San Quentin Drama Workshop in 1990—and again in 1999 featuring 13 of Beckett's greatest plays. McNamara previously directed the Pinter Rep at Scena in 1994 and 2006.
Previews
(Pinter Rep): $15 Fri., April 5 (8:00 pm); $15 on Sat., April 6 (8:00 pm): and $15 on Sun., April 7 (3:00 pm)
Previews
(Beckett Trio): $15 Sat April 6 (3:00 pm); $15 Sun April 7 (7:00 pm)
Shows Monday, April 8 – Sunday, May 5, 2019
(Mon.–Fri. 8:00 pm | Sat. 3:00 & 8:00 pm | Sun. 3:00 & 7:00 pm)
Details Please visit ticket links below for exact performance days/times of each play.
Tickets $15 - $45 – Adults: $35 (Thurs & Sun); and $45 (Fri & Sat)
Under 30 & Seniors w/ ID: $25 (Thurs & Sun); and $35 on Fri & Sat.
Beckett Trio, Part 2: Tickets: (OR) call 202.399.7993 x2.
Pinter Rep: Tickets: (OR) call 202.399.7993 x2.
Industry
Night Pinter Monday, April 22 (8:00 pm): $15 Tickets for theatre / entertainment pros with ID / credentials
Industry
Night Beckett Monday, April 29 (8:00 pm): $15 Tickets for theatre / entertainment pros with ID / credentials
Venue ATLAS Performing Arts Center (Lab II) 1333 H Street NE, Washington, DC 20002
Press Email: ScenaMedia@gmail.com | Phone: 571-216-5136
Photos ScenaTheatre.org (click on Press on the Left sidebar upon show Openings
Actors
Beckett Trio,
Part 2 Buck O'Leary, Kim Curtis, Jen Bevarelli, Ellie Nicoll, Lewsha Simboura, and John Healy
Pinter Rep Christopher Henley, Irina Koval, Karin Rosnizeck, Robert Sheire, Mikey Bevarelli, Greg Ongao, Lewsha Simboura, David Johnson, and Cecilia Smith
Designers Robert McNamara (Director), Anne Nottage (Asst. Director), Mavonte Johnson (Stage Manager), Set Designer: John D. Antone, Costume Designer: Mei Chen, Lighting Designer: John Alexander, Sound Designer: Denise Rose, and Fight Director: Paul Gallagher.
Samuel Beckett, Playwright (1906–1989) was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, poet, and stage director who is widely considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th Century. He lived in France for most of his adult life, and wrote in both English and French. His prose offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy. He was strongly influenced by the great Irish writer James Joyce. Beckett is considered one of the last modernists, and one of the first post-modernists. He is most famous for his absurdist play, Waiting for Godot. Born near Dublin, Ireland on Good Friday, he earned a degree at the prestigious Trinity College Dublin, then went abroad and settled in Paris in 1937. Beckett generally wrote in French and then often translated his work into an eloquent, Irish-tinged English. He is one of the key writers in the “Theatre of the Absurd” movement. In 1969, Samuel Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his “new forms for the novel and drama”.
Harold Pinter, Playwright (1930-2008) enjoyed a dynamic, 50-year career as a playwright, director, actor and screenwriter for TV and film. His first love was acting, and he enjoyed performing in his own films—and, at times, in those written by others. He is regarded by many scholars as the most influential English playwright of the 20th Century. His distinctive writing style inspired the epithet “Pinteresque” to describe language expressing a mysterious scenario brimming with underlying menace. Pinter is famous for using unique repetitions, his dialogue is often funny as well as menacing, and his penned silences (The Pinter Pause) speak as loudly as words. He wrote 29 plays, including hits like The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter, The Caretaker, The Collection, No Man’s Land, and Other Places. He wrote the screenplay versions of his plays and others’—many of which are deemed as classics. His films include Sleuth, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, The Servant, The Comfort of Strangers, and Accident. Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, three years before his death from cancer.
CAST LIST FOR PINTER REP:
One for the Road
Nicolas Chrstopher Henley
Victor Robert Sheire
Nikky Cecilia Smith
Gila Irina Koval
Mountain Language
Young Woman Irina Koval
Ederly Woman Karin Rosnizeck
Sergean Christopher Henley
Officer Robert Sheire
Guard David Johnson
Prisoner Mikey Bevarelli
Hooded Man Mikey Bevarelli
Second Guard Greg Ongao
The New World Order
Des Robert Sheire
Lionel Greg Ongao
Blindfolded Man Christopher Henley
The Pres and an Officer (US Premiere)
The Pres Robert McNamara
An Officer Christopher Henley
SCENA Theatre brings the best international theatre to Washington, DC and stimulates cultural exchange between theatre artists, locally and worldwide. Founded in 1987 under the leadership of Artistic Director Robert McNamara and Managing Director Amy Schmidt, SCENA produces an annual season of plays, seasonally staged readings, as well as a Workshop Series aimed at developing new works from around the globe. To learn more about our mission or past stage productions, please visit ScenaTheatre.org (click on About oin the left menu).
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