[NEohioPAL] BUG by Tracy Letts at Oberlin College, directed by Peter Weiss, '10

[Rebecca Balmer]

AWARD-WINNING PLAYWRIGHT
TRACY LETTS'
BUG
IN OBERLIN COLLEGE'S LITTLE THEATER
SEPTEMBER 25 - 28, 2008

OBERLIN, OH—Pulitzer and Tony Award-Winning playwright Tracy Letts' Bug will
explode on to the Little Theater stage at Oberlin College in a multi-media
production directed by Peter Weiss, '10 that kicks off the season of
student-directed shows. Hiding out from her abusive ex-husband in a seedy
motel room, Agnes falls hard for strange, sweet Gulf War veteran Peter.
Lonely, vulnerable and haunted by the past, the two bond through alcohol and
drug use, but more significantly through the plague of tiny insects that
begins to infest their makeshift home on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. At
the pace of a thriller, Bug explores the contagiousness of both love and
paranoia as Agnes and Peter descend into a shared obsession with the tiny
creatures. A collaboration between students of theater, visual art, music
technology and video media, this bold interpretation promises to be
fantastically loud, unsubtle, and exciting.

Bug will be performed at Oberlin College's Little Theater Thursday, Friday
and Saturday, September 25, 26, and 27 at 8 pm, with matinee performances at
2 pm Saturday and Sunday, September 27 and 28. Seating in Little Theater is
limited and there is no late seating. This production is sponsored by the
Oberlin College Theater and Dance program.

Production Notes
    "Theater is the last place for sensitive people," believes Weiss, whose
interpretation for Bug is full of horrific media and special effects that
will attack the senses of the audience, creating an experience more akin to
a "hip-hop or death metal performance" than that of a traditional play.
Weiss rejects the ideas that theater is "this effete event, like a delicate
flower we put onstage," and sees Bug as changing the way theater is viewed
on campus, attracting students and community members who might not normally
attend a Little Theater show. "I want people to stop and pay attention," he
says. "Bug is like the music you blast out of your car when you want people
to notice, but for theater."

The production is a collaboration with conservatory students Alexander
Overington, '10 (Video Design), Meade Bernard, '11, (Sound Design), and Noah
Simon, '11, (Art Direction). College junior Alani Gaunt is in charge of
makeup and special effects. In demonstrating how his team's unique skills
and talents can be applied to Bug, Weiss aims to bring a typical
theater-going audience's awareness to how different media can be applied to
theater, while drawing attention to resources on campus like the
Conservatory of Music.

Letts' script is tightly constructed, beginning, Weiss says "with a tenuous
grip on reality, and develops into a crescendo, musically." The original
music, sound and video design emphasize the spiral into chaos that becomes
Agnes and Peter's world. The striking intimacy of Little Theater allows for
staging that places the actors almost uncomfortably close to the audience.
The cast features seniors Annika Franklin as Agnes and Alex Huntsberger as
Jerry Goss, junior Amelia Fortunato (R.C.), and sophomores Moze Halperin
(Peter) and Josh Silver (Dr. Sweet). The strength of the cast is crucial to
the interpretation. Franklin's technical skills and experience are ideal for
Agnes, a role that Weiss describes as "traditional," but whose response in
extreme circumstances demonstrates enormous strength and will to survive.
Weiss chose Halperin to embody Peter, who Weiss conceives of as "less of a
person than an incredible physical force"—because of his extensive
background in physical theater.

Weiss says he dislikes the terms "avant-garde and experimental because they
allow for the possibility of failure. Something either works, or it
doesn't." Instead he emphasizes the act of taking a risk, which he admits
happens all too rarely in student theater at Oberlin. "Just do your best to
make sure your risk is awesome!" he urges. "Don't think of it as an
experiment, just get it done.

"At the very least," Weiss maintains, "Bug will be a glorious, bloody mess,
and that's something nobody has seen at Oberlin in a really long time."

Cast
The cast of Oberlin College students features Annika Franklin, '09 (Agnes),
Moze Halperin, '11 (Peter), Alex Huntsberger, '09 (Jerry Goss), Amelia
Fortunato, '10 (R.C.) and Josh Silver, '11 (Dr. Sweet).

Production Team
In addition to director Peter Weiss, the production team for Bug includes
Alexander Overington, '10 (Video Design), Meade Bernard, '11 (Sound Design),
Noah Simon (Art Direction and Poster Design), Alani Gaunt, '10 (Special
Effects Makeup), Meg Lindsey (Stage Manager), Amir Weg (Technical Director),
Hope Rehak '11 (Assistant Stage Manager), Nick Wirtz '09 (Charge Artist),
Rachel Lambert '09 and Robin Gent '09 (Painters), Barbara Kessler (Box
Office), Rebecca Balmer and Alex Birnie (Publicity).

Peter Weiss (Director), is a college junior from New York. This is the first
show he has directed at Oberlin. Previous T&D acting credits include Eight
at Eight: First-Year Showcase 2006, and the productions of Travesties and
Art in '07 and '08, respectively.

Tracy Letts (Playwright), originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the author of
Killer Joe, Bug and Man From Nebraska, for which he was named a finalist for
the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize
for Drama and the 2008 Tony Award for Best Play for August: Osage County. As
an actor he has appeared in numerous stage and film productions, and has
been a member of the Steppenwolf Theater Company since 2002 which premiered
both Man From Nebraska and August: Osage County.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.neohiopal.org/pipermail/neohiopal-neohiopal.org/attachments/20080915/f0381c51/attachment-0003.htm>