Playmakers 2008 - 2009 Season

Collage in 4 Dimensions devised by Lenoir-Rhyne Playmakers
An Original Work in the Spirit of Black Mountain College
“to stand on the stage, the actor needs to be the architect of time and space” – Ann Bogart Viewpoints

A multi-media performance work inspired by the visual and performance artists and innovators that taught at and emerged from Black Mountain College.  Josef and Anni Albers, Hazel Larson Archer, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Ray Johnson, Robert Motherwell, and Emerson Woelffer are a few of the artists upon whose lives and work the foundation of this piece rests.  The performance is also deeply encouraged by the creative collaborations of these artists, particularly the partnership of Merce Cunningham, John Cage, and Robert Raushenberg

The Gunslinger by Edward Dorn
A Spaghetti Western Reader’s Theatre
“altogether a brilliant and strange performance, with no true parallels in American poetry … the work of a brilliant, wildly original, very funny poet firing on all cylinders.” – The New York Times

A reader’s theatre performance of excerpts from Dorn’s wonderfully eccentric 1968 poem in the intimate setting of The Bear’s Lair as inspired by the Black Mountain College evening salons in their dining hall.

Chair Dance conceived by Ellen Pfirrmann
A Video Reframing Inspired by John Cage
“More pertinent to our daily experience is a theater in which we ourselves are in the round” – John Cage’s Living Theatre

How is it we know when art is art?  When a performance is a performance?  John Cage defined theatre simply as something seen and something heard in the presence of other people. This video project explores the unique and fluid nature of the performer-audience relationship.

September 25 - 27, 2008
See the Black Mountain College Celebration for Venues and Schedule of Events

The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
The Inspirational Story of Helen Keller
"Magnificent theatre." – The New York Daily Mirror

This stirring dramatization of the story of Helen Keller is one of the most successful and warmly admired plays of the modern stage. Deaf, blind and mute, no one knows what Helen's fate might have been had she not come under the tutelage of Annie Sullivan, a rough and spirited Northern girl of Irish descent who had been born blind. The emotional relationship between the lonely teacher and her blind charge is turbulent and highly emotional. Helen, trapped in her secret world, is little better than a violent, spoiled animal. Annie commits to free Helen and rescue the mind waiting in that dark, tortured silence in some of the most moving scenes ever presented on the stage.

Produced by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc.

PE Monroe Auditorium
November 12 – 15, 2008 at 7:30 PM
November 16, 2008 at 2:30 PM

Almost, Maine by John Cariani
A Valentine’s Dinner Theatre Treat
“A charmer…Unexpected magic lingers in the air like someone’s breath on a cold winter’s night. John Cariani aims for the heart by way of the funny bone.” – Star-Ledger

On a cold, clear, moonless night in the middle of winter, all is not quite what it seems in the remote, mythical town of Almost , Maine . As the northern lights hover in the star-filled sky above, Almost’s residents find themselves falling in and out of love in unexpected and often hilarious ways. Knees are bruised. Hearts are broken. But the bruises heal, and the hearts mend—almost—in this delightful midwinter night’s dream.

Produced by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

PE Monroe Auditorium
February 11 – 14, 2009 at 7:30 PM
February 15, 2009 at 2:30 PM

On the Verge, or the Geography of Yearning by Eric Overmyer
A Rollicking Expedition through Time
“A frolicsome jaunt through a continuum of space, time, history, geography, feminism and fashion, Mr Overmyer's cavalcade is on the verge of becoming a thoroughly serendipitous journey.” – The New York Times

Three lady explorers set out on an adventure that takes them to darkest Africa, highest Himalaya and Terra Incognita....
Three `sister sojourners', each a prototypical Victorian lady explorer, equipped with dialog as pithy as their helmets, thwack their machetes through the wilderness while telling tales of past jaunts among the natives. As intrepid trekkers, they put the lie to any charge that they are representatives of a weaker sex. A joyfully feminist play, a mirthful linguistic safari, and a delightful spin through time.

Produced by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing.

Belk Centrum
April 22 – 25, 2009 at 7:30 PM

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