The Hotel Vanya, or A Metaphysical-Paradigm At The End of Everythingness

The Hotel Vanya, or A Metaphysical-Paradigm At The End of Everythingness
by Natalie George Productions

May. 26 - Jun. 05, 2016
Thursdays-Sundays

(via CTXLT)

The Hotel Vanya, or A Metaphysical-Paradigm At The End of Everythingness, loosely based on Chekov's Uncle Vanya, is set in a fun park world where we meet characters of a once beautiful hotel now set for demolition. In the last days of the hotel, the occupants vie for last chances at love, lust, and compete against reality by dressing as Jackie-O, swallowing corndogs, face glass eyed mermaids, all while confronting Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Alzheimer's, gentrification, suicide, marriage, homosexuality, and abortion. The creative team has been developing this script since fall of 2013, integrating literary research, workshops, table work, retreats, and public staged readings at site-specific locations like Madroño Ranch, and The Off Center in Austin, Texas.

NOTE: because of the site-specifc location seating is limited. Tickets are on sale now.

May 26th-June 5th, 2016
Thursdays-Sundays @ 8:00pm – 110 minutes

Tickets $15 – 45, sliding scale. Purchase online: nataliegeorgeproductions.com

Location: Secret Location revealed on our ticketing website as request of the site owner.

Cast:
Jeff Mills
Gricelda Silva
Robert Pierson
Noel Gaulin
Zac Carr
Katy Taylor

Producer: Natalie George
Director: Dallas Tate
Stage Manger: Dani L. Pruitt
Assistant Stage Manger: Marci Spamer
Media: Chris Owen
Costumes: Glenda L. Wolfe
Sound: Robert Fisher
Just a guy, you know?: Timothy Braun

The project is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division.

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Austin-based producer, designer, and artist Natalie George teams with nationally renowned playwright Timothy Braun, director Dallas Tate, and actors Jeff Mills and Gricelda Silva to create a new play entitled The Hotel Vanya, or A Metaphysical-Paradigm At The End of Everythingness. The group has been developing the script since fall of 2013, integrating literary research, workshops, table work, retreats, and public staged readings in site-specific locations, a buffalo ranch, and the Off-Center in Austin, Texas.

Braun loosely adapts Chekov's Uncle Vanya, set in a slightly left of reality Coney Island. The characters we meet are residents and staff of The Hotel Vanya, a once beautiful and prized destination that is now set for demolition in a few days. The audience witnesses the last days of the Hotel, as the occupants vie for last chances at love, second chances at lust, and compete against our own comprehension of reality. Tim Braun has crafted a story that keeps the audience focused and aware of the very human characters, yet unprepared for what comes next in the turbulent and fantastical world of the play. While nowhere near the forefront of the piece, themes surrounding Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Alzheimer's disease, gentrification, suicide, marriage, homosexuality, and abortion are infused into the narrative and rest in the back of the audience's mind throughout the experience.

Braun's work has been described as American Baroque by the PEN American Center for advanced literature. He starting with an organic, character based world and slowly weaving various sounds, colors, and images into the text to create complex settings that are at once fantastic, and over imagined. With this, the work is designed to invite and inspire collaboration, to be accessible to other artists to bring their own vision and ideas, and for the work to be produced in alleyways and concert halls, subway cars and studios, church basements and barns. They are amenable and intended for a contemporaneous audience.

Feature by Jeanne-Claire van Ryzin in the Austin Statesman, May 25, 2016

(via Timothy Braun)