Pulling together an incomparable cast and undeniably first rate local artistic team, The Seagull Project takes on one of the greatest works ever created for the stage with its meticulous production of "The Seagull." Presented through the Central Heating Lab at ACT – A Contemporary Theatre, rehearsed for 9 months, and directed by John Langs, The Seagull Project will bring Anton Chekhov’s masterpiece vividly to life.
Part slice-of-life tragedy, part ironic satire, "The Seagull" follows the lives of ten extraordinary, vivid characters on a provincial estate in pre-Revolutionary Russia. As romantic conflict and artistic paralysis intermingle on the shores of a magic lake; moments of passion, glimpses of tenderness, and strokes of brilliant humor emerge. Against this delicate tapestry, the play’s tensions build to a dazzling climax on a dark and stormy night, where a young actress and a young writer are re-united for the last time before a dramatic reckoning that at once fulfills and defies expectation.
The Seagull Project is an ensemble of veteran Seattle actors, including John Bogar, Peter Crook, Julie Briskman, Brandon J Simmons, Mark Jenkins, among others who are united by a love of Anton Chekhov's plays. With a desire to develop a creative process that honors the actor’s craft and the playwright’s vision, the ensemble has created a 9-month actor-driven workshop, in which they meet weekly to train and explore. The workshop includes physical work, led by Seattle native Tyler Polumsky, who trained and worked at Uzbekistan’s internationally renowned Ilkhom Theatre; and the expansive textual work of Mark Jenkins, Seattle’s pre-eminent expert on acting Chekhov. Through a slow, methodical approach to the text, the actors are able to achieve spontaneous, surprising, deeply complex, and nuanced performances that are all but impossible to create in a traditional three-week rehearsal process of a Chekhov play.
ACT Artistic Director Kurt Beattie has called Chekhov “one of the fountainheads of modernity,” and is excited to support The Seagull Project in bringing this magnificent play to ACT – A Contemporary Theatre.
With staging by the celebrated director John Langs, and designs by Robertson Witmer, Andrew D. Smith, Doris Black, and Jennifer Zeyl, this beautiful, delicate "Seagull" will unfold before audiences in a very limited run.
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Where: ACT, The Falls Theatre, 700 Union Street, Downtown Seattle
When: Previews January 23 & 24. Open January 25-February 10, 2012, Thursdays-Sundays
Tickets: Adults: Single tickets $35; Students: $15; Seniors: 25% off adult ticket. Available to ACTPass members.
(206) 292-7676 or www.acttheatre.org.
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