Columbia University Hosts A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, 1/26-1/29

Columbia University, School of the Arts, Theatre Arts Program invites you to attend William Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM directed by JAMES RUTHERFORD. James Rutherford (MFA 2011) collaborates with experimental puppetry and performance collective Piehole to question more romantic and lighthearted interpretations of A Midsummer Night's Dream by highlighting the play's sexual violence. Rutherford's dreamland begins with the forceful rape of Hippolyta the Amazon Queen and culminates with a fully realized puppet-show of Ovid's Pyramus & Thisbe (conceived and executed by Piehole, taking on the roles of the mechanicals). Not a production for the faint hearted, this Dream brings out the brutal, dark, and vulgar elements that lie beneath the surface.

Reserve tickets through email: pr@columbiastages.org

Performance Schedule:

(all performances at The RiversideTheatre, 91 Claremont Avenue between 120th and 122nd Sts.)

Wednesday, January 26th at 8pm
Thursday, January 27th at 8pm*
Friday, January 28th at 8pm
Saturday, January 29th at 2pm & 8pm

* On Thursday, January 27th there will be a Talk Back in Riverside Theatre with the director and cast immediately following the performance. RSVP to theatretalks@columbia.edu

James Rutherford (Director) will be receiving his MFA in Directing from Columbia University this coming Spring. Recent projects include Goethe's Faust, Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Kafka's A Letter To My Father, and the original piece E(a)rnest/Hemingway based on the work of Hemingway and Wilde. James recently assisted Andrei ?erban on Love's Labor's Lost and Three Sisters and has studied with Richard Foreman (Ontological/Hysteric) and W?odzimierz Staniewski (Gardzienice). Up next is As You Like It at Classic Stage Company, where James is an Associate Artist. Rutherford received his bachelor's degree from Brown University.

Piehole (Collaborator) is a Brooklyn-based collaborative theater group that draws from puppetry, video, and physical theater. Their debut show, Tod & I, premiered at the Brick Theater in 2008, with an extended run and praise from The Village Voice, followed by a critically lauded show in the Philly Fringe. Also in 2008, Piehole member Tara Ahmadinejad's S.H.A.V.E.D. was selected as a "Best Bet" in the Philly Fringe by the City Paper. Piehole went on to create Tenticle: A Canticle, a multimedia performance event featuring a person-eating tent puppet, as part of Electric Pear's Synesthesia 2009 at The Wild Project in NYC. In Fall 2009, Piehole's (The American Museum of) Love & Geography, an interactive show based on an old Norwegian play and American roadside museums, wowed audiences at HERE Arts Center and the Philly Fringe. Their recent work-in-progress show 2 Stories that End in Suicide performed at Zora Space in 2010, and is slated for a run at The Brick Theater in March 2011. Piehole is excited to bring their unique aesthetic to James Rutherford's take on A Midsummer Night's Dream at Columbia Stages.

Columbia Stages is the producing arm of the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies of Columbia University's School of the Arts. Columbia Stages presents a season of graduate actor and director productions as well as an annual festival of new plays by emerging playwrights. The theatre program offers MFA degrees in acting, directing, playwriting, dramaturgy, stage management, and theatre management and producing. The goal of the program is to provide each student with the foundation for a career in professional theatre as well as the tools to embrace an ever-changing theatrical landscape and shape the future of the theatre.

For more information, visit www.ColumbiaStages.org.