The Brooklyn-based theatre company, Woodshed Collective, will present the premiere of Caridad Svich's Twelve Ophelias, directed by Teddy Bergman, as a free event at McCarren Park Pool, one of the city's best-loved concert and performance venues, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, beginning performances Friday, July 11, at 8pm and opening Thursday, July 24 at 8pm. The McCarren Park Pool is located on Lorimer Street at Bayard Street.
Twelve Ophelias centers on Hamlet's Ophelia coming back to life, out of the water, to try to overcome her history and forge a new destiny for herself. She finds herself in an Appalachian Elsinore, Denmark by way of Deliverance—where Gertrude runs a brothel, Hamlet and Horatio slum it, and nothing is what it seems. In this squarely American and gritty interpretation of the Hamlet myth, Twelve Ophelias asks how it is possible to break old cycles and start afresh when the past so completely permeates your life.
The production follows on the heels of the Public Theater's presentation of Hamlet in Central Park, creating an inter-borough dialogue—Hamlet's in the Park, Ophelia's in the Pool.
Twelve Ophelias features a live and local roots/bluegrass band, The Jones Street Boys (www.thejonesstreetboys.com), performing new original music, and showcases a host of talented young performers and designers. The production also highlights the McCarren Park Pool itself as a fascinating part of our urban landscape by placing the performers and audience amidst an Appalachian shanty-town installed inside the empty pool.
McCarren Park Pool was the eighth of eleven giant pools built by the Works Progress Administration to open during the summer of 1936. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia attended the dedication on July 31, 1936. With an original capacity for 6800 swimmers, the pool served as the summertime social hub for Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The building's vast scale and dramatic arches, designed by Aymar Embury II, typify the generous and heroic spirit of New Deal architecture. The pool was closed in 1984 and in recent years has become a popular venue for live performances.
Caridad Svich is a playwright-songwriter-translator and editor of Cuban-Spanish-Argentine-Croatian descent. She is the recipient of New Dramatists' 2007 Whitfield Cook Prize for New Writing for her play Lucinda Caval, and the 2003 National Latino Playwriting Award for Magnificent Waste. She's also received a Harvard University Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Bunting fellowship, a TCG/Pew National Theatre Artist Grant, and has been short-listed twice for the PEN USA-West Award in Drama. In 2008: her free adaptation of Lope de Vega's erotic comedy The Labyrinth of Desire premieres at Miracle Theatre/OR. In 2009: her adaptation of Allende's The House of the Spirits premieres at Repertorio Espanol/NY and her new play Instructions for Breathing premieres at Passage Theatre/NJ. Other recent premieres include: The Tropic of X at artheater-Cologne (Germany), her play with alt-country songs Thrush at Salvage Vanguard Theatre/TX, and her US adaptation of the Serbian dark comedy Huddersfield as a TUTA production at Victory Gardens Theatre/IL, Iphigenia…a rave fable at 7 Stages/GA and Son of Semele/CA, translation of Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba at the Pearl Theatre/NY, and her multimedia collaboration The Booth Variations at 59 East 59th Street Theatre/NY and Edinburgh Fringe Festival/UK. She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, contributing editor of TheatreForum, on the editorial board of Contemporary Theatre Review (Routledge/UK), affiliate artist of New Georges, and founder of the international theatre alliance and press NoPassport.
Teddy Bergman is a founding member and co-artistic director of Woodshed Collective. He is an actor and director, born and raised in New York. As an actor, his theater credits include Peter and the Starcatchers (Disney, dir. Roger Rees, Alex Timbers), I.E. In Other Words (The Flea, dir. Kip Fagen), Hell House (St. Ann's Warehouse/Les Freres Corbusier, dir. Alex Timbers), Cherubina (PL115, dir. Alexis Poledouris), Daniella Uses Dirty Words (Abingdon Theatre Co.), and work regionally at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. His TV credits include "Law and Order: SVU" and "As The World Turns." His film credits include Nora Ephron's Julie and Julia (upcoming), Little Big League, Honeymoon in Vegas, and Striptease. As a director, he has assisted Trip Cullman on Dog Sees God at the Century Center for the Performing Arts and Sweetness at the Summer Play Festival. His own directing work includes productions of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Stoppard's After Magritte, and Chekov's The Bear. He has studied at RADA and The Actor's Center, most notably with Kristin Linklater, Roger Rees, Scott Freeman and Karl Kenzler. He holds a B.A. in philosophy from Vassar College, where he received the Vernon Vable prize for Overall Excellence in Philosophy.
Woodshed Collective is the most recent evolution of what began as a method of creating theater. Founded as the Woodshed Theater Ensemble in Spring of 2002 at Vassar College, the company sought to deemphasize the traditional model of theatrical production. This meant including
all members of the ensemble in all aspects of production, from concept development to direction and design. By 2005, when the last of the founding members graduated from Vassar, the Woodshed Theater Ensemble had secured lasting funding, accepted many new members, and created 14 productions: 12 at Vassar and 2 in New York City. The Woodshed Theater ensemble continues to thrive as a staple of the Vassar artistic community. When the founding members relocated to New York City, the decision was made to focus on creating fully realized Installation Theater. Woodshed Collective thus aims to create a tangible, immersive world for our audience to explore. This new focus extends our inclusive effort to the audience themselves, allowing them to interact and influence the world of the performance itself. The precedent for
this extends throughout our production history and has always found an echo in our collaborative cross-discipline process. This history includes staging Macbeth in a cramped basement full of dead leaves, Griselda Gambaro's Antigona Furiosa in a theater converted into a café serving
hot coffee, and a Hedda Gabler that choked in an atmosphere saturated with cheap incense. Most recently, in staging Never the Sinner, John Logan's award winning play about the Leopold and Loeb trial, we converted the CSV Flamboyan into the courtroom world of 1920s Chicago. In this way, Woodshed Collective has evolved its method into an effective professional model, while continuing to center around creating work in and through an experimental artistic process.
Twelve Ophelias performs the following days at 8pm: Friday, July 11, Saturday, July 12, Wednesday, July 16, Friday, July 18, Saturday July 19, Wednesday, July 23, Thursday, July 24, Saturday, July 26, Wednesday July 30, Thursday, July 31, Friday, August 1, Monday, August 4, Wednesday, August 6, Friday, August 8, Monday, August 11, Thursday, August 14, Saturday, August 16, Wednesday, August 20, Thursday, August 21, Friday, August 22. Performances take place at the McCarren Park Pool, Lorimer Street, at Bayard Street, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Tickets are free and may be reserved at www.theatermania.com.
Directions to McCarren Park Pool
FROM THE BEDFORD AVENUE L TRAIN STATION:
Take the L train to the Bedford Avenue stop in Brooklyn. Walk north on Bedford to Lorimer Street, take a right on Lorimer, the Main Arch of the pool is on the left on Lorimer St. between Driggs & Bayard Ave.
FROM THE METROPOLITAN G TRAIN STATION AND THE LORIMER L TRAIN STATION:
Take the G or L train to Metropolitan Avenue or Lorimer, respectively. Walk out of the station and cross Metropolitan on Union. Walk up Union under BQE overpass until you reach Roebling. Make a right, walk one block to Lorimer.
FROM THE NASSAU AVENUE G TRAIN STATION:
Take the G to Nassau Avenue. Walk South two blocks to Lorimer Street and take a left on Lorimer Street. Walk 1 1/2 long blocks and McCarren Park Pool will be on your left.
DRIVING DIRECTION FROM MANHATTAN:
Take the Williamburg Bridge and get off at the very first exit, immediately upon crossing the bridge. Take a left onto Havemeyer Street. It dead ends into Metropolitan, where you take a right. Go under the BQE and take a left on Union. Drive severAl Blocks and McCarren Park Pool will be on you right.
