Spring 2011 Guide: Gods + Machines: Winter 2011 at the A.R.T.
JAN 11, 2011
Welcome to Gods and Machines, a theater festival of ancient dramas, modern voices, and visions of the future. This series of performances takes us from the roots of Western theater with the ancient Greeks to twenty-first-century advances in science and technology. Throughout the festival, we examine issues of civic responsibility, human rights, and the quest for immortality.
Over the past year, I have been asking people if they have ever heard of Bucky Fuller, and I have been fascinated by the range of responses. In R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE, long-time A.R.T. favorite Tommy Derrah portrays the visionary genius who anticipated and addressed some of the major challenges of the modern world. I promise that after seeing this production you will look at the world with new eyes. Read on in this guide for more info about BUCKY AND ME, our exciting discussion series featuring local architects, designers, and scientists who have been influenced by this remarkable innovator.
We begin our series of Greek plays with a world premiere translation of Sophocles’s Ajax directed by Obie Award winner Sarah Benson. Ajax speaks directly to the role of war in contemporary culture, provoking a civic dialogue about a country’s response to the trauma of war and returning veterans. We are also partnering with Theater of War on two “town hall” readings of Ajax and Philoctetes for mixed civilian and military audiences, directed by acclaimed playwright and actress Ellen McLaughlin.
Prometheus Bound rocks OBERON in a new musical adaptation of Aeschylus’s tragedy, written by Tony and Grammy Award-winning lyricist and playwright Steven Sater (Spring Awakening) and Grammy Award-winning composer Serj Tankian (System of a Down).
The festival ends with Death and The Powers: The Robots’ Opera, a groundbreaking new production developed in partnership with the MIT Media Lab. This revolutionary opera features a chorus of robots and a score by composer Tod Machover and libretto by poet Robert Pinsky, the former Poet Laureate of the United States. Continue turning the pages in this guide for more art and science related events, including our robot cabaret at OBERON and the Institute production of Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, a new play directed by Marcus Stern about a suburban neighborhood where the boundaries between reality and cyberspace break down.
Join us at the A.R.T. to experience theater that engages your heart and mind!