June 8 through 17LIT MOON THEATRE PRESENTS
MIDNIGHT
SUN
FESTIVAL
Four of Finland's most exciting contemporary playwrights
in a repertory of Finnish plays designed to introduce American audiences
to the vast riches of Finnish drama.
Laura Ruohonen is one of Finland's most celebrated playwrights, and her Queen C is one of the most famous Finnish plays written since the turn of the millennium. Based on Christina, the enigmatic mid-17th century Swedish monarch, the play presents a woman who lives by her own set of rules, vexes her contemporaries with unconventional opinions about sexuality and human identity, and abdicates the throne. First performed at the Finnish National Theatre in 2002, the play has since been translated into nine languages and produced at the Royal National Theatre, Sweden; Divadlo Cara, the Czech Republic; and Jacob van Lenneb Theatre, the Netherlands. Directed by Lit Moon Artistic Director John Blondell and featuring Lit Moon performers Erin Brehm, James Connolly, Victoria Finlayson, Stan Hoffman, Kate Paulsen, and Mitchell Thomas, with lighting by Theodore Michael Dolas and costumes by Katrina Werner. Six shows only, June 8-17!
Anna Krogerus’ breakthrough play, For Sheer Love of Me, opened at the Finnish National Theatre in 2006 and instantly became a critical and popular success, receiving the Spurs prize for Best Play from the Finnish Critics’ Association. For Sheer Love of Me is a marvelous domestic drama that centers on an intelligent 10-year-old old girl’s collision course with her self-absorbed, destructive parents. Directed by Mikko Viherjuuri, resident director at the Tampere, Teatteri in Tampere Finland, and featuring famed Finnish actors Peter Franzen and Irina Bjorklund, local actors Amber Angelo and Joanne Lubeck, with lighting by Jonathan Hicks and costumes by Katrina Werner. Four shows only, June 9-10 and 14-15!
Mika Myllyaho is a prominent director (Group Theatre and National Theatre of Finland) who, after establishing a reputation for numerous highly praised interpretations of modern and classical plays during the last decade, wrote his first stage play Panic (Paniikki) in 2005. Fluctuating effectively from the comic to the deadly serious, Panic portrays three seemingly successful men who find themselves unable to cope with their circumstances in the urban jungle. Staged reading, Saturday June 9 only!
Sirkku Peltola is one of Finland’s most frequently performed playwrights and most distinguished directors. Peltola’s plays portray bizarre families and misfits from the margins of society, and show communities in the midst of radical social change. In The Finnhorse, which premiered in September 2004 at the KOM-Theatre in Helsinki, Ms. Peltola turns her attention to the problems of the countryside, where the simple, rural life-style is doomed to extinction by the demands of an increasingly bureaucratic EU. Staged reading, Sunday June 10 only!