Maria/Stuart

Last updated

Maria/Stuart is a play by Jason Grote (1001, This Storm is What We Call Progress), which premiered in 2008 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC. The play, inspired by Friedrich Schiller's tale of warring queens presents a comically dark escapade into the secrets of suburban America. [1]

Contents

Plot summary

Maria/Stuart focuses on an unhappy family as they struggle with their collective past. Ruthie, the matriarchal grandmother of the family, has a day pass from the nursing home to join the family in a celebration of her birthday. Along with Ruthie, the family includes the rival sisters, Marnie and Lizzie, nutty Aunt Sylvia and cousins Hannah and Stuart. Just as Stuart approaches his big break as a comic book artist, a German-babbling, soda-guzzling shapeshifter appears to unlock his family's skeletons. Three generations of fierce women surround Stuart and attempt to drive back the past, but these sisters and cousins seem destined to destroy each other. Eccentrically comic and eerily haunting, this Friedrich Schiller-inspired tale with a supernatural twist shows just how far a family will go to keep the past dead and buried. [1]

Inspiration

In 1800, Friedrich Schiller wrote Maria Stuart , a play about the 16th century Queen of Scotland Mary Stuart. Schiller's Romantic dramatization explores the rivalry between Mary and her cousin, England's Queen Elizabeth I – both of whom laid claim to the English throne following the death of Henry VIII. In Maria/Stuart, Grote explores the theme of female rivalry and depicts occasional departures from realism. Jason Grote began Maria/Stuart by outlining the structure of Schiller's play and drawing parallels in his own. Ultimately, actual text from Schiller's play emerges to reveal an unexpected dimension of Grote's. [2]

Overview

DC Theatre Scene said of the world premiere of Maria/Stuart: "absolutely astonishing. Tremendous writing, incredible acting. And laughs. Big laughs". [3]

Of the playwright, The Washington Post wrote “Grote has made a name for himself in recent years with scripts that explode the boundaries between the ordinary and the chimerical, the political and the aesthetic, the intimate and the dizzyingly cosmic.” [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich Schiller</span> German poet, philosopher, historian and playwright (1759–1805)

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friendship with the already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works that he had left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents of their philosophical vision.

Sarah Marshall is a stage actress working primarily in the Washington, D.C. region. She has been nominated for the Helen Hayes Award seventeen times and won the award in 1989.

The Helen Hayes Awards are given to resident theatre productions in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. They include awards for the production itself, the direction, the acting, design and the stage plays themselves.

The Helen Hayes Awards are given for acting in resident theatre productions in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The awards are generally divided between male and female performers, between lead and supporting performers, and since the early 1990s between dramatic plays and musicals.

Craig Wright is a playwright, television producer and writer. He is known for writing for shows including Six Feet Under and Lost and creating the television series Dirty Sexy Money and Greenleaf. He also was the screenwriter for the movie Mr. Peabody & Sherman, released March 7, 2014.

<i>Mary Stuart</i> (Schiller play) 1800 verse play by Friedrich Schiller

Mary Stuart is a verse play by Friedrich Schiller that depicts the last days of Mary, Queen of Scots. The play consists of five acts, each divided into several scenes. The play had its première in Weimar, Germany on 14 June 1800. The play formed the basis for Donizetti's opera Maria Stuarda (1835).

Nicky Silver is an American playwright. Formerly of Philadelphia, he resides in London. Many of his plays have been produced off-Broadway, and also at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.

<i>Bug</i> (play)

Bug is a play by American playwright Tracy Letts. Exploring themes of paranoia and conspiracy theories, the play tells the story of a woman who, as she spends time with a newly acquainted man in her motel room, starts sharing more and more of his paranoias. It premiered in London 1996, and was also performed around the United States between 2000 and 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company</span>

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is a non-profit theatre company located at 641 D Street NW in the Penn Quarter neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1980, it produces new plays which it believes to be edgy, challenging, and thought-provoking. Performances are in a 265-seat courtyard-style theater.

David Adjmi is an American playwright. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, the inaugural Steinberg Playwright Award, a Bush Artists Fellowship, and the Kesselring Prize for Drama.

Current Nobody is a full-length play by Melissa James Gibson that premiered at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC, on October 29, 2007. It is an adaptation of the Odyssey.

Fever/Dream is a play by Sheila Callaghan which premiered in 2009 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC. It is a reinvention of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's play Life is a Dream.

<i>Clybourne Park</i> 2010 play by Bruce Norris

Clybourne Park is a 2010 play by Bruce Norris inspired by Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun (1959). It portrays fictional events set during and after the Hansberry play, and is loosely based on historical events that took place in the city of Chicago. It premiered in February 2010 at Playwrights Horizons in New York. The play received its UK premiere at the Royal Court Theatre in London in a production directed by Dominic Cooke. The play received its Chicago premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in a production directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Amy Morton. As described by The Washington Post, the play "applies a modern twist to the issues of race and housing and aspirations for a better life." Clybourne Park was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2012 Tony Award for Best Play.

<i>Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play</i> Dark comedy play

Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play is an American black comedy play written by Anne Washburn and featuring music by Michael Friedman. Mr. Burns tells the story of a group of survivors recalling and retelling "Cape Feare", an episode of the TV show The Simpsons, shortly after a global catastrophe. It then examines the way the story has changed seven years after that, and finally, 75 years later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's Voices Theater Festival (Washington D.C.)</span>

In the fall of 2015, the Washington, D.C. region's professional theaters combined to produce the Women's Voices Theater Festival. The festival consisted of over 50 companies each presenting a world premiere production of a work by one or more female playwrights. The festival claimed to be "the largest collaboration of theater companies working simultaneously to produce original works by female writers in history". The Coordinating Producers of the Women's Voices Theater Festival were Nan Barnett of the National New Play Network (NNPN) and former NNPN General Manager Jojo Ruf. The honorary committee supporting the festival was chaired by first lady Michelle Obama and included actors Allison Janney and Tea Leoni and playwrights Beth Henley, Quiara Alegría Hudes and Lynn Nottage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert O'Hara</span> American playwright

Robert O'Hara is an American playwright and director. He has written Insurrection: Holding History and Bootycandy. Insurrection is a time traveling play exploring racial and sexual identity. Bootycandy is a series of comedic scenes primarily following the character of Sutter, a gay African American man growing from adolescence to manhood. It won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Drama. O’Hara was nominated for the 2020 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for his contribution to Slave Play.

Rebecca Taichman is an American theatre director. In 2017, she received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for Indecent.

Stupid Fucking Bird is a contemporary adaptation of Anton Chekhov's 1896 play The Seagull, written by American playwright Aaron Posner, co-founder of the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia. Posner has written multiple adaptations of Chekhov and Shakespeare's works. In 2013, Stupid Fucking Bird premiered at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC. According to Howard Shalwitz, the play takes a satirical spin on a theatrical classic, but has the essence of Chekhov's original intent for the piece—what it means to create art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Manuela Goyanes</span>

Maria Manuela Goyanes is a first-generation Latina theatre maker, chiefly known for her work at The Public Theatre in New York City, as well as her September 2018 appointment as the artistic director of Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington D.C.

Maria Stuart may refer to:

References

  1. 1 2 "Maria/Stuart, World Premiere by Jason Grote at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company". Archived from the original on April 11, 2009. Retrieved June 18, 2009.
  2. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on November 20, 2008. Retrieved June 18, 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. "Maria/Stuart".
  4. Wren, Celia (August 17, 2008). "Theater Is His Medium; Playwriting His Seance". The Washington Post . Retrieved July 3, 2022.