APRIL 6th-8th 2018
The Studio Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd Street, New York City
Nordic Stage will feature staged readings of seven Scandinavian playwrights, including playwrights from The Bergman Studio & Dramaten/The Royal Dramatic Theatre in Sweden. The Festival’s goal is to highlight the diversity of work being produced in Scandinavia today, featuring plays with a variety of genres, styles and subject matter.
PROGRAM
FRIDAY
6.00 pm: Opening reception hosted by the Consulate General of Sweden in New York
7. 00 pm: Sleepwalking In The Nether World followed by talkback with playwright Jacob Hirdwall and director Páliná Jónsdóttir
SATURDAY
1.30 pm: Sandholm followed by talkback with director Kwasi Osei and founder/Artistic Director Albert Bendix
4.00 pm: On All Fours followed by talkback with playwright Dimen Abdulla, director Sarah Cameron Sunde and cast
6.00 pm: Kinder K followed by talkback with director Zishan Ugurlu and cast
8.30 pm: Beloved
SUNDAY
1.30 pm: The Dylan Society followed by a talkback with playwright Dennis Magnusson
5.00 pm: INGVAR! A Furniture Musical Saga, followed by talk-back with playwright/composer Erik Gedeon, musical director Micah Young and director Alicia House.
FRIDAY APRIL 6th
SLEEPWALKING IN THE NETHER WORLD
staged reading
6.00 PM Friday April 6th
Playwright: Jacob Hirdwall (Sweden, The Bergman Studio)
Translator: Edward Buffalo Bromberg
Director: Pálína Jónsdóttir (Iceland)
Composer: Fredrik Söderberg (Sweden)
Cast: Christiane Seidel*, Jason Beckmann, Sophie Sorensen, Stephen Lin, Zina Anaplioti, LaGina Hill, Ferdinand Glad Bach
*Appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
Sleepwalking In The Nether World is a modern version of the ancient Greek myth about the nymph Eurydice and the underworld. The young, modern Eurydice, a middleclass woman with a good job in the city, is not living her life to the fullest according to Hades. We follow her journey down to the underworld, through tunnels, abandoned subway stations and soup kitchens and witness her meetings with other lost souls of the night.
SATURDAY APRIL 7th
SANDHOLM
staged reading
1.30 Pm Saturday April 7th
Playwright: Anna Bro (Denmark)
Translators: Mia Thiel Have & Max Webster
Director: Kwasi Osei (Denmark)
Cast: Gamze Ceylan*, Karen Giordano*, Al Nazemian*, Fady Kerko, Sandra Herlog, Nina Ingemann, Tariq Triano, Latrey Evans, Zarra Kaahn, McKey Carpenter*
*Appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
Sandholm is a refugee settlement where all new asylum seekers live until the authorities have questioned them about their case. A young woman, Job, arrives at the camp where she joins people from all over the world; each one carries a story. Job sees it as her task to compile a report on the situation to God, to make him improve the world.
ON ALL FOURS
staged reading
4.00 Pm Saturday April 7th
Playwright: Dimen Abdulla (Sweden, The Bergman Studio)
Translator: Edward Buffalo Bromberg
Director: Sarah Cameron Sunde (USA/Norway)
Cast: Julia Kwamya, Cleo Grey
On All Fours is a flowing description of a young woman in the inner city of Stockholm who lives her life balancing on a knife’s edge. We follow her from place to place, drinking, taking drugs and having sex, as a way to get through the day and rise above her reality. Her plan seems successful, but simultaneously becomes increasingly tangled.
KINDER K
staged reading
6.00 Pm Saturday April 7th
Playwright: Kristofer Blindheim Grønskag (Norway)
Translator: Neil Howard
Director: Zishan Ugurlu (Turkey)
Cast: Albert Bendix, Vanessa Johansson* and Siri Gussiaas
*Appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
Kinder K is a Norwegian play that questions the consequences of gene technology and what makes a life “worthy of living”. In 1939 Germany, Gerhard Herbert Kretschmar was born disabled. His parents, unable to bear the shame of their situation, are desperate for help from the government. 156 days later, Gerhard would become the first of thousands murdered by the Nazi regime’s Action T4 ‘mercy killings’. Today, He and She will have their first child. The fetal test shows that something is abnormal. They have the choice to end the pregnancy, but is a ‘sorting society’ really any different from T4?
BELOVED
staged reading
8.30 Pm Saturday April 7th
Playwright: Lisa Langseth (Sweden, The Bergman Studio)
Translator: Charlotte Barslund
Director: Kathy Curtiss (USA)
Cast: Ellinor DiLorenzo, Ida Biering
Beloved is about a young woman who climbs the social ladder and loses her soul. She stands between two social classes in society and belongs to none of them. She turns to Adam to literally be penetrated by culture, transformed by it. But she is just being exploited by Adam, for him she is beautiful and available.
SUNDAY APRIL 8th
THE DYLAN SOCIETY
staged reading
1.30 Pm Sunday April 8th
Playwright: Dennis Magnusson (Sweden, The Bergman Studio)
Translator: Rochelle Wright
Director: Eddie Shieh (USA)
Cast: Jonathan Wilde, Sean Patrick Folster*, Don Hooper, Josephine Huang*, Martina Djerf
*Appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
The Dylan Society is where Markus, Konrad and Bror meet three times a year to cook, drink wine and talk about Bob Dylan. Everything in life can be explained by a Dylan song. They even know which record represents the women in their lives. Bob Dylan follows the men through divorces, mid-life crises, new loves, and unexpected deaths. They stick to Dylan, even if everything else falls apart.
INGVAR!
A Furniture Musical Saga
staged musical reading
5.00 Pm Sunday April 8th
Composers/Playwrights: Klas Abrahamsson &
Erik Gedeon (Sweden)
Translator: Ann Henning Jocelyn
Musical director: Micah Young (USA)
Director: Alicia Dhyana House (USA)
Cast: Ryan McCurdy*, Anette Norgaard, Ingrid Kullberg-Bendz, Anne Widegren Walden, Jeremy Rafal, Frank Poon
*Appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
Ingvar! – A Musical Furniture Saga is a highly original, humorous tribute to ‘the good capitalist’, personified by the late Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, and his ambition ‘to furnish the homes of ordinary Swedes’. Starting out with another catastrophic afternoon at the Stock Exchange: Brokers despair over their many losses and the uncertain future of the capitalist system. In their desperate search for future hope for the world and the economic system, light in the darkness, they recall the one ‘good exception’: IKEA and Mr Kamprad. With gradually increasing enthusiasm, their collective recollections follow this success story, from impoverished childhood to a global concern.
Collaborators & Sponsors
THE BARBRO OSHER PRO SUECIA FOUNDATION
