SITI Company World Premieres Radio Macbeth at Wexner Center

Theater Company Returns for Sixth Creative Residency

New York’s SITI Company returns to the Wexner Center for its sixth creative residency to finalize its latest production, Radio Macbeth, a fresh take on the classic Shakespearean play. The production makes its world premiere February 15–18 in the Wexner Center Performance Space.

Radio Macbeth continues SITI Company’s interest in new approaches to Shakespeare (such as its 2004 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and to the idea of radio plays (launched with its 2003 take on the legendary 1938 Orson Welles/Mercury Theater broadcast of War of the Worlds). In Radio Macbeth, a world of dramatic sound effects and musical figures enlivens the foreground for the radio play concept, as SITI’s superb sound designer, Darron L West, codirects the show with Anne Bogart, SITI’s artistic director.

The SITI Company will finalize this production as part of its sixth creative residency in early February at the Wexner Center involving all members of SITI's design and acting team. The residency will also feature open rehearsals and master classes for students from OSU's Department of Theatre, as well as a week-long teaching residency sponsored by Ohio State’s Department of Theatre that focuses on the two primary systems company members utilize in training and creating original work: Viewpoints Training and Suzuki Physical Acting Training.

Bogart says of this production: “Radio Macbeth takes place late at night in the guts of an abandoned theater. Actors circle restlessly around the common, shared warmth of a rehearsal table, moving through the bullet of Shakespeare’s briefest and perhaps most magnetic play. Around them, in the perimeter of the space, the ghosts of all previous productions hover and encroach. The spirits of ambition, violence, fortune, fate, free will, hubris, vengeance, pride, indecision, paradox, the eternal male-female conflict, and madness flicker and glow.”

Notes Wexner Center Director of Performing Arts Charles Helm: “Through sustaining our relationship with the SITI Company we have been able to not only help them develop innovative works that then tour the country, but also to share the ensemble’s unique approach with students at Ohio State. This has had a direct impact on shaping new curricula for their academic program. Now, other universities are pursuing similar relationships with SITI modeled on the creative development and experiences here. It’s a terrific opportunity that this campus and Columbus can experience the latest from these innovators first.”

Tickets are $24 for the general public, $20 for Wexner Center members, and $10 for students and are available now at the Wexner Center (614 292-3535) and Ticketmaster (614 431-3600). $5 High 5 tickets are also available for middle and high school students in advance (vouchers should be picked up at the Wexner Center at least a day before the show).

THE SITI COMPANY AND THE WEXNER CENTER

The Wexner Center has a rich history of supporting Anne Bogart and SITI. Starting in 1996 with the presentation of The Medium (inspired by the writings of Marshall McLuhan) to the 2004 Wexner Center co-commission Death and the Ploughman, with stops in between for the Obie Award-winning BOB (about theater director Robert Wilson), an inventive take on Alice in Wonderland called Alice’s Adventures, the one-woman show Room (based on the writings of Virginia Woolf), and Score, inspired by the composer and educator Leonard Bernstein. For more

on SITI Company, click to: www.siti.org

EVENT SUPPORT Radio Macbeth was coproduced by the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University and by SITI Company with support from The Leading National Ensemble Theatres Program, a joint initiative of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Radio Macbeth's presentation and creative residency at the Wexner Center made possible, in part, through the support of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Major support for the Wexner Center’s 2006–07 performing arts season generously provided by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Columbus Foundation, and Huntington Bank.

Significant contributions are also made by Altria Group, Inc., Morgan Stanley, and Nationwide Foundation.

Additional funding provided by the Ohio Arts Council, the Corporate Annual Fund of the Wexner Center Foundation, and Wexner Center members.

Accommodations are provided by The Blackwell Inn.

CALENDAR INFORMATION:

Description: World premiere of SITI Company’s Radio Macbeth, a fresh take on the Shakespeare classic

Date and time: Thursday–Friday, February 15–16 at 8 pm; Saturday, February 17 at 2 & 8 pm; Sunday, February 18 at 2 pm

Location: Wexner Center Performance Space, 1871 North High Street.

Tickets: $24 general public, $20 Wexner Center members, $10 students. $5 High 5 tickets for middle- and high-school students available at Wexner Center at least a day before the show.

Ticket outlets: Wexner Center Ticket Office (614 292-3535) and Ticketmaster (614 431-3600) or Ticketmaster.com.