[act-ma] MIT Dramashop: Antiretrovirals and Water Refugees - music and puppet spectacle

[Susie Husted]

For Immediate Release
Theater
March 2009 [for early April 2009 performances in Cambridge]
Media Contact: John Bell: 617 599 3250, john.bell.puppeteer @gmail.com
Dramashop Contact: Clinton L. Scroggins: clscrog at mit.edu
[high res digital images available]
 
 
MIT’S DRAMASHOP PRESENTS
 
ANTIRETROVIRALS AND WATER REFUGEES:
A LIVING NEWSPAPER ON HAITI
 

 
PERFORMANCES AND POST-SHOW DISCUSSIONS
ON HAITI, POLITICAL THEATER, AND GLOBAL HEALTHCARE
 
 
Kresge Little Theater
at MIT
April 9-11 and 15-17, 8 p.m.
 
            (Cambridge, MA) A new puppet, object, and music spectacle about the politics of global healthcare in Haiti premieres at MIT’s Kresge Little Theater for a two-week run from April 9 to 17. "Antiretrovirals and Water Refugees: A Living Newspaper on Haiti" looks at the past, present, and future of Haiti in terms of the politics of global healthcare, as refracted through the work of Paul Farmer's Partners in Health organization and its fight against AIDS.  An updating of the 1930s activist docudramas called Living Newspapers, this show combines bunraku-style puppets, shadow theater, giant puppets, toy theater, video and audio sampling, and live brass music to consider the compelling global nexus of culture and history that is Haiti.  The production will also feature a series of post-show discussions about Haiti, healthcare, and the history of American political theater.
 
            Directed by MIT guest artist and puppeteer John Bell,  “Antiretrovirals and Water Refugees” is produced by MIT’s Dramashop, and features puppets designed by Boston puppeteer Sara Peattie of the acclaimed Puppeteers Cooperative.  The production’s wide-ranging collective of designers and performers includes MIT theater and visual arts students and staff, as well as musicians, artists, and performers from the Boston area.
 
            Just as the 1930s Living Newspapers were an innovative American theater technique that allowed performers and audiences to consider the serious challenges of the Depression in a thoughtful and highly entertaining manner, “Antiretrovirals and Water Refugees” will examine the story of AIDS in Haiti in terms of the larger contexts of Haitian history and international politics, from the stunning complexities of the Haitian Revolution (the only successful slave rebellion in history) to the development of post-plantation agriculture, the United States invasion of 1915 (and its celebrated anti-hero, Smedley Butler), the accession of “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and the violent upheavals of the 1980s—all of which, as Paul Farmer has pointed out, have had an effect on healthcare.  The success of Partners in Health’s antiretroviral program in helping Haitians with AIDS survive emerges as a positive sign for the future possibilities of
 global healthcare; but the persistence of the Haitian spirit, as evidenced in the stories of a Haitian family from the Central Plateau region, is the true hero of the play.
 
            A special feature of the “Antiretrovirals and Water Refugees” performances will be post-show discussions about Haiti, global healthcare, and the 1930s Federal Theater Project.  These include:
1. Thursday, April 9: Dr. Sonya Shin, physician volunteer at Partners in Health since 1996, including work in Haiti, Peru and Russia.
2. Friday, April 10: Hanna Shell, director (with Vanessa Bertozzi) of “Secondhand (Pepe)”: a 24-minute tri-lingual film about the materiality of recycled clothes that flow from the United States to Haiti.  The film will be shown in its entirety.
3. Wednesday, April 15: Kate Greene, Haiti Finance Manager, Partners in Health.
4. Thursday, April 16: Susan Quinn, author of Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times.
 
            John Bell is a member of the Obie-Award-winning Brooklyn-based theater company Great Small Works, and a Fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies.  Sara Peattie’s designs for Puppeteers’ Cooperative puppet spectacles large and small have been a feature of Boston’s First Night Parades for many years, and a central element in the creation of community-based spectacles across the United States from Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival to the Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival.
 
Detailed listings information:
“Antiretrovirals and Water Refugees: A Living Newspaper on Haiti”
Thursday through Saturday, April 9 – 11; and Wednesday through Friday, April 15 -17
General Admission: $8, Students $6.
All shows at 8 p.m.  Post-show discussions April 9, 10, 15, and 16 at 9:30 p.m.
Kresge Little Theater, 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139
Tickets will be available 45 minutes before showtime at the Kresge Little Theater boxoffice.
For advance tickets: http://dramashop.mit.edu/tickets/
Further ticket information email ds_tickets at mit. edu.
 
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