Department of Theatre Arts presents Charles Mee's Iphigenia 2.0
Virginia Tech Department of Theatre Arts presents Charles Mee's "Iphigenia 2.0." The piece will be directed by Department of Theatre Arts third year master of fine arts candidate Andrew Lee Dolan and performances will be held Nov. 14 through 16 and Nov. 18 through 20 at 7:30 p.m. in the Squires Studio Theatre.
Playwright Charles Mee has been called one of the most prolific American contemporary playwrights living and writing today. He describes his own work as, “broken, jagged, filled with sharp edges, filled with things that take sudden turns, careen into each other, smash up, veer off in sickening turns… It feels like my life. It feels like the world.”
This sharp, jagged, careening world that Mee revisions in "Iphigenia 2.0" is interwoven with the original Greek story by Euripides, but it also contains shards of Internet blogs, poems, books, and newspaper articles that serve to explore and marry the classic story to our contemporary times. The play centers on Iphigenia, daughter and sole child of the House of Atreus. Iphigenia must deal with her overbearing mother, Clytemnestra; the knowledge that her father, King Agamemnon, is going to kill her; and the stress of what to wear at her wedding.
Dolan is a professional theatre artist who works across domestic and international borders, premiering cutting edge contemporary performance events. At 26 years of age, he has served guest artist residencies at Fairfield University in Connecticut and Century College in Minnesota. Dolan has also worked Poland’s Teatr Biuro Podrozy; 15HEAD: a theatre lab in Minneapolis; Rude Mechs in Austin, Texas; Town Hall Theatre in Ireland; and many other theater companies.
He is a member of the Minneapolis-based RAVENOUS Company. He holds a master’s in theater from The National University of Ireland, Galway, and is currently completing a master of fine arts in directing and public dialogue at Virginia Tech. Next, Dolan says he will resume work with the Rude Mechs on their world premiere of "I've Never Been So Happy,' an experimental, western operetta/rock concert folktale.
Dolan, who has worked previously on two other plays by Mee says he enjoys Mee’s writing and is both amazed and appreciative of his multifaceted approach to storytelling. He says, "I fell in love with Mee's Greek plays the moment I read them. He mashes up pop culture with great myths in a way that is hilarious and disturbing in the same moment." Not giving too much of the show’s surprising elements away, Dolan does indicate that there are twelve actors in the show ready to attack the Greek myth and that the evening will end in one big, fat, chaotic, Greek wedding.
Tickets for "Iphigenia 2.0" are $9 general, $7 senior/student, and are available in advance at University Unions and Student Activities Box Office in the Squires Student Center Box Office, at (540) 231-5615, or online Tickets can also be purchased, based on availability, at the door one hour prior to performance time.
Squires Studio Theatre is located in the Squires Student Center on College Avenue adjacent to downtown Blacksburg. Convenient, free parking is available in nearby Squires and Shultz Dining Hall parking lots.
