An Invitation Out
Cast:
XLucidenialX/The Butler - Alex Chernow The Maid/XLucidenialX - Emily Dwyer ButtercupEGL - Caitlin Evenson Flutterbye99 - Isabel Langen Raskin - Regina Leon Wridget - Will Livingston FlyByNightSOA - James Aaron Oh Scandalicious7 - Caroline Portante ReverendVariety.org - Don Wood Crew:
Stage Manager - Jacque Bugler Lighting Design - Edie Saavedra Sound Design - Michael Kelly Costume Design - Kathleen Qiu Scenic Design - Katie Whitcraft Projection Design - Colin Johnson |
Like most successful young men in the somewhat distant future, Wridget has lived his entire life completely online, designing high-end custom avatars and throwing lavish parties in a Neo-Victorian world of his own devising. But when a mysterious Outdweller logs on to one of his virtual soirees, Wridget finds himself pulled between two realities, each with its own perils and promises.
When directing this futuristic Wildean living room drama, I worked with the ensemble to create a texture of movement that both elevated the comedic stylings of the genre and conveyed a sense of ease and weightlessness appropriate to the play’s location in virtual reality. To achieve this, I built a routine of exercises from ballet and fencing pedagogy that conditioned the actors to move with an elongated spine and lower center of gravity. My staging was largely naturalistic, but at the play’s climax a message from the outside world was delivered by an actor hidden among the audience. This surprise shattered the previously established performer-spectator relationship and re-framed the story as a parable.
“Director Kieran Beccia does a masterful job of juggling isolated lives and competing realities—using non-stop action.”
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"Quantum Dragon found a director with a great sense of timing and a knack for getting the most out of the funniest lines (and there are a great many of those). Between a well-tuned cast and lots of appealing creative choices, the production itself is more a tribute to human ingenuity over the trappings of technology.”
-Charles Lewis III, Thinking Man’s Idiot
Photos: Molly Kate Photography