Play Reading Series Features Prominent Japanese Playwright Ai Nagai's Hilarious Portrayal of Post-menopausal Life
For Immediate Release
Women in a Holy Mess
Monday, February 22, 2010, 7:30 pm at Japan Society
日本演劇 英訳版プレイ・リーディング・シリーズ 永井 愛・作「片付けたい女たち」
New York, NY -- Japan Society kicks off its Spring 2010 Performing Arts season with a reading of the contemporary Japanese play Women in a Holy Mess, by celebrated playwright Ai Nagai, in a new English translation. Featuring a cast of New York-based American actors led by award-winning director Cynthia Croot, Women in a Holy Mess takes place Monday, February 22 at 7:30 pm.
A hilarious portrayal of post-menopausal life, Ai Nagai’s Women in a Holy Mess explores the lives of three women and the camaraderie they’ve maintained over the years. Tsunko, a woman in her 50s, just broke up with her boyfriend, twenty years her junior. When two of her childhood friends come to her apartment and find it in total disarray, it doesn’t take long for them to abandon cleaning the place and start adding to the chaos with their own stories, secrets and losses. Co-founder of the acclaimed Japanese theater company Nito-sha, Nagai has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Kishida Kunio Drama Award, given annually to the best new Japanese play.
Ai Nagai is playwright, director and leader of the theater company Nito-sha, founded in 1981 by Nagai and her fellow theater artist, Shizuka Oishi. She has won particular acclaim for her Sengo Seikatsushi-geki Sanbusaku (Postwar Life History Play Trilogy). Her plays Miyo, Hikoki no Takaku Toberu wo and Ra Nuki no Satsui, written for the Seinen-za company and Theatre Echo, also won critical acclaim. The Nito-sha production of Ani Kaeru was awarded the 44th Kishida Kunio Drama Award. Nagai won the 2005 Asahi Drama Awards Grand Prize for Utawasetai Otoko-tachi (Men Who Want to Make Us Sing), and was honored with the 1st Tsuruya Namboku Drama Award and 52nd Yomiuri Literature Award for Hagi Ke no San Shimai (The Three Hagi Sisters), which was given a reading at Japan Society in 2006.
Cynthia Croot is a NYC-based theater and radio director, writer and activist known for her innovative international collaborations. Stage credits include Suzan-Lori Parks' Venus (Windybrow, South Africa), John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves (Perseverance Theater Company, Alaska), The Winter's Tale (Colorado Shakespeare Festival), as well as productions in NYC at the Abingdon, PS122, Town Hall, Symphony Space, and the Guggenheim Museum. Croot was one of seven directors nationwide to be selected for the 2007-2009 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors, and has been awarded residencies at UCross and New Pacific Studios. In 2004, she served as a U.S. delegate in a cultural exchange between Columbia University and the University of Damascus, Syria. Last winter, she was one of a handful of US artists invited to speak at the Fajr International Theater Festival in Tehran, Iran. Croot earned her MFA in directing at Columbia University, and is Assistant Professor of Theater at Whitman College, WA.
Since the inception of the Performing Arts Program in 1953, Japan Society has introduced more than 600 of Japan’s finest performing arts to an extensive American audience. Programs range from the traditional arts of noh, kyogen, bunraku and kabuki to cutting-edge theater, dance and music. The Program also commissions new works, produces national tours, organizes residency programs for American and Japanese artists and develops and distributes educational programs. "At once diverse and daring, the program stands toe to toe with some of the most comprehensive cultural exchange endeavors today" (Back Stage).
Established in 1907, Japan Society has evolved into North America's major producer of high-quality content on Japan for an English-speaking audience. Presenting over 100 events annually through well established Corporate, Education, Film, Gallery, Language, Lectures, Performing Arts and Innovators Network programs, the Society is an internationally recognized nonprofit, nonpolitical organization that provides access to information on Japan, offers opportunities to experience Japanese culture, and fosters sustained and open dialogue on issues important to the U.S., Japan, and East Asia. On the occasion of Japan Society's 2007 centennial, American Theatre noted: "For a hundred years now, the Japan Society of New York has been a think tank for policy works, entrepreneurs, diplomats and Japanophiles. But the jewel in its crown has always been the performing arts program."
The reading of Women in a Holy Mess takes place on Monday February 22 at 7:30 PM. Japan Society is located at 333 East 47th Street between First & Second Avenues. Tickets are $10/$8 Japan Society members and may be purchased at www.japansociety.org, by calling the Box Office at 212-715-1258, or in person at Japan Society. For more info call 212-832 -1155 or visit the website.
The play reading of Woman in a Holy Mess is made possible in part by The Saison Foundation. The English translation of Women in a Holy Mess was developed in October/November 2007 at The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota as part of the U.S.-Japan Contemporary Plays and Playwrights Exchange Project, an international project organized by The Playwrights’ Center and the U.S./Japan Cultural Trade Network, Inc. in association with The Saison Foundation and Arts Network Japan. Special Thanks to the Research Institute for Digital Media and Content at Keio University, Tokyo for assisting in the rehearsal process to connect Ai Nagai in Tokyo and Cynthia Croot in New York City. Major support for Japan Society 2009-2010 Performing Arts Programs is provided by the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; and the Endowment for the Performing Arts, established with leadership gifts from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; Kyocera Corporation, The Starr Foundation and Toyota Motor Corporation. Additional support is provided by The Globus Family, Dr. John K. Gillespie, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc., The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency. Transportation assistance is provided by All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd.
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Media Contacts:
Bridget Klapinski/ Adam Bricault
The Karpel Group
P: 212-505-2900
F: 212-505-2950
E: abricault@thekarpelgroup.com
Shannon Jowett
Japan Society
T: 212-715-1205
F: 212-715-1262
E: sjowett@japansociety.org
Kuniko Shiobara
Japan Society
T: 212-715-1249
F: 212-715-1262
E: kshiobara@japansociety.org
