 |
| For Immediate Release: May 20, 2007 |
 |
|
ART IMITATING LIFE: Subjects of Diverse City Theater's Plays Focus of Major Media Today Newsweek's
May 21st Cover Feature, "The Mystery of Gender," Echoes
DCT's FOUR PLAYS Festival: "Gender Identity Issues in the 21st
Century" 
Tim Davis and Rona Figueroa in Linda NEW YORK--Diverse City Theater Company ("DCT") announced its participation in the First National Asian American Theatre Festival ("NAATF") with Linda Faigao-Hall's acclaimed 2005 play, THE FEMALE HEART, on May 8, 2007. The play, directed by Jamie Richards, tells the story of a young Filipino woman who agrees to become a mail-order bride to a man from Brooklyn in order to save her brother's life. Just a week after the announcement, CNN's Morning News featured a segment, "Asian Mail-Order Brides," on May 16th 2007. When asked why the play's remount seems so timely, NEA-honored playwright Faigao-Hall commented: "Many industries have flourished because of globalization, and sex tourism is one of them. Audiences of THE FEMALE HEART will see an ugly side of free markets, but they will also see how family love outweighs the money that tries to break it apart. She
added: "The play explores the conditions that some of the recent
Filipino immigrants left behind to realize the American Dream. It
examines the mail-order bride phenomenon and goes deeper, taking
a sharper and harder look at the human beings behind the news and
finds nuances and ironies that are unexpected and complex. But,
it also tells a story of the essential bonds that hold together
the families of Filipinos, Asians and all others." DCT's commitment to art and social awareness is reflected in the subjects of the company's productions--presenting large and important issues--that the media seems to follow. Last August 2006, DCT presented four commissioned plays for a theater festival, entitled GENDER IDENTITY ISSUES IN THE 21st CENTURY. It produced four distinct plays, from serious to absurd, by emerging playwrights Robert Askins, Joe Byers, Stuart Harris and Jorshinelle Taleon-Sonza. Newsweek's May 21, 2007 cover story, THE MYSTERY OF GENDER, echoes the subject of DCT's August 2006 theater festival: struggling with gender identity and re-examining what it means to be a man and a woman. In addition, Askins's play, entitled CLEAN LIVING, was commissioned based on General Peter Pace's anti-gay comment which the highest ranking military officer made in December 2005 during a Q&A segment at a leadership training at University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton School of Business: "The U.S. military mission fundamentally rests on the trust, confidence and cooperation amongst its members. And the homosexual lifestyle does not comport with that kind of trust and confidence and therefore is not supported within the U.S. Military." DCT's Artistic Director Victor Lirio read an article about the incident on the Wharton Journal (published in January 2006), and then commissioned Askins to write a play. It was not until March 12, 2007 that Mr. Pace's anti-gay comments hit the mainstream media, exactly 7 months after Askins's play opened, when he called homosexuals "immoral." In the March 26, 2007 issue of Newsweek, journalist Dan Ephron wrote an article on the very quote that Mr. Askins's play was commissioned (click here for the company's news story). DCT's
Artistic Director Victor Lirio commented: "The theater is a
profound venue to examine social issues and the struggles of the
human condition. As artists, our job is to present the truths that
affect our universal human needs: life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness."
To purchase tickets for THE FEMALE HEART, click here. The Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row located at 410 West 42nd Street (between 9th & 10th Avenues). * Member of Actors Equity Association |
|
|
Diverse City Theater Company
Diverse City Theater Co. Inc., is an independent not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization-run by artist playwrights, directors and actors - that focuses on promoting diversity and multiculturalism in the theater arts. Its mission is to commission, develop and produce original plays that explore and examine diversity issues in our national culture thereby creating multiculturally fluent theater audiences, as well as advocate the non-traditional casting of actors. Formed in 2003, Diverse City Theater Co., Inc. is based in New York City. For more information, visit the organization's website at www.diversecitytheater.org. |
|
|
Contact
Janet Appel Public Relations |
|
Copyright ©2007 Diverse City Theater Company, Inc. All rights reserved. |