BEFORE YOU BEGIN
• Ancient is intended to be enjoyed alone in a dark, quiet space where you can relax. This is your time.
• Turn your cell phone and other distractions off. Headphones are recommended.
• The piece is 20 minutes long and is intended to be viewed in one sitting.
ACCESS THE VIDEO
This is a free experience.
San Diego-based artists Mike Sears and Lisa Berger are creating Ancient, a Playhouse-commissioned video installation that explores the relationship between repetition and meditation, the routine and the ancient. With an original score composed by Shawn Rohlf for cello, piano and guitar, text by Rainer Maria Rilke, and a company of nine actors, Ancient invites the audience to observe an unfolding of day-to-day tasks that have been in play for centuries. An opportunity to experience nothing happening – and everything happening. A reminder that we have been here before and that somehow, we go on.
Mike Sears’ plays include Red Truck/Blue Truck, How High the Moon (Craig Noel Award nomination, Best New Play), Cowhead, The Corpse Bride, The Pied Piper: A Punk Rock Musical and Felt. Mike’s work has been developed… (click “Full Creator Bios” below to read more)
…by The Old Globe, Cygnet Theatre, Muscle and Bone Co. His play How High the Moon was recently produced by La Jolla Playhouse for their 2019 WOW Festival. Awards include The 2015 San Diego Creative Catalyst Grant ($20,000 prize) to write How High the Moon, The Cygnet Theatre Finishing Line Commission, The Old Globe Playwrights Commission and SD Actors Alliance Best of the Fest Award. He is a member of The Playwrights Center and The Dramatists Guild. He earned a B.F.A. in Acting from The University of Montana and the Maggie Flanagan Studio in New York City.
Lisa Berger is a freelance director, Meisner Teacher and Professor of Theatre. Her San Diego directing credits include How High the Moon, The Car Plays: Incident Row (La Jolla Playhouse WOW Festival); The Car Plays: We Wait (La Jolla Playhouse, Moving Arts); Red Bike (Moxie Theatre); Red Truck, Blue Truck, When It Comes and Skelton Crew (readings; The Old Globe); The Moors, The Long Christmas Ride Home (Patte Award) and Looking for Normal (Diversionary Theatre); Parlour Song (Backyard Renaissance); A Behanding in Spokane (Cygnet Theatre); Ajax (co-direct The Old Globe MFA program); Metamorphoses (San Diego City College); Credible, The Secret in the Wings, Anatomy of Gray, Eurydice and A Streetcar Named Desire (USD); The Collector (Animal Cracker Conspiracy); Buried Child, Simpatico, Things We Want (New Village Arts); Killer Joe (Compass Theatre – Patte Award). She received her M.F.A. from the University of Montana and is also a graduate of The William Esper Studio in New York City. She currently teaches at Mira Costa College, City College and University of San Diego. She is co-artistic director of Meisner/Chekhov Integrated Training Studio.
Created By: Mike Sears & Lisa Berger
Director: Lisa Berger
Composer: Shawn Rohlf
Actors: Jennifer Chang, Caitie Grady, Temi Hason, Bibi Mama, Bhavna Mehta, Joey Prete, Shawn Rohlf, Mike Sears, Daniel Yin
Editor: Alex Boehnlein
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