This play hurls one of Greek tragedy's most
compelling sagas into a sleek netherworld of
sex, drugs and trance music. Iphigenia is
the daughter of a political celebrity who
embraces sensuous excess with a
transgendered glam rock star named Achilles
in a desperate attempt to flee her
inevitable fate.
Finalist for 2005 PEN USA West Award for
Drama; listed as one of the Top Ten Theatre
Events in Atlanta for the year 2004 by
Creative Loafing; winner of four LA Weekly
Awards in Design.
Salvage Vanguard Theatre, Austin TX (2009)
dir. Jenny Larson
Arizona State University-Tempe (2008) dir.
by Lance Gharavi
Son of Semele Ensemble, Los Angeles, CA
(area premiere:2006) dir. by Matthew McCray
One Year Lease company, New York Sity, NY
(area premiere:2006) dir. by Ianthe Demos
LIDA Project, CO (2004) dir. Brian Freeland
7
Stages, GA (world premiere:2004) dir.
Melissa Foulger
Actors Touring Company, UK at the Euripedes
Festival, Greece (2000)
*workshop. dir. Nick Philipou
Published inDivine
Fire: Eight Contemporary Plays Inspired by
the Greeks,
ed. Caridad Svich, BackStage Books, NY
(2005);
andTheatreForum
No. 25, ed. John Rouse,
University of California-Dept of Theatre and
Dance, CA (Spring/Winter 2004),
Above and
left 7 Stages production, Atlanta, Georgia 2004. Adam Fristoe as Achilles and Heather Starkel as Iphigenia. click on images to enlarge
About Caridad Svich (Playwright)
Caridad Svich is a U.S. Latina playwright, translator, lyricist and
editor whose works have been produced
across the U.S. and abroad at diverse venues including 59E59, The
Women's Project, The Pearl Theater,
McCarren Park Pool, INTAR, Walkerspace, 7 Stages, Salvage Vanguard,
ARTheater-Cologne and
Edinburgh Fringe Festival/UK. Her works include “12 Ophelias,” “Any
Place But Here,” “Alchemy of
Desire/Dead-Man's Blues,” “Antigone Arkhe,” “The Booth Variations,”
“Iphigenia...a rave fable” and “The
Labyrinth of Desire.”
This spring her new plays “Instructions for
Breathing” and “Wreckage” received their
world premieres, respectively, at Passage Theater/NJ and Crowded Fire/CA
(dir. Erin Gilley). She has
translated nearly all of Federico Garcia Lorca's dramatic works as well
as plays by Lope de Vega, Calderón
de La Barca, Julio Cortazar and contemporary works from Mexico and Cuba.
She has been a Radcliffe
Institute Fellow, NEA/TCG Fellow at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre and a
TCG/Pew Charitable Trust
Fellow at INTAR. Her works have been published by TCG, Playscripts,
Smith & Kraus, BackStage Books,
Arte Público Press, Stage & Screen, Heinemann, and Manchester University
Press. Svich is an alumna
playwright of New Dramatists, founder of NoPassport Theatre Alliance &
Press, Associate Editor of
Routledge's “Contemporary Theatre Review” and Contributing Editor of
“TheatreForum.” Svich is also
member of PEN American Center, The Playwrights Center and The Dramatists
Guild. She is featured in the
Oxford Encyclopedia of Latino History and holds an MFA from University
of California, San Diego.
“Exploiting Rave Technologies in Caridad Svich’s
Iphigenia,” by Lance Gharavi, Theatre Topics 18:2 (2008) pp 223-242.
“The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Iphigenia” by Chiori
Miyagawa, The Brooklyn
Rail (September
2006)
“Iphigenia Gets Down” by Ali Rohrs, American
Theatre (September 2006)
“Contemporary American Playwriting, The Issue of
Legacy: Jason Grote, Caridad Svich and Anne Washburn in conversation
with Ken Urban,” PAJ 84 (September
2006)
“Euripides’ Children” by Caridad Svich, TheatreForum
No. 25 (Spring/Winter 2004)
Cover story: AMERICAN THEATRE Magazine, July/August
2009.
"Cartography Lessons with Caridad Svich"
An Interview by Justin Maxwell
The ancient and the contemporary collide in the dreamscapes of
her plays.
Contact: New Dramatists, 424 West 44th Street NY, NY 10036 USA Tel:212-757-6960 Fax: 212-265-4738 Voicemail: 212-886-1814 Email:
csvich21@caridadsvich.com
