PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, February 29, 2012 CONTACT: Patrick Finlon, Marketing Director 315-443-2636 or pjfinlon@syr.edu
Red
Sizzling Bio-Drama of Famed Painter Mark Rothko— Winner of the 2010 Tony Award for Best Play (Syracuse, NY)—The 2010 Tony Award-winner for Best Play, Red is an intense and exciting bio-drama of the famed Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko at the time that he was working on a commission for a series of murals for New York’s Four Seasons restaurant. On paper, the play has two characters, Rothko and young assistant. On stage, the paintings themselves become characters adding a stunning visual presence and making palpable the intense physical process of the art. As Rothko and his young protégé prepare paint and canvas and assess and reassess each work, they engage in a combative struggle over the methods and purpose of art that is sharp, funny and mentally invigorating. Running March 7—25, Red will be performed in the Archbold Theatre at Syracuse Stage, 820 East Genesee Street. Tickets range $18-$50 and are available at the Syracuse Stage Box Office, 315-443-3275 or www.SyracuseStage.org. The presenting sponsor is The Dorothy and Marshall M. Reisman Foundation. Sponsors are Key Bank and Tompkins Financial Advisors, with additional support from The Grandma Brown Foundation. Media sponsors are Clear Channel Media and Entertainment and the Syracuse New Times. Syracuse Stage’s 2011-2012 season sponsors are The Post-Standard and Time Warner Cable. Playwright John Logan—whose screenplays include Hugo, Gladiator, Rango, Coriolanus and the latest James Bond Skyfall—has said that Red was inspired by Rothko’s art itself. He was working on a film in London when he visited the Tate Modern where several of the Rothko murals are displayed. He was struck first by how deeply moving he found the canvases, and second, by how other patrons disparaged them as shallow and meaningless. The contrast inspired him to find out more about Rothko. “He believed that art matters,” Logan said in a televised interview with Charlie Rose. “Rothko was much more concerned with being listened to and understood than being liked. He asked that we put a little care and effort into viewing his work.” Penny Metropulos (Picasso at the Lapine Agile and Up) returns to Syracuse Stage to direct Logan’s play after recently winning multiple Joseph Jefferson awards for her production of Madness of George III at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. For Metropulos, the key to Red is
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