PTTP Concludes Season with 'Fen'

Caryl Churchill Play to Open April 11

The Professional Theatre Training Program (PTTP) concludes its 2001-2002 season with FEN, a gritty vision of rural life and labor by England's prize winning feminist playwright, Caryl Churchill. FEN, which will be directed by PTTP faculty member Christine Adaire, is an unsentimental and compassionate portrait of the women living and working in England's eastern marshlands. FEN opens Thursday, April 11, and runs through April 27 in the UWM Peck School of the Arts Studio Theatre, 2400 East Kenwood Boulevard. (See Fact Sheet below for ticket prices and other details.)

"Caryl Churchill is one of the most influential female playwrights of the past twenty years," according to Adaire. "Her plays explore a myriad of personal, political, and psychological issues." Churchill has examined the role of women in society from a variety of perspectives throughout her body of work. In FEN she focuses on agricultural workers, in particular the women who perform manual field labor in the fertile but desolate East Anglian fens.

"In Churchill's play, the lives of the women who work in the fenland are as bleak as the terrain," observes Adaire. FEN is as close to a documentary as Churchill has come in her career: she wrote the play in 1983 in collaboration with the Joint Stock Theatre Company in England. The playwright and the company spent two weeks in a remote East Anglian fen village where they collected oral histories and observed daily life in homes, at work, and in the pub. "What they found, and what Churchill illuminates in her play," Adaire continues, "is a never-ending cycle of drudgery and oppression that persists from generation to generation. One of the byproducts of this oppression is a pattern of violence as a desperate attempt to experience or express feeling. Whether killing a sheep, beating a stepchild, or murdering an unfaithful wife, Churchill's characters are desperately attempting to experience feeling."

Ms. Adaire teaches voice and acting at the PTTP, where she is Head of Acting. She is a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher, trained by Kristin Linklater. She has worked extensively as an actress and a voice coach at regional theatres throughout the country including Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, The Court Theatre (Chicago), Milwaukee Repertory Theater, First Stage, American Shakespeare Festival, and Stage One: The Louisville Children's Theatre. Ms. Adaire has worked with Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Massachusetts, since 1982 and is Associate Director of Training. She has also taught at the Theatre School at DePaul University, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Ithaca College, Kent State University and the Shanghai Theatre Academy in China. Other PTTP faculty involved in the production include R.H. Graham (Scenic and Lighting Design), Jeffrey Lieder (Costume Design), and Cynthia Poulson (Stage Manager). They are joined by guest Jason Fitzgerald (Sound Design).

Founded in 1978, the Professional Theatre Training Program at UWM is a three-year conservatory program that offers students B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees in acting, costume production, stage management and technical production. Degree candidates study with the skilled professional faculty and with guest artists, and engage in international exchanges. As a conservatory program, the PTTP places a high value on production experience, and students are expected to participate in as many as eight productions each season.

All PTTP season performances are welcomed by WHAD, FM 90.7. The PTTP thanks its media sponsors, WUWM and the Shepherd Express.

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FACT SHEET

FEN

By Caryl Churchill
Directed by Christine Adaire
Apr. 11-27, 2002
(preview April 10)
Studio Theatre

An unsentimental look at rural life and labor in contemporary Britain by England's award-winning feminist playwright.

Scenic & Lighting Design: R. H. Graham
Costume Design: Jeffrey Lieder
Sound Design: Jason Fitzgerald Stage Manager: Cynthia Poulson

LOCATION: All performances take place at the Peck School of the Arts Studio Theatre, 2400 East Kenwood Boulevard, on the UWM campus. There is ample parking in the adjacent underground structure, and the theatre is accessible. (Patrons with accessibility questions should contact the Peck School of the Arts Box Office at (414) 229-4308.) TICKET INFORMATION: Single tickets are $16 and $9 for students and seniors. Group rates available. For tickets, please call the UWM Peck School of the Arts Box Office at (414) 229-4308. Box office hours: Tuesday-Friday, 10 AM-5 PM and one hour prior to performance.

Performances

Wednesday, Apr. 10 at 7:30 PM Pay-What-You-Can Preview

Thursday, Apr. 11 at 7:30 PM Opening Night

Friday, Apr. 12 at 7:30 PM Student Night (talkback/signing)

Saturday, Apr. 13 at 7:30 PM

Wednesday, Apr. 17 at 4 PM Early Bird Show

Thursday, Apr. 18 at 7:30 PM

Friday, Apr. 19 at 7:30 PM

Saturday, Apr. 20 at 7:30 PM

Sunday, Apr. 21 at 2 PM

Thursday, Apr. 25 at 7:30 PM

Friday, Apr. 26 at 7:30 PM

Saturday, Apr. 27 at 7:30 PM

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Pay-What-You-Can Preview: Wednesday, April 10, at 7:30 PM.

Student Night: Friday, April 12 at 6:30 PM: free hors d'oeuvres in the lobby of the Peck School of the Arts Theatre. An opportunity for area students to attend a performance and socialize with their peers. Talkback follows performance.

Sign Interpretation for the hearing impaired: Friday, April 12, provided by the UWM Interpreter Training Program.

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