RAG presents METTAWEE RIVER THEATRE COMPANY in NANABOZHO, WINNEBAGO CREATION TALE
The Mettawee River Theatre Company will celebrate its 33rd season and its 26th appearance with The Roxbury Arts Group with a new production of the Winnebago Native American creation tale, NANABOZHO. The performance will take place on Wednesday, July 30 at 8 pm on the Cyr Center Lawn in Stamford. Rain venue will be the Church Hill Gym behind the library in Stamford. Suggested donation is $5. Please bring chairs and picnics and come early (watching the troupe set up is half the fun). “We are so pleased to be presenting this traditional highlight of RAG’s season in conjunction with our new venue, 76 MAIN! In Stamford,” says Susan Kenny, RAG’s Executive Director.
NANABOZHO is drawn from Winnebago (a Midwestern tribe) creation stories that describe how elements of the natural world emerged out of chaos and achieved their present form. The unlikely hero is Nanabozho, the trickster hare, whose fearless, sometimes dimwitted impulses have unpredictable results. He is called from the arms of his Grandmother Earth to embark on a dangerous mission where he encounters hostile frog demons, amicable beavers, and a bevy of spirit women. The world we have inherited appears to have been shaped by the combined efforts of wise benefactors, evil beings and a willful, capricious buffoon.
The production will incorporate many small puppets and giant figures, including an enormous Grandmother Earth.
According to Mettawee director/designer Ralph Lee, “It’s great to be taking a second look at these stories, which we first visited in 1980. There are plenty of opportunities to stretch the imagination in the creation of this colorful cast of characters, and as Grandmother Earth says, ‘If the world were a perfect place, people would have it too easy, they’d turn soft.’ We relish the work process and find the spark of life in our endeavors.”
Playwright Clarke Jordan, a founding member of Mettawee, has adapted the text for NANABOZHO. Actors Kim Gambino, Kristine Lee, Greg Manley, Tom Marion, Jan-Peter Pedross and Jessi Reynolds will play multiple roles. The production will feature an original musical score composed by Neal Kirkwood, performed by musicians Ben Gallina (double bass) and Sharon Fischman (percussion, African xylophone). Costumes are designed by Casey Compton.
Under the Artistic Direction of mask maker, designer and director Ralph Lee, the Mettawee River Theatre Company, founded in 1975, creates original theater productions that incorporate masks, giant figures, puppets and other visual elements with live music, movement and text, drawing on myths, legends and folklore of the world’s many cultures for its material. The company is committed to bringing theater to people who may have little or no access to live professional performances.
In his design and direction, Lee seeks to create vivid theatrical moments with economy and elegance. This search for an evocative simplicity of image and Mettawee’s commitment to making theater accessible to the widest possible audience through its outdoor performances give this theater company its particular character.
Ralph Lee first created puppets as a child growing up in Middlebury, Vermont. He graduated from Amherst College in 1957, and studied dance and theater in Europe for two years on a Fulbright Scholarship. Upon returning to the United States, Lee acted on Broadway, off-Broadway, in regional theaters and with the Open Theatre. During that period he started creating masks, unusual props, puppets and larger-than-life figures for theater and dance companies, including the New York Shakespeare Festival, Lincoln Center Repertory Theatre, the Living Theatre, the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, Shari Lewis, the Metropolitan Opera and Saturday Night Live (he created the Land Shark).
In 1974, while teaching at Bennington College, Lee staged his first outdoor production, which took place all over the college campus, and featured giant puppets and masked creatures. That same year he organized the first Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, which he directed through 1985. For his work on the parade Lee received a 1975 Village Voice OBIE Award, a 1985 Citation from the Municipal Arts Society, and in 1993 he was inducted into the City Lore People's Hall of Fame.
Two of Lee's Mettawee productions have been honored with American Theatre Wing Design Awards: The Popol Vuh in 1995 and Wichikapache Goes Walking in 1992. Under Lee's direction, Mettawee also received a 1991 Village Voice OBIE Award and two Citations for Excellence from UNIMA, the international puppetry organization. Additional awards to Lee include a 1996 Dance Theatre Workshop Bessie Award for “sustained achievement as a mask maker and theatre designer without equal,” and a 1996 New York State Governor's Arts Award in recognition of his many contributions to the artistic and cultural life of New York State.
In 2003, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, one of the nation’s most prestigious honors. This past winter he was the Jim Henson Artist-in-Residence at the University of Maryland at College Park. He is currently on the faculty of New York University.