[Capdist-announce] METTAWEE RIVER THEATRE COMPANY ANNOUNCES TOUR DATES FOR ‘BEFORE THE SUN AND MOON’

Mon Jul 10 15:33:41 EDT 2017

The press release follows, and is attached as Word doc with the tour schedule and two production photos.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE     
EditorialContacts:
Pat Lamb                     or                     Casey Compton, Managing Director
PublicRelations                                   MettaweeRiver Theatre Company
(518)727-4933                                       (518)854-9357 
patalamb at aol.com                              mettawee at gmail.com

METTAWEE RIVERTHEATRE COMPANY ANNOUNCES TOURDATES FOR ‘BEFORE THE SUNAND MOON’

SALEM, NY(July 10, 2017)-- TheMettawee River Theatre Company has announced summer touring dates for its 42ND upstate season featuring itsproduction of Before the Sun and Moon. Performanceswill take place at outdoor venues in upstate New York and nearby Vermont andMassachusetts, and are scheduled from July 20 through August 5 (schedule attached).
Before the Sun and Moon is drawn from an ancient Korean folktale,a magical story in which a young husband and wife discover the power of loveand devotion through unexpected challenges and wild adventures. As always in aMettawee production, the show will incorporate masks, puppets and other visualelements. 
The company of actors includes Mettawee veterans Andrew Butler,Tanya Dougherty, Rob McFadyen, Jan-Peter Pedross and newcomer Claire Moodey.Assistant director Jon Riddleberger will join the cast as puppeteer. The production isdirected and designed by Ralph Lee, with costumes by Casey Compton. Kristine Haruna Lee is the playwright.

The soaring musical score is by NealKirkwood, who has composed scores for Mettawee productions since 2001. Themusic will be performed by the multi-talented Ed RosenBerg on alto saxophone, hammereddulcimer and any number of rattles, bells and drums.

During its 2016summer season, Mettawee presented a limited, four-performance “work inprogress” version of Before the Sun and Moon. With more than a dozen performancesscheduled in 2017, this season will bring the finished production to thecompany’s broad audience of devoted audience members throughout the region.

About the MettaweeTheatre Company
Under the ArtisticDirection of mask maker, designer and director Ralph Lee, the Mettawee RiverTheatre Company, founded in 1975, creates original theater productions thatincorporate masks, giant figures, puppets and other visual elements with livemusic, movement and text, drawing on myths, legends and folklore of the world’smany cultures for its material. The company is committed to bringing theater topeople who may have little or no access to live professionalperformances.  

In his design anddirection, Lee seeks to create vivid theatrical moments with economy andelegance. This search for an evocative simplicity of image and Mettawee’scommitment to making theater accessible to the widest possible audience throughits outdoor performances give this theater company its particular character.

About Ralph Lee
Ralph Lee firstcreated puppets as a child growing up in Middlebury, Vermont. He graduated fromAmherst College in 1957, and studied dance and theater in Europe for two yearson a Fulbright Scholarship. Upon returning to the United States, Lee acted onBroadway, off-Broadway, in regional theaters and with the Open Theatre. Duringthat period he started creating masks, unusual props, puppets andlarger-than-life figures for theater and dance companies, including the NewYork Shakespeare Festival, Lincoln Center Repertory Theatre, the LivingTheatre, the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, Shari Lewis, the Metropolitan Operaand Saturday Night Live. 

In 1974, whileteaching at Bennington College, Lee staged his first outdoor production, whichtook place all over the college campus, and featured giant puppets and maskedcreatures. That same year he organized the first Greenwich Village HalloweenParade, which he directed through 1985. For his work on the parade Lee receiveda 1975 Village Voice OBIE Award, a 1985 Citation from the Municipal ArtsSociety, and in 1993 he was inducted into the City Lore People's Hall of Fame. 

Two of Lee's Mettaweeproductions have been honored with American Theatre Wing Design Awards: ThePopol Vuh in 1995 and Wichikapache Goes Walking in 1992. Under Lee'sdirection, Mettawee also received a 1991 Village Voice OBIE Award and twoCitations 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,” anda 1996 New York State Governor's Arts Award in recognition of his manycontributions to the artistic and cultural life of New York State.  In2003, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, one of the nation’s most prestigioushonors. In 2008 Lee served as the Jim Henson Artist-in-Residence at theUniversity of Maryland at College Park. He is currently on the faculty of NewYork University.

For more informationabout the Mettawee River Theatre Company, visit the company’s web site at www.mettawee.org.

## #
July
      	20        Fort Edward, NY		Little Theater lawn                                8:00
21	North Bennington, VT	Park-McCullough House lawn   8:00

            22        Queensbury, NY		Gurney Lane Park                                          8:00

            23	Amherst, MA		Ko Festival of Performance                              8:00
						CollegeObservatory lawn

            25        Essex, NY		      	Beggs Point Park                                                        8:00

	26	Chatham, NY		PS21					8:00

            27        Sandgate, VT		Methodist Church lawn                                       8:00
28        Sandgate, VT		Rain Date                                                                 8:00

	29	Esperance,NY	      	George Landis Arboretum                              8:00
30	Salem,NY			Salem Central School lawn                                    8:00

Aug.	 1	Shushan, NY			Georgi Museum lawn                                  8:00

	 2	Shushan, NY			Rain Date                                                                   8:00

          	 3	Bolton Landing, NY             Rogers Park                                                 8:00

	 4	Shelburne Falls, MA	Buckland-Shelburne School lawn       8:00

	 5	Schuylerville, NY		Philip Schuyler House lawn                       8:00

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://capdisttheater.org/pipermail/capdist-announce/attachments/20170710/539022e7/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Mettawee-2017-BeforetheSunandMoon-v1-070617.doc
Type: application/msword
Size: 37376 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://capdisttheater.org/pipermail/capdist-announce/attachments/20170710/539022e7/attachment.doc>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Mettawee-2017-Crane with Babies.JPG
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 1497914 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://capdisttheater.org/pipermail/capdist-announce/attachments/20170710/539022e7/attachment.jpe>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Mettawee-2017-Three Beggars.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 909143 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://capdisttheater.org/pipermail/capdist-announce/attachments/20170710/539022e7/attachment.jpg>