Antlia Pneumatica
- Written by Anne Washburn
- Directed by Ken Rus Schmoll
Playwrights: Antlia Pneumatica; Mr. Burns, a post-electric play. Other plays include 10 out of 12, Little Bunny Foo Foo, The Internationalist, A Devil At Noon, Apparition, The Communist Dracula Pageant, I Have Loved Strangers, The Ladies, The Small, and transadaptations of Euripides' Orestes & Iphigenia in Aulis. Her work has been produced by 13P, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Almeida, American Repertory Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, Classic Stage Company, Clubbed Thumb, The Civilians, Dixon Place, Ensemble Studio Theater, The Folger, The Gate, The Guthrie, Playwrights Horizons, Red Eye, Soho Rep., Studio Theater, Two River Theater Company, Vineyard Theater, and Woolly Mammoth. Honors include a Whiting, a Guggenheim, an Alpert Award, a PEN/Laura Pels Award for an artist in mid-career, a NYFA Fellowship, a Time Warner Fellowship, Susan Smith Blackburn finalist, and residencies at MacDowell and Yaddo. She is an associated artist with The Civilians, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, Chochiqq, and is an alumna of New Dramatists and 13P.
Playwrights Horizons: world premiere of Iowa by Jenny Schwartz and Todd Almond. He directed Anne Washburn’s The Internationalist for both 13P and the Vineyard Theatre and her one-act October/November for Ensemble Studio Theater’s 2008 Marathon. Recent credits include Max Posner’s Judy for Page 73, Kate E. Ryan’s Card and Gift for Clubbed Thumb and Ayad Akhtar’s The Invisible Hand at New York Theatre Workshop (Lucille Lortel nomination). Previous work includes The Grown-Up, Death Tax (Humana Festival); George Brant’s Grounded (Walkerspace); Not What Happened (BAM Next Wave); Red Dog Howls (NYTW); Luther, Telethon, Amazons and Their Men, Demon Baby (Clubbed Thumb); A Map of Virtue, Mark Smith, Aphrodisiac (13P); Telephone (Foundry Theatre); Middletown (Vineyard Theatre); What Once We Felt (LCT3); Hello Failure (PS 122); and Cause for Alarm (NY Fringe Festival). Ken is a usual suspect at New York Theatre Workshop, an affiliated artist with Clubbed Thumb, a three-time Sundance Theatre Institute alum, co-chair of the Soho Rep. Writer/Director Lab, co-mentor of the Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship and the recipient of two Obie Awards.
In a ranch house deep in Texas Hill Country, a once tight-knit group of friends reunites to bury one of their own. But as they look backward through their lives, it becomes clear they’ve lost more than just their old pal. In this haunting new play from Anne Washburn, the boundaries between then and now grow disarmingly blurry as these estranged friends confront their slippery past.
Featuring
Rob Campbell
AdrianNat DeWolf
LenCrystal Finn
BamaApril Matthis
LizAnnie Parisse
NinaMaria Striar
UlaSkylar Dunn
Casey (recorded voice)Azhy Robertson
Wally (recorded voice)Playwrights Horizons: The Patron Saint of Sea Monsters, Small Tragedy (Obie Award, Lortel nomination). Broadway: All the Way, Translations, Ivanov. Off-Broadway: Anne Washburn’s Iphegenia in Aulis, Mad Forest, In the Blood, The Singing Forest, Him, Lascivious Something, Orphan of Zhao, The Illusion, House For Sale, Living Room in Africa. Film: Unforgiven, Boys Don't Cry, The Crucible, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Rabbit Hole.
Playwrights Horizons: Betty’s Summer Vacation. New York: Take Me Out (Broadway and The Public), The Wasps. Regional: The Lonely Planet, The Show Off, The Drowsy Chaperone, The Violet Hour, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, Burn This. Film: Lisa Picard is Famous (also co-author), A Most Violent Year, The Preppie Connection, We Are What We Are. TV: “Gotham,” “The Black List,” “Pan Am,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Ed.”
Playwrights Horizons: Pocatello. New York Theater: 16 Words or Less, Breaking the Spell, La Brea, Bird in the Hand, Becoming Liv Ullman, Mr. Schmoll’s production of Luther, Some Women, Five Genocides, What Happened to Bill Viola, Bracks’ Last Bachelor Party, Julius By Design. Regional: Fairfield, Rich Girl, A Thousand Clowns, Beasley’s Christmas Party, The Hollow, The Cherry Orchard, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Henry V.
Obie Award winner. Playwrights Horizons: Iowa. Off-Broadway: Fondly, Colette Richland; On the Levee; Lear; The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928). Other New York theater: Hollow Roots; I Bought a Bunker, B**** ; Good Heif; Dead City; Anna Bella Eema. Regional: A Streetcar Named Desire, Rust, Sans-Culottes in the Promised Land, Home.
Playwrights Horizons: Clybourne Park, The Credeaux Canvas. Broadway: Clybourne Park, Prelude to a Kiss. Off-Broadway: Becky Shaw, All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Anne Washburn’s The Internationalist (dir. Ken Rus Schmoll), Monster. TV: “Vinyl,” “House of Cards,” Debra on “The Following,” Assistant DA Alexandra Borgia on “Law & Order.” Film: Anesthesia, Blackbird, Prime, Monster-in-Law, National Treasure.
As an actress, Maria has appeared in two Anne Washburn plays (Refreshment of the Spirit and The Ladies) and two Ken Rus Schmoll-directed projects (Map Of Virtue and Hello Failure), among many others. She is the producing artistic director of the Obie Award-winning new play incubator Clubbed Thumb, which is the inaugural theater company in Playwrights Horizons’ Residency Company program. For her artistic directorship, she’s earned a Lilly Award.
Theater: Hairspray (The Whitney Players). TV: "Sitters" (webseries), "Odd Mom Out" (Bravo!), "The Knick" (Cinemax), "Voodoo Church." FILM: Chocolate Cake (short), Bedtime Story (short), Adult Beginners, A Dream of Flying (short).
Theater: Hansel and Gretel (Random Farms); Thumbelina (Children's Acting Academy); Aladdin (Galli Theater). TV: "Mysteries of Laura" (NBC). Film: Blueprint, Barnburner.
Creative Team
Rachel Hauck
Scenic DesignJessica Pabst
Costume DesignTyler Micoleau
Lighting DesignLeah Gelpe
Sound DesignDaniel Kluger and Anne Washburn
Original SongsMegan Schwarz Dickert
Production Stage ManagerRachel Hauck is a Tony Award winning scenic designer based in New York City.
Broadway credits include Hadestown, The Avett Brothers’ Swept Away, Doug Wright’s Good Night Oscar, Paula Vogel’s How I Learned To Drive; Heidi Schreck’s What The Constitution Means To Me; and John Leguizamo’s Latin History For Morons. Most recently, she designed the scenery for Cats: The Jellicle Ball; Galileo: A Rock Musical; and the Avett Brothers’ Swept Away on Broadway.
Rachel is honored that her designs have been recognized. She has received the Tony Award for her design of Hadestown, as well as a Tony Nomination and Jeff Award for Good Night Oscar. Rachel is the recipient of Drama Desk, Lortel, Helen Hayes, Audelco and Ovation Nominations. She is extremely honored to have received the Princess Grace Award, Lilly Award, an OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence and the Distinguished Alumni Award from UCLA where Rachel received her BA.
Rachel was the Resident Set Designer at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference for ten years where she worked with more than 70 playwrights. She remains dedicated to new work and new play development.
She is a member of the American Theater Wing Advisory Board, the 1/52 Grant Administration Committee and a co-founder of Design Action. She was an elected leader of her union, USA 829 for 12 years, and has taught at Princeton, Brown, Vassar and Cal Arts.
Recent theatre design projects: LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD by Samuel D. Hunter directed by Joe Mantello and starring Laurie Metcalf; INHERIT THE WIND by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, directed by Henry Godinez, at the Goodman’s Albert Theatre. THE COST OF LIVING by Martyna Majok, directed by Jo Bonney on Broadway at the Samuel Friedman Theatre; Other Broadway credits include The Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of MARVIN'S ROOM by Scott McPherson directed by Anne Kauffman starring Lili Taylor, Celia Weston, and Janeane Garofalo and THE HEIDI CHRONICLES by Wendy Wasserstein, directed by Pam MacKinnon starring Elisabeth Moss, Jason Biggs, and Bryce Pinkham.
Tyler Micoleau (Lighting Designer, he/him). Playwrights Horizons: Familiar, Iowa, Antlia Pneumatica (Drama Desk nomination), Refuge. Vineyard Theatre: Middletown, God’s Ear, Arlington. Broadway: Buena Vista Social Club (upcoming), Into The Woods, American Buffalo, Be More Chill, The Band’s Visit (Tony Award for Best Lighting Design). Recent Off-Broadway: Hold On To Me Darling (Lucille Lortel), Like They Do In The Movies (PACNYC), Camp Siegfried (2ST), A Case For The Existence of God (Signature). Other notable Off-Broadway: When The Rain Stops Falling (Lincoln Center Theater, Lucille Lortel Award), Blasted (Soho Rep, Hewes Award), Bug (Barrow Street Theater, Lortel and OBIE awards). OBIE award for sustained excellence.
Award winning sound and video designer for live performance, including theater, musicals, opera and dance. Based in NYC and working on and off-Broadway, downtown, at regional theaters, and in Europe. Director collaborators have included Scott Elliot, Anne Kauffman, Rachel Chavkin, Pam MacKinnon, Will Davis, Steve Cosson, Ken Rus Schmoll, Kate Whoriskey, Davis Mccallum, Eric Ting, Bill Rauch, Wendy Goldberg, Evan Yionoulis, Doug Fitch, and Robert Woodruff. Nominated for a Tony Award for her sound design for Mary Jane at MTC. Other honors include two Lortels for Outstanding Sound Design, a Connecticut Critics Circle Award, and multiple Hewes nominations.
Daniel Kluger is a composer, music producer, orchestrator and sound designer.
Known for his Tony, Grammy and Olivier nominated bluegrass orchestrations of the Broadway revival of OKLAHOMA!, Kluger’s musical work spans a range from electronic dance music, to neoclassical chamber composition, jazz and atmospheric synth soundscapes. He has created original scores for dozens of award-winning theater projects, films and podcasts.
Anne Washburn is a playwright from the West Coast, living in New York City. Her plays include: Mr. Burns, The Internationalist, Shipwreck, Apparition (written at MacDowell in 2001), The Small, The Ladies, Antlia Pneumatica, Little Bunny Foo Foo, and trans-adaptations of Euripides Orestes and Iphigenia in Aulis. Her work has been produced in the U.S., the UK, and sometimes elsewhere.
Her play Mr. Burns, about people telling “Simpsons’” stories after the end of civilization, premiered in 2012, ran for three months in New York at Playwrights Horizons in 2013, and was nominated for a 2014 Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play.
LCT: queens, After the Blast, Bull in a China Shop, Kill Floor, The Who & The What, Disgraced, The Coward, What Once We Felt, Stunning (LCT3); When the Rain Stops Falling. New York Theater: TFANA, Playwrights Horizons, NYTW, Page 73, The Public, Vineyard, Clubbed Thumb (affiliated artist), Playwrights Realm, Play Co., Juilliard, Rattlestick, Foundry, Working Theater, 13P, The Civilians, The Flea, Builders Association, New Georges. Regional: Bard SummerScape; Hartford Stage; Williamstown Theatre Festival; NY Stage and Film; Long Wharf; Actors Theatre of Louisville; Trinity Rep; Adirondack Theatre Festival; Big Apple Circus; Capital Rep; the Idaho, North Carolina, Utah, and Nebraska Shakespeare Festivals.
www.megandickert.com
★★★★ Critic’s Pick. Antlia is a sheer joy, elegantly weird and wonderfully vivid with ghost stories and songs.
Anne Washburn’s eerie ‘Antlia Pneumatica’ is elegantly directed by Ken Rus Schmoll. Guessing at the surprise twist is part of the pleasure of the play.
As she demonstrated in the thrilling Mr. Burns, Anne Washburn is a writer of questing imagination and convention-bending technique.