STAGED READING | AUSTRIAN STAGE: JÄGERSTÄTTER
The 60-minute performance will be followed by a dialogue with Director Guy Ben-Aharon, the translators Gregor Thuswaldner and Robert Dassanowsky, as well as the award-winning screenwriter and producer Elisabeth Bentley, moderated by Professor Carol Gilligan (author of In a Difference Voice).
ABOUT THE PLAY
Playwright | Felix Mitterer
Translated by | Gregor Thuswaldner with Robert Dassanowsky
Director | Guy Ben-Aharon
Featuring | Matt Dellapina*, Nigel Gore*, Gordana Rashovich*, Philana Mia*, Melissa Miller*, Rocco Sisto* (Obie Award Winner)
The play was originally premiered in June 2013 at Vienna’s Theater an der Josefstadt. It was published in English with the support of the ACFNY by the University of New Orleans Press, as part of the Studies in Central European History Culture & Literature Series (ed. by Günter Bischof) in 2015. Hollywood Director Terrence Malick is currently working on a biopic on Franz Jägerstätter.
Special thanks to Kaiser Verlag as well as to Günter Bischof and Elisabeth Jungmeier.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Matt Dellapina* (Franz Jägerstätter)
On stage in New York, Matt has appeared in recent hits at some of the city’s leading theaters, including A Delicate Ship (Playwrights Realm); Nicky Silver’s Too Much Sun (Vineyard Theatre); The Tutors (Second Stage); Outside People (Vineyard Theatre); and The Dream Of The Burning Boy (Roundabout Theatre Company); Currently, Matt stars in the new Lionsgate comedy, Dirty 30, and down the pike are two new features – the upcoming Fits And Starts from Laura Terruso (Hello, My Name Is Doris) and the new thriller, Ruin Me. Austrian Stage: Debut.
Nigel Gore* (Head Teacher, Mayor, Officer)
OFF BROADWAY: Dr. Rank; Dolls House, Dr Ostermark, The Father. TFANA. Sense & Sensibility, Seagull. BEDLAM. Women of Will. Regional credits include Women of Will, Prague, Netherlands, Mexico, UK, USA. Richard, Richard III, Colorado Shakespeare Festival (Best actor, Westword Denver). George, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Public Theatre, Boston (Eliot Norton Award Outstanding Actor). Henry, Lion in Winter. Oldcastle Theatre. Jacques, Mother of the Maid, S&CO. Caesar Julius Caesar, Orlando Shakes, S&Co. Brutus, Julius Caesar, Claudius, Hamlet, Prague Shakes. FILM. The Last Knights. Austrian Stage: Debut.
Gordana Rashovich* (Rosalia, Franz’s mother) has appeared on Broadway and Off-Broadway and in regional theatres across the United States. Film: Sudden Manhattan, Dead Again and Heaven’s Gate. TV: Mad Men, Whoopi, The Wire, All My Children, Law & Order, Grace & Glorie, Loving. Gordana is the recipient of an Obie Award, Theatre World Award, Drama Desk nomination, LA Drama Critics Circle Award and two Drama Logue Awards. Austrian Stage: Debut.
Philana Mia* (Franziska, his wife)
Regional credits include: Clybourne Park, Melancholy Play, I Capture the Castle, Matt & Ben, The Pain and the Itch, The Heidi Chronicles, Keely and Du, and The Wonderful World of Dissocia. Film: Whaling City, winner of the 2007 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Production Grant and the 2005 Alfred P. Sloan Screenwriting Award; and Silver Circle. Member of AEA & SAG-AFTRA.
Melissa Miller* (Theresia, mother of Franz’s child) made her Broadway debut in Tartuffe with the Roundabout Theater Co. She played Jessica opposite F. Murray Abraham in TFANA’s Merchant of Venice. Other favorite theaters include Keen Company, Clubbed Thumb, McCarter, Shakespeare Theater of NJ, Pittsburgh Public, Long Wharf, Alley Theater, Hartford Stage, Williamstown. She recently did work on the new Hulu series The Path. www.melissamiller.org Austrian Stage: the unmarried woman.
Rocco Sisto* (Bishop, Priest, Dr. Feldmann) is an actor based in New York City. On television, Sisto played young Junior Soprano in the HBO series The Sopranos. He has also appeared in Law & Order, Star Trek: The Next Generation and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. In film he has been seen in After Hours, The American Astronaut, Illuminata, Donnie Brasco and Carlito’s Way. In theatre, he has worked on Broadway, off-Broadway, and regionally. Most recently he was in the Broadway production of The King and I. He is the recipient of three Obie Awards including the Obie Award for Sustained Excellent. Austrian Stage: Debut.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Born in Israel, Guy Ben-Aharon is a Boston-based director specializing in premieres of works in translation. After founding the Israeli Stage (www.IsraeliStage.com), Guy was asked to develop the German Stage (Goethe-Institut), Swiss Stage (swissnexBoston), French Stage (Alliance Française), Scandinavian Stage (SCC) and Austrian Stage (ACFNY & ACFTLV). A proud Emerson alum, his dedication to the international theatre has resulted in tours up and down the East Coast, garnering profiles in The Boston Globe, The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Post, WBUR, WGBH and numerous other press outlets.
***
Carol Gilligan received an A.B. with the highest honors in English literature from Swarthmore College, a masters degree in clinical psychology from Radcliffe College and a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University. Her landmark book In A Different Voice (1982) is described by Harvard University Press as “the little book that started a revolution,” and Carol was named by Time Magazine (1996) one of the 25 most influential Americans. She was a member of the Harvard faculty for over 30 years and in 1997 became Harvard’s first professor of Gender Studies, occupying the Patricia Albjerg Graham chair. In 1992, she was Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Cambridge. In 2002, she became University Professor at New York University, with affiliations in the School of Law, the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She teaches a seminar on resisting injustice with David Richards at the Law School and seminars on The Listening Guide Method of Psychological Inquiry at the Steinhardt School.
Gregor Thuswaldner is Dean of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Humanities at North Park University in Chicago. He was a Professor of German and Linguistics at Gordon College and is a Senior Fellow of the Salzburg Institute of Religion, Culture and the Arts. A native of Salzburg, Dr. Thuswaldner studied German and English at the University of Salzburg, Bowling Green State University, the University of Vienna, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hills (Ph.D.). He has widely published on literary theory, linguistics, culture, politics and religion and on Austrian literature and film including Thomas Bernhard, Stefan Zweig and Michael Haneke.
Robert Dassanowsky is Professor of German Language Studies and Film, and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Film Program at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA and continued his studies on film and performance in Los Angeles and Europe. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Salzburg Institute of Religion, Culture and the Arts, as Delegate for the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and member of the European Film Academy and the Academy of Austrian Film. He is also a dramatist and an independent film producer. His scholarship includes studies on Austrian and Central European film history, the cine-politics of the 1930s, women film pioneers, transcultural and emigre filmmakers, a propaganda film, and interwar Austrian authors. He is the director of the Elfi Dassanowsky Foundation and currently serves as the Emeritus President of the Austrian Studies Association (ASA).
Felix Mitterer is one of Austria’s most celebrated contemporary authors. He has written numerous award-winning plays, radio plays, and TV scripts.
Elisabeth Bentley is currently producing RADEGUND, the Terrence Malick directed film about the life of Franz Jagerrstatter. An award-winning screenwriter and producer, Bentley’s films have been honored at Cannes, Sundance, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and MoMA and have been broadcast on HBO, the Sundance Channel and SyFy. In 2007 she was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for her screenplay for NANKING and short-listed for an Academy Award in the documentary feature category. BEAUTIFUL DARLING, her film on the life of Candy Darling the Andy Warhol superstar, was honored at the Berlinale in 2010. Bentley received her B.A. from Harvard University and her M.F.A. from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema and Television.
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