Northern Kentucky University’s School of the Arts continues its 2018-2019 Theatre + Dance season with MARISOL, which runs Oct. 23-28 in NKU’s Stauss Theatre. Please be advised that MARISOL contains mature language and subject matter.
Winner of the 1993 Obie Playwriting Award, MARISOL follows a young, book-smart woman named Marisol Perez, who works in Manhattan as a copy editor. After narrowly escaping a vicious attack, she is visited by her guardian angel who informs her that she can no longer serve as Marisol’s protector.
The angel has been called to lead an angelic campaign – a struggle which throws the human world into complete chaos. MARISOL is a poetry-infused dark fantasia that grapples with a combination of surreal situations, spiritual and social issues, and political consciousness – a fascinating mix of the gritty and the sublime.
From its 1992 debut at the Humana Festival of New American Plays, Louisville, through its 1993 opening at the Joseph Papp Public Theatre in New York City, to multiple more recent venues around the country since its inception, critics and scholars have classified José Rivera’s Obie-award winning MARISOL variously as Magical Realism, Theatre of the Absurd, and Sociospatial Theatre.
This production explores all of those facets of this complex script, and perhaps, just a bit more.
The NKU cast features Kearston Hawkins-Johnson (Marisol), Je ‘Shaun Jackson (Angel), Ashley Martin (June/2nd Voice), Calvin Taylor (Lenny), Charles Adams (Man with Golf Club/Subway Announcer), Jarod Higgins (Man with Scar Tissue/Radio Voice), Christian Silva (Man with Ice Cream/3rd Voice), Brenda Moran (Woman with Furs/1st Voice), and Emma Moss (Angel of Chaos/Dance Captain); Angels of Chaos: Arianna Catalano, Heather Handrich, & Grace Vetter. The show is directed by Daryl Harris. Other creative team members include Farley Norman (Directing Consultant), Brian Robertson (Fight Choreographer), Katie Tierney (Fight Captain), and Tracey Bonner (Dance Consultant). Anna Catton (Scenic Designer) is supported by an award from the Tom and Christine Neyer Family Visiting Artist. The Stage Manager is Holden Wiggins and Assistant Stage Manager is Emily Coffey.
