Prometheus Bound / Sept., CA

For anyone who is or will be around Pacific Palisades, California:

Getty Museum and CNP Present PROMETHEUS BOUND

This September, the Getty Museum and CalArts' Center for New Performance (CNP), in association with Trans Arts, will present Prometheus Bound, the eighth annual outdoor theater production in the Getty Villa's Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater. Featuring a newly-translated text by noted poet and essayist Joel Agee, Prometheus Bound will be directed by Travis Preston, artistic director of CNP and dean of the CalArts School of Theater, and include original music by composer Ellen Reid and celebrated jazz multi-instrumentalist Vinny Golia (who will also perform live onstage).

In the mythic tradition, the Titan Prometheus, progenitor and champion of humankind, stole fire from Mount Olympus to give to mortals. In this play, he also taught them crafts and skills essential for human civilization. As punishment, Zeus dooms him to an eternity chained to a mountaintop, where Prometheus spends his days and nights railing against the gods and their injustices.

The striking central element of this original production of the ancient Greek drama will be a mammoth steel wheel, twenty-three feet tall that will be installed in the outdoor theater. As envisioned by director Preston and scenic designer Efren Delgadillo, Jr., the remote mountaintop is represented by this enormous steel wheel, to which Prometheus is strapped in the opening scene of the play.

Notes Preston: "Prometheus Bound addresses man's relationship to the eternal order of the cosmos. The circle represents the cosmos and is also an image of time. The drama is placed at The Edge of civilization, as well as at the border between ritual and artistic expression. Prometheus Bound also depicts the enfranchisement of human capability. It is a hosanna to human culture and achievement."

Of the surviving ancient Greek dramas, Prometheus Bound (of unknown date, but perhaps first performed in the 450s B.C.) is considered to be one of the most beautifully written, theatrically unique, and theologically profound: a masterpiece of Western theater. It has equally proven to be one of the most challenging to translate and present to contemporary audiences. While continuing to be ascribed to the tragic poet Aeschylus, the play's authorship has been the subject of scholarly debate in recent decades. Composed in the most ancient extant dramatic form, Prometheus Bound unfolds almost as an epic poem or extended hymn, rarely yielding the dramatic action generally associated with later Greek tragedies.

Performances of Prometheus Bound will be held on Thursdays through Saturdays, September 5 - 28, 2013, with previews from August 29-31, at the Getty Villa's Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater. Tickets go on sale July 1 and are $42 ($38 for students and seniors, $25 for preview performances). Tickets may be purchased online at www.getty.edu or by telephone at (310) 440-7300.

Prior to each evening's performance, the museum galleries will open at 6:30 p.m. for theater-goers to enjoy the Villa's collection and gardens. The Cafe at the Getty Villa will once again offer a special pre-theater prix fixe sit-down dinner.

About the Cast
Prometheus will be played by Ron Cephas Jones, a celebrated New York-based actor, whose most recent credits include the title role in Richard III for The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival and Caliban in The Bridge Project's The Tempest, which was recently performed at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music, the Old Vic in London, and on tour in Asia and France. Jones' previous classical roles include Othello (directed by Rupert Goold, incoming artistic director of the Almeida Theater in London) and Ajax at the American Repertory Theater. His performance in LAByrinth Theater Company's Jesus Hopped the A Train was lauded in both the United States and London, and for his performance in August Wilson's Two Trains Running, Jones received a 2007 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in the Theater. His film work includes the soon to be released Titus, in which he plays a jazz musician attempting to come to terms with his troubled past.

Mirjana Jokovic will play Io. Her distinguished career in the United States includes work on Broadway (Electra), at The American Repertory Theatre (Full Circle, Winter's Tale, Mother Courage, Othello), San Francisco's ACT (Three Sisters), and the McCarter Theatre in New Jersey (Romeo and Juliet). Her film work includes Serbian Girl, Vukovar, A Better Way to Die, and the leading role in Emir Kusturica's Underground, which won the Palme d`Or at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. Ms. Jokovic currently serves as Director of Performance at the CalArts School of Theater.

The ensemble also includes Michael Blackman (Hermes), Adam Haas Hunter (Kratos), Joseph Kamal (Okeanos), and Tony Sancho (Hephaistos). The 12-member chorus includes Sarah Beaty, Kaitlin Cornuelle, Genevieve Gearhart, Jennifer Greer, Heather Hewko, Paula Rebelo, Jessica Reed, Megan Rippey, Chuja Seo, Kalean Ung, Amanda Washko, and Tatiana Williams. Costume design is by Ellen McCartney; lighting design is by Anne Militello. Choreography is by Mira Kingsley. Producing this year's production is Carol Bixler, Producing Director of CNP.

The J. Paul Getty Museum collects in seven distinct areas, including Greek and Roman antiquities, European paintings, drawings, manuscripts, sculpture and decorative arts, and photographs gathered internationally. The Museum's mission is to make the collection meaningful and attractive to a broad audience by presenting and interpreting the works of art through educational programs, special exhibitions, publications, conservation, and research.

The CalArts Center for New Performance (CNP), the professional producing arm of the California Institute of the Arts, was established in 1999 as a forum for the creation of groundbreaking theatrical performance. Seminal artists from around the world are brought to CNP to develop work that expands the language, discourse, and boundaries of contemporary theater and performance.