poster design by Randy Skidmore

Virginia Woolf's ORLANDO

adapted by Sarah Ruhl

2017
Manbites Dog Theater Other Voices Series Presentation

regional premiere

Interview with Frank Stasio on WUNC Public Radio's "The State of Things": http://wunc.org/post/bending-time-and-gender-through-orlando#stream/0

*Five NC theater critics' favorite shows & "State of Theater" 2017 round table discussion on WHUP radio's "Lights Up" (start at 11:17, 14:43): https://whupfm.org/episode/lights-up-122017-permanent-archive/*

*Outstanding Production & Outstanding Ensemble Performance for Orlando in Triangle Arts & Entertainment's "Best of 2017" List*

*Orlando was one of Indy Week’s Top Ten Plays of 2017*

“This smart, stylish take on Virginia Woolf's novella was exceptional in all aspects, including Elsa Hoffman's intricate metal set silhouettes, Joseph Amodei's lighting, and Kim Black's costume design. Even more remarkable, superlative actors Skylar Gudasz, Rajeev Rajendran, Caitlin Wells, Dale Wolf, and Emmett (then Emily) Anderson in the title role, shared directing duties while confidently escorting us through Sarah Ruhl's daunting stage adaptation, across a half-millennium of developments in gender roles, all in eighty thrilling minutes.”

-Byron Woods, “The Top Ten Plays of 2017,” Indy Week

“Delta Boys Theater Company’s current production puts its own brilliant spin on the piece…. Four equally talented players support (Orlando’s) extremely engaging performance…. Delta Boys’ fluid, tautly paced staging is all the more impressive because the task is done collectively. Artist Elsa Hoffman’s patterned steel set pieces, including a London street scene and the queen’s elaborate dress, comprise a show of their own. Joseph Amodei’s atmospheric lighting and Kim Black’s clever gender-morphing costumes complete this nigh-perfect presentation. The timeliness of a work about gender identities is obvious in today’s political landscape but Woolf’s themes transcend the present with universal insights, marvelously rendered in this production.

-Roy C. Dicks, “Theater review: Satirical ‘Orlando’ a brilliant spin on Woolf’s novel,” The News & Observer

"It takes a mere eighty minutes to gain these and other insights in the Delta Boys' triumphant production of Sarah Ruhl's stage adaptation of Orlando at Manbites Dog Theater. In that time, five self-directed actors sketch striking stage tableaux as they deftly skate across a half-millennium-long history of the human heart.... A rewarding production filled with the joy of storytelling.... At the last, Orlando remains confident in her search for understanding. An equally confident production puts that quest on the strongest ground, and earns our highest recommendation."

-Byron Woods, "A superlative adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando packs centuries of insight into a fleet eighty minutes," Indy Week

"The cast, who is onstage throughout the entire play, are energetic and well-meshed, weaving in and out of each other’s lives through the centuries, often becoming another gender (as does Orlando). Their ability to hook into each other’s lines, as well as their physical ability to choreograph the often abstract tableaux in the performance, is excellent; and together, they build an interesting and enjoyable perspective." -Dawn Reno Langley, Triangle Arts & Entertainment

LOVE AND INFORMATION

by Caryl Churchill

2015

The Carrack Modern Art

Durham, NC

regional premiere

*One of Indy Week's "Nine great local theater performances of 2015"*

LOVE AND INFORMATION

by Caryl Churchill

2016

Manbites Dog Theater

Durham, NC

One of the Indy Week performing arts critic's nine favorite shows of 2015: "A gifted quintet played a compelling game of human pinball as Caryl Churchill's characters got the news (or didn't) in 65 relationships, ranging from snarky lovers to torturer and victim." -Byron Woods

"In conventional scripts, playwrights provide the names and identities of the characters, or at least the locations and times of events. In Love and Information, all Caryl Churchill provides are brief titles for a series of seemingly disconnected scenes, followed by anonymous lines of dialogue. In a five-star production last January, part of the Delta Boys' achievement was how imaginatively a quintet of self-directed actors filled in the blanks, sharply defining individual characters in specific situations and conveying transitions in more than 60 different relationships. This kinetic, non-stop show confronts us with what actor Skylar Gudasz called 'the constant stimulation and constant disconnect' of a culture in which the values we assign to other and ourselves can be contingent upon--and threatened by-- the next Facebook status post." -Byron Woods, Indy Week