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About Blackbird Theatre
The Blackbird Theatre is a growing local professional theater that has staged over 25 productions in the last five years. We are committed to bringing live theatre to a new audience. We have received acclaim for our innovative productions of new and established works, and last year presented the inaugural year of the Blackbird Academy, a free program that allows youth in grades 6-12 to learn all aspects of mounting a full stage production, both in front of and behind the curtain. |
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Director's
Note
Each project in this season is a dream project, labors of love for our directors. We lead off with two great modern comedies, How the Other Half Loves and Jack Goes Boating. Both are unconventional in their staging, and brutally funny in their portrayal of love and marriage. These are comedies for our times, a kind of sexual State of the Union for this day and age. Winter and spring take us into darker territory. We have never shied away from politics, and to begin 2009, a year of huge political change, we are proud to start with The Grapes of Wrath. John Steinbeck’s sweeping novel of the Great Depression and the formation of American Labor Unions has been beautifully adapted for the stage by the great Frank Galati of Steppenwolf Theatre. Director Lynch Travis will mount the epic as a fully staged reading. Like last year’s Angels in America Parts One and Two, this unique event assembles members of the entire Michigan professional Theatre community this February. The Blackbird Academy returns in March with Twelfth Night. Last year’s Much Ado About Nothing brought together a wonderfully talented group of middle and high school students. This year, we take on Shakespeare’s gender-bent classic and give it a twist. In a production inspired by Lewis Carroll, this Wonderland of poetry, romance and adventure is for audiences of all ages. We follow with a new adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Director Wa-Louisa Hubbard (The Baltimore Waltz) told us that her ideal show would be well written, and dealing directly with women’s issues. So we began to imagine Dorian for a new audience. How can we play with gender to take Oscar Wilde’s classic novel into this century? Our culture is obsessed with beauty and image. Now, in the age of plastic surgery and starvation diets, where does beauty truly lie? Our season closes with Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending. My favorite play, ever. This huge, sexy, unsettling drama takes us to a Southern Hell-on-Earth, where one small mistake sets a catastrophic chain of events in motion. When two outcasts of society find one another, they become the target of a small town’s brutal intolerance. An unforgettable night at the theatre. It is a season of love, laughs, and danger. Join us for our biggest year yet. Barton Bund, About Our Staff BARTON BUND (Founder, Managing Artistic Director) is the original founder of The Blackbird Theatre and its original company, BlackBag Productions. He most recently directed their acclaimed all-African-American production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Other writing and directing credits include The Glob, The Rainbow & Women in Love (adapted from the novels by D.H. Lawrence), Margaritaville, The Jealous Type, and One Hundred Twinkling Lights (winner, Ann Arbor News Best Original Play, 2005). Bart is a staff writer for Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, Artist-in-residence at The Children’s Creative Center of Ann Arbor, as well as a Playmaker Playwright at The Purple Rose Theatre, and a nominee for the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s 2001 L. Arnold Weissberger Award in playwriting for his play Norma Peoples. MORI RICHNER (Executive Director) was most recently Chief Operating Officer for Richner & Richner, a national fundraising consulting firm which she co-founded in 1997, that serves non-profit organizations. Earlier in her career, she was the Director of Annual Giving for the University of Michigan Business School, a program that raised $1.5 million annually as part of the school’s $125 million campaign. Having a lifelong passion for the arts, she has appeared locally with the Ann Arbor Civic Theater (including Heidi in The Heidi Chronicles) and the Children’s Theater Network. While in college, she performed in a variety of theater, radio, and film productions (including A Little Night Music, Prometheus Bound, and Virtue in the Storm, a weekly serial soap-opera spoof she helped to originate), and co-founded Griffin’s Tale Repertory Company, a children’s theater company that still exists (as Barrel of Monkeys) in Chicago. Avocationally, Mori has served on several boards, including Triangle Cooperative Nursery, where she was President. She holds an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University, and a Masters of Education from the University of Michigan. LAURIE ATWOOD (Board Chair) is the owner and operator of the Children’s Creative Center. She has appeared in plays and musicals throughout the area since you were very little. Credits include Dimly Perceived Threats to the System, Xmas Carol, The Nerd, I Remember Mama, The Shadow Box, A Little Night Music, and others. Laurie is a marathon runner and mother of three. DANA SUTTON (Associate Artistic Director) has appeared in the Blackbird’s productions of The Rainbow, The Glob, The Seagull, Hamlet, Women in Love and Xmas Carol. As director: The Frontier, Night Blooming, and Dimly Perceived Threats to the System. Dana has served as Assistant Manager of the Manistee Civic Players’ Ramsdell Theatre and Opera House (1996-1997) in Manistee, Michigan. A northern Michigan native, Dana now proudly calls Ann Arbor her home along with her partner and husband Bart, their daughter Eowyn, and their dogs. She holds a degree in Theatre Arts from Eastern Michigan University. Past Productions: The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris, adapted for the stage by Joe Mantello, 2007A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, adapted by Barton Bund, 2007 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams, 2007 for colored girls… by Ntozake Shange In The Heart of America by Naomi Wallace, 2007 Lydie Breeze by John Guare, 2006 The Glob: A New Musical by Barton Bund, 2006 A View From The Bridge by Arthur Miller, 2006 Night Blooming by Joseph Zettelmaier, 2006 The Seagull by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Barton Bund, 2005 The World Over by Keith Bunin, 2005 The Frontier by Dana Sutton, 2005 One Hundred Twinkling Lights by Barton Bund, from a story by Jim Posante, 2005 Period of Adjustment by Tennessee Williams, 2004 The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence, adapted by Barton Bund, 2004 Margaritaville by Barton Bund, 2004 Dimly Perceived Threats to the System by Jon Klein, 2004 Side Man by Warren Leight, 2004 Xmas Carol by Barton Bund, adapted from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, 2003 Betrayal by Harold Pinter, 2002 Hamlet by William Shakespeare, 2002 Dirt by Barton Bund, 2001 The Old Neighborhood by David Mamet, 2000 Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence, adapted by Barton Bund, 1999 Battery by Daniel Theriault, 1999 The Jealous Type by Barton Bund, 1998
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