| Kent Stephens Presents TIME STICHES at Banke in September |
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
In September Strawbery Banke Museum, in collaboration with Kent Stephens' STAGE FORCE, presents TIME STICHES, a new theatre piece designed by director/writer Kent Stephens as "a theatrical response to the exhibit, "Thread: Stories of Fashion at Strawbery Banke, 1740-2012." These fashion conscious snippets draw from life in the Puddle Dock area with a focus on fashion. It is intimate, intelligent, excellent theatre running from September 21-30. Get your tickets today. (Details below)
Just as contemporary fashion designers have created new "responses" to the antique garments on display in "Thread," TIME STITCHES is a series of short theatre pieces inspired by the exhibit: items from the museum's costume collection and the new designs, the historical owners, crafters, or wearers and the contemporary designers. "In short,” said Kent Stephens, the STAGE FORCE playwright and director, "TIME STITCHES is a humorous, insightful, multi-dimensional contemplation of the role of fashion in society."
In TIME STITCHES, a new costumed interpreter contemplates Sarah Goodwin's day dress as she works to learn her "script," while a visitor, the great-great-granddaughter of a worker in Ichabod Goodwin's steam factory, provides lacerating commentary. A teenager in love with both history and fashion imagines himself hosting and narrating a runway show of the historical garments. Two former residents of Puddle Dock reminisce about the old neighborhood while they contemplate younger selves and "simpler times" through garments from Puddle Dock in the 1950's . A mother struggling with her weight and her marriage sends her child off to "listen to the landscape" while she reacts to a busk (a corset stay), carved by a woman's sweetheart as a gift for her, and a pair of wedding slippers. A few of the pieces are what Stephens describes as "documentary theatre" -- detailed recreations by actors of living characters, interviewed specifically for the play. In this way, through theatre, the show expands on and responds to the information presented on the curatorial labels in the exhibit.
Performances are scheduled for Friday, September 21 at 8 pm; Saturday, September 22 at 3 pm; Sunday, September 23 at 4 pm; Friday, September 28 at 8 pm; Saturday, September 29 at 8 pm and Sunday, September 30 at 4 pm. All tickets are $25 per person and are available on the Strawbery Banke Web site.
Staged in the ADA-accessible Muriel Gurdon Seabury Howells Lecture Hall in the museum
"Under its previous name, Harbor Light Stage, STAGE FORCE collaborated with
"If there's been a running theme through our work with the museum," said Stephens, the playwright and director of all three previous Strawbery Banke theatre productions, "It's been the essentially subjective component in historical interpretation. I don't believe history really comes alive as a discipline or a worthy object of study without that." In PIRATES, two curators battled over the legacy of John Paul Jones and John Langdon, their visions of the two men markedly different, and both equally plausible. In LAMPLIGHT DIALOGUES, a narrative historian is so passionate about her subject that she actually summons up its ghost, which then drags her to perdition. COME NIGHT FALL satirized the tension between archeologists and narrative historians as they struggled to solve a historical mystery. "I am interested in history," Stephens continued. "But I am more interested in historians - particularly the amateurs, the naifs, the ones on the fresh scent of a story new to them. These are people who have turned to history to learn something about their lives and their inner selves. They are modest adventurers on great journeys."
Previous productions have sold out before the show opened. For information call 603-433-1100.