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May 1 - 23, 2009
Tuesday to Sunday, 8pm
$25/20
Pay-What-You-Will Preview and Every Tuesday
READ OUR STELLAR REVIEWS
Colin Thomas of the Straight
Jo Ledingham of the Courier
Jane Penistan of reviewvancouver.org
| The Actors |
The Designers |
 Keith Martin Gordey
(Owen Matthiassen) |
 Darren Boquist
(Lighting) |
 Michael Kopsa
(Darius Wheeler) |
 Michael Brooks
(Stage Management) |
 Annabel Kershaw
(Elizabeth Newman-Orr) |
 Cowrin Ferguson
(Projections) |
 Lissa Neptuno
(Setsuko Hearn) |
 Anthony F. Ingram
(Direction/Co-Prod) |
 Bert Steinmanis
(John Bell/Co-Prod) |
 Todd Parker
(Set) |
 Valerie Sing Turner
(Claire Tsong/Co-Prod) |
 Nina Prelog
(Costumes) |
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 Ronin Wong
(Sound) |
| Production Team |

Maria Denholme
Associate Producer |

Anna Hagan
Co-Producer |
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The Play:
36 VIEWS by Naomi Iizuka
Directed by Anthony F. Ingram
May 1 - 23, 2009 at the Jericho Arts Centre
1675 Discovery Street, Vancouver, BC
STARRING:
Keith Martin Gordey, Annabel Kershaw, Michael Kopsa,
Lissa Neptuno, Bert Steinmanis, Valerie Sing Turner |
Valerie Sing Turner in 36 VIEWS |
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An art dealer and an art historian discover what appears to be an ancient manuscript, a priceless Japanese pillow book created by a medieval courtesan. As they try to prove its authenticity, their search becomes an erotic game of greed, love, and sleight-of-hand. In a series of 36 interlocking scenes, Naomi Iizuka's play explores the relationship between the imaginary and the real, and the lines and spaces that separate feelings and words, objects and images of objects, antiques and reproductions, and a person’s heritage and physical features. Culture and commodity, fetish and forgery, and personal and professional revenge are all exposed in 36 VIEWS.
"Watching Naomi Iizuka’s 36 VIEWS is like engaging in a stimulating conversation with a lively interlocutor. . . her text is always smart and she expects you to keep up, but she’s never pretentious or obscure. . . Sexy, authoritative, and able to convey complexity in stillness, Michael Kopsa is perfectly cast as Wheeler. Young actor Lissa Neptuno delivers nicely contained work that includes lovely little ruptures of emotion."
- Colin Thomas of the Georgia Straight
"Sometimes a show comes out of nowhere and surprises you. That's what 36 VIEWS did to me. . . This production, very capably directed by Anthony F. Ingram, is extremely handsome. . . Produced by Tempus Theatre in celebration of Asian Heritage Month, this show deserves better houses. . . 36 VIEWS is a class act, a must see production."
- Jo Ledingham of the Vancouver Courier
"You have to go and be intrigued by this tightly interwoven script and its very well acted, directed and produced presentation by Tempus Theatre Company."
Jane Penistan of reviewvancouver.org
"Tackling conceptions of what we hold as authentic and culturally significant in a framework of Asian art and artifact, the play tells a complex story of the sort that Masterpiece Theatre viewers can sink their attention into. Art forgery, intrigue, romance, mystery and complex inter-cultural analysis all appear in this piece. It also incorporates innovative stage and lighting design, projection and more...a play that will inspire you to discover your own viewpoint."
Stuart Derdeyn of the Province
". . . thoughtful, humane, poetically phrased and staged with intricate, shimmering beauty . . . a multi-textured web that became completely engrossing. Each facet of 36 Views offers another perspective on the art and artifice of our lives."
- San Francisco Chronicle.
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Why This Play? 36 VIEWS IS WRITTEN in such a way that the audience experiences a melding of Eastern and Western forms of theatre. Naomi Iizuka magically creates a contemporary play set in a modern, metropolitan city incorporating strong elements of traditional Japanese Kabuki, Noh theatre, and references to touchstones of Japanese culture such as Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book, Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji and traditional music.
THE PLAY EXPLORES THEMES such as authenticity in art and life, art and its value (both commercial and personal), how we define beauty, the meaning of cultural heritage, and assumptions based on appearances or names.
36 VIEWS OFFERS A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE that opens up exciting areas of discussion and exploration: racial and cultural identity, inter-racial relations and relationships, multi-culturalism, creativity, visual arts, poetry, art history, Japanese history, literature, theatre and visual art, cultural appropriation, the relationship between art and commerce, making moral choices — all this in a play that is part romance, part mystery, part con game. In the playwright’s words, “it’s a play about how difficult it is to arrive at some fixed, unchanging truth about a human being, or a work of art, or a love affair. What we thought was the truth changes. Our perceptions shift, and it’s complicated. People are complicated. Why they make certain choices is at times contradictory, and I wanted to build a play that captured in its actual form all those contradictions."
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The Playwright:
Naomi Iizuka
Naomi lizuka’s latest play, STRIKE-SLIP premiered at the 2007 Humana Festival of New Plays. Her other plays include 36 VIEWS, ANON(YMOUS), CITIZEN 13559, HAMLET: BLOOD IN THE BRAIN (a collaboration with CalShakes and Campo Santo + Intersection for the Arts), AT THE VANISHING POINT, 17 REASONS WHY, POLAROID STORIES, LANGUAGE OF ANGELS, WAR OF THE WORLDS (written in collaboration with Anne Bogart and SITI Company), ALOHA, SAY THE PRETTY GIRLS, TATTOO GIRL and SKIN. Ms. lizuka’s plays have been produced by the Children’s Theater Company, the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, the Huntington Theater, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Berkeley Repertory Theater, GeVa Theater, Laguna Playhouse, Portland Center Stage, the Joseph Papp Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival, Campo Santo + Intersection for the Arts, the Dallas Theatre Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s “Next Wave Festival”, the Edison Theatre in St. Louis, Portland Center Stage, the Public Theatre, Soho Rep, and the Edinburgh Festival. Her plays have been read and workshopped at the Guthrie Theater, the Goodman Theater, Manhattan Theater Club, the Mark Taper Forum, San Jose Rep, Breadloaf, Sundance Theatre Lab, A.S.K. Theatre Projects, the McCarter Theatre, Seattle’s A Contemporary Theatre, the Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival, Midwest PlayLabs, En Garde Arts/P.S. 122, and New York Theatre Workshop. Her plays have been published by Overlook Press, Playscripts, Smith and Kraus; Dramatic Publishing, Sun and Moon Press, and TCG.
Ms. lizuka is currently working on commissions from the Guthrie Theatre, the Goodman Theatre, Huntington Theater, Yale Repertory Theater, Cornerstone, and Berkeley Rep. She is a member of New Dramatists and the recipient of an Alpert Award, a Joyce Foundation Award, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Stavis Award from the National Theatre Conference, a Rockefeller Foundation MAP grant, an NEA/TCG Artists-in-Residence grant, a McKnight Fellowship, a PEN Center USA West Award for Drama, Princeton University’s Hodder Fellowship, and a Jerome Fellowship.
Ms. lizuka received her B.A. summa cum laude from Yale University and her M.F.A. from the University of California, San Diego. She has taught playwriting at the University of Iowa, the University of Texas, Austin, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. |
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How to find the Jericho Arts Centre:
1675 Discovery Street, Vancouver, BC
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