In Your Eyes Projects presents Red

NEWS RELEASE

IN YOUR EYES PROJECTS

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In Your Eyes Projects completes their second season of live theatre with John Logan’s “intense and exciting” (NY Times) award winning Red at the new St. Mary’s College Community Theatre on June 14. The production features Steven McCarthy and Jonas Trottier and is directed by Joseph Lauzon and Loretta Durat and produced by Thomas Brandstetter.

• General Seating admission tickets available at the door each show night (June 14 - 17), or in advance at the Station Mall Box Office or online
• This event features licenced bar, air conditioning and reserved seating
• Special Grand Opening/Naming Ceremony:  Friday, June 16 at 7 p.m.

“What do you see?”

John Logan’s award winning masterpiece Red begins with this challenge and continues to explore the relationships between artist, their art and their audience.The action of the play chronicles the two-year period where American abstract expressionist Mark Rothko worked feverishly attempting to create a collection of definitive works that would meet the demands of the largest commission in the history of modern art.

At the play’s center is the prickly relationship between the blustering, hard drinking, cantankerous Rothko and his seemingly naïve young assistant, Ken. Ken eventually rises from his status as Rothko’s whipping boy and gopher to become that young artist who must choose between appeasing his mentor or changing the course of art history. Set amid the swiftly changing cultural tide of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, Red is a startling snapshot of the passing of the torch from one generation to the next. 

“I was working through a collection of plays and came across John Logan’s Red. It was like being hit with a sledgehammer,” remembers Director Joseph Lauzon. “It was raw and bold; an audacious attack on consumerism. Intimate, brilliant and bursting with the prospects of new possibilities while lamenting the elapsing tide of an era soon to be lost.”

“So many people have come forward to express a lot of love and excitement for this play” observes Director Loretta Durat. “It's evidence of the play's power and I am certainly honoured to be a part of the group of artists bringing such a passionate story to our local stage.  What a strong script. Hang on to your hearts."

As a means of trying to honour the theme of ‘passing of the torch’ the company has brought back professionals working in the field of theatre who started their careers in Sault Ste. Marie. For their production of Red, IYE has cast professional actor, director and musician Steven McCarthy in the role of Mark Rothko.

Steven McCarthy is an acclaimed actor, director, and musician. A graduate of The National theatre school of Canada's prestigious acting programme, he has played a wide variety of leading roles for such directors as Guillermo del Toro, Ken Finkelman, Kate Melville and Robert Harmon in productions as diverse as The Strain, HBO Canada's Good God, the indie hit Picture Day, A&E's The Crossing and was just featured in Global's Mary Kills People.

“When I read Red I sent Joe and Loretta an email calling Rothko a ‘…yowling growling vomit-scream of a role. Incredible!’ I guess I did not hide my enthusiasm for the role well,” jokes Steven McCarthy. 

About Red, Steven comments: “Why do we create art? Why care? For what purpose? Why fight the forces of the prepackaged, pretested, demographic-adhering merchandizing of the safe, appropriate and socially accepted?  Red asks some challenging questions and dares to proclaim amidst the noise that yes, yes art does matter.”

“Northern Ontario is blessed with many incredible artists, people who express themselves in authentic and unique ways. I was lucky enough to grow up in a city full of people creating for the sheer love of it.” Steven remembers, “I found people who nurtured, cultivated and enriched my talent and my belief that art, acting, writing music, plays and movies is important, indeed vital, to making our world a better place. The fact that I get to come back to the Soo and act in a play that celebrates those very ideas, with some of the people who first inspired me, it hugely exciting.”

Red similarly impacted its other featured star, Jonas Trottier: “All artists must expose themselves to a wide a variety of forms of expression to foster a depth of understanding and experience which can in turn enrich their own work. Red necessitates that exploration from its actors, but it also argues for it in the play itself. Rothko is adamant, ‘Philosophy. Theology. Literature. Poetry. Drama. Anthropology. Mythology. Music. These are your tools as much as brush and pigment.’”

Red’s author, John Logan is a prolific American playwright, screenwriter and producer whose credits include Gladiator, Alien Covenant, Skyfall, Any Given Sunday, and Rango to name only a few.  Accidently turning the wrong way in London’s Tate Modern art gallery, Logan found himself in the Rothko room displaying his famous ‘Four Season’ murals. “I couldn’t breathe. It was almost as though someone had punched me in the stomach. There was something so striking and compelling about them that I just couldn’t tear myself away… everything changed. I went over to the wall and read the history of how they were created and I just knew that story had to be a play. And that I had to write it.”

Full-blooded and visceral, Red explores the tumultuous and brilliant mind of Mark Rothko, “I am here to stop your heart, you understand that?”

For more information please click here  https://www.inyoureyesprojects.com/

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