Page 73's world premiere of Majkin Holmquist's Stargazers begins performances April 8. The piece, which will run through May 4 at The Connelly Theater Off-Broadway, is set to open April 20.
The new work centers on a grieving mother as she contemplates selling her Kansas farm on the advice of the ghost of her daughter.
The production stars Lizzy Brooks (Macbeth) as Clementine, Baize Buzan (To Kill A Mockingbird) as Jessica and Bridget, Andrew Garman (Greater Clements) as Al and Dedham, Fernando Gonzalez (Skinnamarink) as Avery and Andy, Miles G. Jackson (Endlings) as Casey and Jim, Keren Lugo (Privacy) as Aracely, and Kelly McAndrew (The Thin Place) as Rita.
“I was very excited by the idea of trying to figure out how to express an unseen character’s arc, when she's essentially an inanimate object—she’s been dead many years, she’s just memory and bones at this point," said Holmquist in a previous statement. "I remember going into a reading we did earlier this year, wondering if the morbid humor would work, and I was so pleased at the response—that people could at once see its bleakness and its humor and how the two feed each other.
“I was experiencing a lot of conversations about the Great Plains, Midwest, Red States, fly-over country, and encountering a lot of really strange assumptions about the place that I come from—and on the flip side, I now go home and encounter very strange assumptions about the East Coast. These two conversations are seldom capturing the reality of the other. I wanted that feeling to persist in the play itself where people are coming with this assumption about who is on this farmland, and the politics of the people there—and then the people in Kansas also see through the lens of their assumptions, about the people who want to change this piece of land.”
Colette Robert is directing, leading a creative team that includes scenic designer Lawrence E. Moten III, costume designer Alicia J. Austin, lighting designer Reza Behjat, sound designer Tosin Olufolabi, and prop designer Caitlyn Murphy. Kate Croasdale is the production stage manager, and Carolyn Reich is the assistant stage manager. Casting is by Taylor Williams.
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