Awakening (2000)

By Chiori Miyagawa
Lyrics by Mark Campbell / Music by Daniel Sonenberg
Directed by Sonoko Kawahara

Performance Space 122

With an excellent cast across the board, amazing sound and set design, not to mention creative choreography both director Kawahara and playwright Miyagawa created something quiet and compelling. -Show Business, Minda Cowen

Kate Chopin’s tale of a woman ‘Awakening’ gets a brand new life” -The Villager, David Singer

GALLERY

Photography by Frank DenDanto III

About the production

A story of one woman’s sexual and spiritual awakening told through text, movement and music. Inspired by the novel The Awakening, the play concurrently explores the story of the novel’s heroine, Edna and that of the novel’s author, Kate Chopin. Edna is a passionate young woman caught in an oppressive marriage, yearning for liberation from a life of longing and missing; Kate was an artist who suffered greatly from the controversy caused by her heroine’s actions. Both transcend their situations: Edna walks into the ocean at the end of her story and Kate Chopin defies all her critics by writing a novel that is read into the next century. And this one.

Production Credits

Written by Chiori Miyagawa
Directed by Sonoko Kawahara
Music: Daniel Sonenberg
Lyricist: Mark Campbell
Performed by Brian Nishii, Charles Parnell, Hope Salas, Margi Sharp, Sophia Skiles, Dale Soules, Tony Speciale
Lights: Frank DenDanto III
Sets: David Korins
Costumes: Theresa Squire
Sound: Brian Hallas
Dramaturg: Judythe Cohen

11.08-25, 2000

Japan Foundation Performing Arts Japan Collaboration Grant through P.S. 122