By Jonelle Walker
Directed by Angela Kay Pirko
Now to December 11, 2016
“Jonelle Walker’s vivid, artfully unnerving TAME. is a retort to Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew . . . Ingeniously crafted, right up to its shocker ending, TAME. echoes Shakespeare while also depicting distinctive characters locked in a psychologically plausible battle of modern values and ideas.” —Celia Wren, The Washington Post
AVANT BARD PRESENTS AN EXPLOSIVE DRAMA set in 1960s Texas about a wildly creative and spirited young poet named Cat. Grieving the suicide of her lesbian lover, Cat goes home to her religious parents, who are dead-set on forcing her to submit and conform. They hire a firebrand minister named Patrick to try to tame her—but Cat fights back. A rejoinder to The Taming of the Shrew from a woman’s point of view, TAME. is every bit as darkly comic and enthralling as the Shakespeare play that provoked it.
Jonelle Walker lives and works in DC but will always call Texas home. Her work tends to explore the dark, uncomfortable, and disturbing through comedy and drama. She is the Literary Manager and Artist-in-Residence for Blind Pug Arts Collective. A proud artist-scholar, she is also an MA student in Theatre History and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland with research interests in stage violence and feminism.
Angela Kay Pirko is the resident director and co-producer of Nu Sass Productions. Other DC companies she has worked with include Shakespeare Theatre Company, Studio Theatre, Brave Spirits Theatre, National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, Lean & Hungry Theatre, Source Festival, Theatre Prometheus, and Young Playwrights’ Theater. She is a member of the 2014 Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab, a member of the 2015-2016 SDCF Observership Program, and a member of the inaugural class of the Directors’ Studio at Shakespeare Theatre Company.
CAST (in order of appearance)
CATHRYN – Jill Tighe
MAMA – Karen Lange
BEA – Madeline Burrows
DADDY – John Stange
PATRICK – Brendan Edward Kennedy
DESIGN AND PRODUCTION
Set Designer: Eric McMorris
Lighting Designer: E-hui Woo
Costume Designer: Danielle Preston
Sound Designer: Mehdi Raoufi
Props Designer: Becky Mezzanotte
Stage Manager: Laura Schlachtmeyer
Production Dramaturg: Maegan Clearwood
Assistant Dramaturg: Brett Steven Abelman
Dialect Coach: Christine Hirrel
Fight Choreographer: Danny Cackley
Technical Director: Kevin Maresca
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR TAME. MEDIA PARTNER
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