Deep Water (World Premiere)
CAST
Val: Lindsey Rae Johnson Bluejay: Lisa Neher Traveler 1: Dru Rutledge Traveler 2: Allison Kim-Yok Knotts Stephen Lewis, music director & pianist CREATIVE TEAMCaroline Louise Miller, composer & librettist
Christine Freije, stage director Samantha Kemp, lighting designer Eli Cannon, sculpture artist CREWAlex Homer, assistant stage manger & lighting technician
Zachariah Barbour, lighting technician Rebecca Ralston, a/v playback operator ASL INTERPRETERSJessy Severe & Chelsea Huber
ACESSIBILITY
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Thursday, June 18, 7:30 pm
Friday, June 19, 7:30 pm Saturday, June 20, 7:30 pm Sunday, June 21, 2:00 pm - Includes ASL Interpretation Boiler Room Theatre, Portland State University, Portland, OR Performed in English with English Supertitles Length: approx. 60 minutes with no intermission Content: This production includes brief profanity Deep Water is made possible through generous funding from Portland State University, Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC), Portland Arts and Culture, and Portland Arts Access Fund.
ABOUT THE SHOW
Deep Water is a post-apocalyptic fantasy opera that investigates rage, grief, play, & persistence in the face of gargantuan, destructive forces. Themes include the role of play in affirming our humanity, extending love & care to the non-human (animals, ecosystems etc.), impermanence/permanence, & legibility/obscurity. Deep Water will include devised theater elements.
It is 400 years in the future. Val & Bluejay, teenage companions, were chosen in the 21st century to document the fall of humanity during the Anthropocene, cursed to walk to the earth as immortals to fulfill this duty. Deep Water is in the form of episodes… Some feature “travelers” exploring a climate-changed world, with Val & Bluejay on the periphery acting as witnesses and documentarians. In other episodes, Val & Bluejay banter, reminisce, play, & affirm their love. Deep Water takes tonal influence from Tamysn Muir’s short story “The Deepwater Bride,” a sapphic apocalyptic love story that is underpinned by the observation that society is deeply afraid of youth, particularly girls and queer youth, often rendering them frivolous or powerless in narratives. Deep Water positions 2 queer teenagers in the role of history-creation, defining what is worth preserving. --Caroline Louise Miller, Composer & Librettist |
"I am excited to explore the question of what our role and responsibility as individual humans is in leaving behind a legacy as a collective species, especially in the face of ecological crisis. To me, lighting design is a language, a vocabulary -- and I am eager to use it to discuss and debate what the answer to that question might be through the story of Deep Water."
--Lighting Designer Samantha Kemp |
Caroline Louise Miller
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"The world that Caroline has conjured in Deep Water is so imaginative, surprising, and infused with deeply human grief, longing, and humor. I’m thrilled at the challenge of bringing this vision of the distant future to physical, visceral life with this group of daring performers."
--Stage Director Christine Freije
--Stage Director Christine Freije
Christine Freije, Stage Director
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Christine Freije (she/her) is a theatre director, deviser, and educator. Her process is rooted in deep collaboration and play through an imaginative and expansive feminist lens, and her work wrestles with themes of gender, identity, and the kinetic body. Christine’s original devised work includes I’d Like to Think I’m Pretty Unique: a doppelgänger play and Shrew, which was recognized for Excellence in Devised Work by Bonaly Reviews. Other recent directing credits include Richard III (Portland Playhouse’s Fall Festival of Shakespeare), Tartuffe, The Wolves (Portland State University), Antigone (Redtwist Theatre), Vinegar Tom and Everybody (The Theatre School at DePaul University). She has worked around the country at Arden Theatre, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, Redtwist Theatre, Philadelphia Artists Collective, Theatre Horizon, and others. She’s an adjunct professor at Portland State University, and she earned her MFA in Directing at The Theatre School at DePaul University. www.christinefreije.com
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Stephen Lewis, Music Director
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Dr. Stephen Lewis is pianist, composer, conductor, and music teacher living in Portland, Oregon. Stephen performs traditional piano music with a composer’s urgent, expressive power, while bringing to avant-garde and experimental music a classical concert pianist’s devotion to beautiful sound.
Stephen has performed with the Oregon Symphony, 45th Parallel Universe, Third Angle, Fear No Music’s Young Composers Project, the Portland Chamber Orchestra, and Cascadia Composers. He has performed in venues such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Miller Theater, Severance Hall, and the San Diego Museum of Art. As a composer, Stephen has been commissioned by Red Fish Blue Fish, Diagenesis Duo, the Wellesley Composers Conference, and soundSCAPE. Stephen earned a D.M.A. in Contemporary Piano Performance in 2017, and a Ph.D. in Composition in 2015 from the University of California San Diego. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (Composition and Piano Performance) in 2006. |
Samantha Kemp, Lighting Designer
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Samantha "Sam" Kemp is a Portland-based creator, artist, and lighting designer for live performance. Born and raised in the tiny town of Lindenhurst, New York before moving to Las Vegas in her adolescence, Sam has always managed to weasel her way into artful spaces despite cultural pressures to stick to the status quo. Design credits include 8-Track: Sounds of the 70s and Les Misérables at The Broadway Rose, The Other Place, Athena, and Chekhov!: 3 Farces at 21ten Theatre, Waking the Witch with Renegade Opera, Racecar Racecar Racecar at Artists Repertory Theatre, Tiger Style! with Profile Theatre, Recent Tragic Events with Third Rail Repertory Theatre, and The Glass Menagerie with Shaking the Tree.
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