WEST COAST PREMIERE

Marian

or The True Tale of Robin Hood

Written by Adam Szymkowitz
Directed by Christopher Johnson

A gender-bending, patriarchy-smashing, hilarious new take on the classic tale. Robin Hood is (and has always been) Maid Marian in disguise, and leads a motley group of Merry Men (few of whom are actually men) against the greedy Prince John. As the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, who will stand for the vulnerable if not Robin? What is the cost of revealing your true self in a time of trouble? Modern concerns and romantic entanglements clash on the battlefield and on the ramparts of Nottingham Castle. A play about selfishness and selflessness and love deferred and the fight. Always the fight. The fight must go on.

August 23 – September 22, 2018

Cast & Crew

Writer: Adam Szymkowicz

ADAM SZYMKOWICZ’s plays have been produced throughout the U.S., and in Canada, England, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Turkey, South Korea, Slovenia and Lithuania. His work has been presented or developed at such places as Portland Center Stage, MCC Theater, Ars Nova, South Coast Rep, Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, LAByrinth Theater Company, The Lark, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Primary Stages and The New Group, among others.

Published plays include Deflowering Waldo, Pretty Theft, Food For Fish, Hearts Like Fists, Incendiary, Clown Bar, The Why Overhead, Adventures of Super Margaret, 7 Ways To Say I Love You, Rare Birds, Marian Or The True Tale of Robin Hood, and Nerve. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service, Samuel French, Playscripts, Broadway Play Publishing, Original Works Publishing, and featured in New York Theatre Review, the Dionysian, NYTE’s Cino Nights, Geek Theater, and numerous Smith and Kraus books.

He was the premiere Resident Playwright at The Chance Theater in Anaheim, CA and the first playwright to participate in Bloomington Playwrights Projects’ Square One Series. He has been to The Orchard Project and to JAW at Portland Center Stage, served twice as Playwright in Residence at the William Inge Center, and took part in The Dramatists Guild Fund’s Traveling Masters program. Szymkowicz received a grant from the CT Commission on Culture & Tourism, and has been commissioned by South Coast Rep, Rising Phoenix Rep, Texas State University, The NOLA Project, Single Carrot Theater, and Flux Theater Ensemble.

Adam received a Playwright’s Diploma from The Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program and an MFA from Columbia University where he was the Dean’s Fellow. Szymkowicz is a two-time Lecomte du Nouy Prize winner, a member of the Dramatists Guild, Writer’s Guild of America, and was a member of Primary Stages’ Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer’s Group, the MCC Playwright’s Coalition and of the first Ars Nova Play Group.

He has interviewed 1000 playwrights on his blog. Szymkowicz is the Literary Manager at The Juilliard School, supporting the playwriting program there.

For more, go to www.adamszymkowicz.com.

Director: Christopher Johnson

Christopher Johnson (Director) is a co-founder of The School of Night for whom he has directed Hercules Insane, Punch and Judy, The Final Girl and The Faggot King or The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward II. Other Los Angeles directing credits include Entropy (Theatre of NOTE), The Pity of Things – Desert Aria (also Theatre of NOTE) and Henry VI, Part I (The Production Company). Before LA Christopher was the founding artistic director of Chicago’s historic Defiant Theatre for whom he served as producer on dozens of projects including the U.S. premieres of Sarah Kane’s Cleansed and Phaedra’s Love and multiple iterations of the cult-classic Action Movie: The Play. Defiant directing credits include Macbeth, Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, A Clockwork Orange and Dope. Chris also penned and directed Defiant’s world-premiere adaptations of Stephen King’s Apt Pupil and Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon(Joseph Jefferson Citation for Best New Adaptation). Other Chicago directing credits include Balacarita: The Adventures of Young Krishna (Silk Road Theatre Project), Cave Dwellers (North Avenue Productions) and Dulcitius (The School of Night, pre-LA). Christopher has appeared as an actor at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Lyric Opera, Chicago Opera Theatre, Redmoon Theater, The Building Stage, A Crew of Patches and Defiant Theatre.