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SUNY Plattsburgh Department of Theatre to Present 'Red Death' March 7-10


The SUNY Plattsburgh Department of Theatre will present "Red Death” written by Lisa D’Amour, March 7-10, in Hartman Theatre, Myers Fine Arts Building.

“Red Death” is a modern stage noir loosely based on Edgar Allen Poe’s “Mask of the Red Death,” said Kim Hartshorn, director. “It is a thriller, filled with suspense and satire.”

In it, Jane Whithers, a kindergarten teacher and lifeguard is on a self-imposed existential quest to find childhood acquaintance, Prospero Albright. She is searching for the origin of hate, the root of denial and the basic human weakness that causes a person to fear death. She suspects the source might lie in Albright. Withers travels around the world in seven scenes filled with life rafts, spiked cocktails, underground dance clubs and childhood secrets as she searches for the one man who understands why her life has gone down such a perilous path.

The play, which lasts around 90 minutes, has been described as “a dark, often hilarious roller coaster ride through the fears and anxieties that simmer beneath the surface of everyday lives.”

D’Amour is a playwright and interdisciplinary artist. Her plays have been commissioned and produced by theaters across the country, including The Women’s Project and Playwrights’ Horizons in New York City; Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis; Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago; and the Royal National Theater in London.

D’Amour’s play “Detroit” was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Drama and the 2011 Susan Smith Blackburn prize. She is the recipient of the 2008 Alpert Award for the Arts in theater and the 2011 Steinberg Playwright Award.

“Red Death” received a staged reading in 2002 at Southern Repertory in New Orleans and was the opening selection of New York’s Ohio Theatre’s Summerworks festival of new plays.

D’Amour received her M.F.A. in playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a core member of the Playwrights’ Center and a recent alumna of New Dramatists. She lives with her husband, Brendan Connelly, in New Orleans and Brooklyn.

Tickets are available at the door and in advance at Angell College Center: $10 general admission; $8 seniors, students, and SUNY Plattsburgh faculty and staff; and $2 for SUNY Plattsburgh students. Tickets for the Thursday, March 7, performance are buy one, get one free and can be purchased at the door only.

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