Macalester College Presents “12 Ophelias: a play with broken songs”

St. Paul, Minn. – The contemporary play “12 Ophelias: a play with broken songs,” by Caridad Svich, will be performed April 8 – 10 and 14 – 16 by Macalester College’s Theatre and Dance Department in the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, Main Stage Theater, 1600 Grand Ave., St. Paul, Minn. Tickets are $7 for general admission, $5 for seniors, and $2 for students. Performances are at 7:30 p.m., Fri. and Sat., April 8 – 9 and 2 p.m. Sun., April 10 and at 7:30 p.m., Thu. – Sat., April 14 – 16. For ticket information, call 651-696-6359.

Playwright Caridad Svich is well known to Twin Cities audiences.  As a core member of the Minneapolis Playwrights’ Center, Svich’s work has been presented numerous times at the annual PlayLabs Festival.   Mixed Blood Theatre produced her bi-lingual adaptation of Isabel Allende’s “House of the Spirits” in Fall 2010, to local acclaim.  In “12 Ophelias,” Svich retrieves Shakespeare’s Ophelia and allows her to walk on land in our own time.  The 12 characters in the play prove to be selves of hers, as she holds a mirror up to their lives.  This production sets Svich’s imaginative revival of Ophelia in the “goth” aesthetic of flamboyant “self-performance.”  The original music by accomplished local theater composer Michael Croswell allows the reborn Ophelias and their astonished beaux to sing their hearts out, fiercely and passionately.

Beth Cleary, associate professor of Theatre and Dance, directs.  Cleary has directed on the Macalester mainstage since 1994 and has specialized in work by contemporary women playwrights.  Her recent productions include Carson Kreitzer’s “The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Naomi Wallace’s “In the Heart of America,” and Caryl Churchill’s “Far Away.”  

Macalester College, founded in 1874, is a national liberal arts college with a full-time enrollment of 1,958 students. Macalester is nationally recognized for its long-standing commitment to academic excellence, internationalism, multiculturalism and civic engagement.  Learn more at macalester.edu