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Sylvia Milo, playwright and performer for the opening play at the Chekhov International Theatre Festival, ‘The Other Mozart.’ The dress worn by Ms. Milo, the only costume in the play, was designed by Magdelena Dabrowska who is with the National Theater of Poland.
The Other Mozart will open the Sixth Annual Chekhov International Theater Festival on Thursday, Sept. 18, at 8 p.m. at the Schlumberger Theater.
The play is called “the true and untold story of the prodigy Nannerl, an acclaimed keyboard virtuoso and composer who performed throughout Europe with her brother Amadeus until she was12 years old,” organizers said.
The script is derived from the Mozart family’s humorous and heartbreaking letters. As Nannerl sits in an opulent dress, hair piled high upon her head, the sweet smell of perfume, and clouds of dusting powder rising from the stage, her story transports the audience into a world of outsized beauty and delight — but also of overwhelming restrictions and prejudice, organizers of the show said.
Sylvia Milo is the playwright amd performer of the show, which is directed by Isaac Byrne.
Choreographer Janice Orlandi said, “I choreographed Sylvia’s gestures and silhouette to place her accurately in the Baroque Period shaping the deportment, courtly manners and gestures for this artist’s extraordinary balletic hands.”
The story unfolds accompanied by an original score by Nathan Davis and Phyllis Chen (Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival). Voluminous costume designed by Magdalena Dabrowska, National Theater of Poland.
Festival continues
The festival will continue Friday, Sept. 19, at 8 p.m. and again Saturday, Sept. 20, at 1 and 8 p.m. All of the festival’s events will be held at the Theatre at Schlumberger, 78 Sunset Lane, Ridgefield.
Friday
On Friday, the Bread & Puppet Theater, one of the oldest non-profit theatrical companies in the U.S., will present The Public Access Center for the Obvious: History. Blending music, art, puppetry and pageantry, the B&P Theater’s giant cardboard and cloth figures have been enacting their utopian vision for over 50 years. Based on a large farm in Glover, Vt., this touring production features three historic monuments, a traditional broom dance to sweep away monumental debris, an anti-extinction angel, a 100-watt light bulb, a rhino and a ship of fools, all tied into one show for the purpose of edging the not yet upriser-masses into existence. To say this is a different type of experience would be an understatement, organizers said.
Saturday
On Saturday at 1, the festival will feature the first reading of a provocative new drama, Gabriel. Friends wrangle over faith and choice; who has it, who doesn’t and who wants it, from the Virgin Mary to the present day. In the question and answer session following the reading, the audience members will have a chance to give the director and actors their feedback to help develop the play.
For the Chekhov Festival’s final event on Saturday at 8, New York’s Drilling Company returns with its long-running, dark comedy, The Norwegians, a play that takes a satirical stab at almost everyone — especially Norwegians, Minnesotans and Texans. Two women meet in a bar and find that they have something in common: they’d like to bump off their husbands. So in a two-for-one deal, they hire some hitmen. However, in this land of herring and crisp-bread, even the hitmen are “Minnesota nice,” and complications soon arise.
Tickets
Visit chekhovfestival.com for individual tickets at $15 or $30 for the entire festival or call 203-431-2774.