AMERYKA

Ensemble:
Curt Bonnem
Russell Edge

Ray Ford
Lorne Green

Drew Stafford Harper
Danielle K. Jones

Christopher Salazar
Nicholas Santoro
Valerie Spencer

 

Production Team:
Nancy Keystone--writer/director/scenic design
Randy Tico--composer/sound Design

Elizabeth  Harper--lighting design
Julia Colbert Ruiz--stage manager

Turner Munch--assistant director

Lena Sands & Sarah Brown--costume design

Amanda Rountree--prop design

Lisa de Los Angeles--assistant stage manager

Max Oken--technical director

Jesus Reyes--audience engagement director

Tom Bryant--dramaturg

Ken Werther--publicity

Hayley Waters--producer

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February 5 - March 6, 2016                                    

The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles

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written & directed by Nancy Keystone

created in collaboration with the company

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AMERYKA is an epic exploration of the universal human longing for freedom and justice. 

 

From the American Revolution to the global War on Terror, from the struggle for civil rights to the fight against communism, AMERYKA turns history inside out in an unforgettable examination of the promises and betrayals of the United States.  Influenced and driven by African American history and culture, and its astonishing connections with Poland, Critical Mass Performance Group's signature, kaleidoscopic style of found texts, movement, music, and spectacle culminates in an exhilarating theatrical journey.

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• Named Production of the Year by Stage Raw

• Awarded Best Ensemble by Stage Raw

• Nominated for Best Director Award by Stage Raw

• Nominated for 7 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards: production ensemble, director, featured actor, costume design, lighting design, sound design

• Nominated for Best Ensemble award by LA Drama Critics Circle

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"The arc that's created…is far from the traditional linear narrative. Instead, we're exploring and building meaning through accumulation and coincidence. Ms. Keystone is not using the theater in the ways we're accustomed to - to tell a simple story that we already know. Instead, she's using it as a tool for discovery -- theater as a way of uncovering or grappling with a deeper truth… Ameryka is a remarkable journey." --Anthony Byrnes, KCRW

 

 "…wildly ambitious, serious and satiric, psycho-social-historical-political theatrical collage…you should make plans without delay to swing by the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles during the one month run…plenty to entertain and plenty to provoke …sequences that are flat-out brilliant…the passion and commitment of all concerned infuses every minute of it." --Bob Verini, Stage Raw

 

"Ameryka, with its frank exploration of America's many oppressions and injustices, challenged the audience to confront the contradictions embedded in our mythos. Yet it is also asked that we commit to its hopeful promise. Ameryka suggested that if we honestly view this country as 'divided against herself,' we might fight to correct its wrongs. As Agrippa Hull, and later Curtis, optimistically compelled, 'The seeds is sown. Let them not lie fallow.' " 

--Karen Jean Martinson, Theatre Journal, September 2016

 

AMERYKA (2010-2015) was performed as a work-in-progress at: Skirball Cultural Center, South Coast Rep/Studio SCR, University of Redlands, Claremont McKenna College, Network of Ensemble Theatres Micro Fest/Los Angeles, East LA Rep, Diavolo Dance Space.