The Strident Immigrant Operetta Moves South
About the Event
After the success of the world premiere of the award-winning play “The Town with Very Nice People”, written by acclaimed Romanian-American playwright, author and academic, Domnica Rădulescu, and presented by RCI New York last fall, the show moves for a special performance to Lexington, VA.
“The Town with Very Nice People”, directed by multiple-awarded Romanian-American director Ana Mărgineanu and starring volcanic Tjaša Ferme in the leading role, is a hilarious, unforgiving exposé of middle-class hypocrisy, that takes an iconoclastic look at militant feminism, immigration in America and romantic relationships against the backdrop of quasi-closed academic communities, inviting the audience to follow the main character, the rebellious Roxana, in her journey through different places, all resembling a perfect town, a perfect house and a perfect society, where in fact no real person can actually fit.
The immersive workshop in Lexington, VA, is presented on the occasion of the 17th National Symposium of Theater in Academe organized by Domnica Rădulescu, the founding director of the symposium at Washington and Lee University.
The event is free and open to the public and will be streamed online at https://go.wlu.edu/livestream.
Written by: Domnica Rădulescu
Director: Ana Mărgineanu
Performers: Tjaša Ferme, Arianne Banda, Juan Cardenas, Allison Fletcher, Sean Coffey
Music Composer: Yoonmi Lee
Music Director: Ok Kyun Kang
Stage Producer: Rachel Tamarin
Stage Management: Samantha Knox
Lighting Design: John Silberger
Running time: 90 minutes
Language: English
Time & Location
Friday, March 22 @ 6:30 PM | Washington and Lee University (CGL Atrium)
Meet the Creative Team
Domnica Rădulescu is a Romanian born American writer and Distinguished Service Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Washington and Lee University. She is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, Train to Trieste (Knopf, 2008 & 2009), Black Sea Twilight (Transworld, 2011 & 2012) and Country of Red Azaleas (Hachette, 2016), and of award-winning plays. Train to Trieste has been published in thirteen languages and is the winner of the 2009 Library of Virginia Fiction Award. Domnica Rădulescu also published fourteen non-fiction books, edited and co-edited collections on topics ranging from the tragic heroine in Western literature to feminist comedy, to studies of exile literature and three collections of original plays. Her play "The Town with Very Nice People" was a runner up for the 2013 Jane Chambers Playwriting Award and the production of her play "Exile is my Home" in 2016 at The Theater for the New City was nominated for the New York Innovative Theater Award and received the HOLA Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble Cast. She is the recipient of the 2011 Outstanding Faculty Award from the Council of Higher Education for Virginia and has been twice a Fulbright scholar. Her recent memoir Dream in a Suitcase (Austin Macauley 2022) received a Honorable Mention from The New York Book Festival. She is the founding director of the National Symposium of Theater in Academe.
Ana Mărgineau is a theater director who works both nationally and internationally. She graduated from The National University of Theater and Film of Bucharest, Romania. She is the co-founder of PopUp Theatrics, a partnership creating immersive theatrical events around the world and in collaboration with international theater artists. She is a past resident of Women's Project Theater, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center and an alumnus of The Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Ana Mărgineanu’s work has been presented and/or developed at the 3LD Art & Technology Center, Working Theater, Urban Stages, NYTW, The Lark, Ensemble Studio Theater, The Secret Theatre and in numerous theaters and festivals in Europe, most notably: New Plays from Europe Wiesbaden, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, National Theater Festival Bucharest, Sibiu International Theater Festival. Called "one of the reigning queens of New York's highly intimate, one-shot-only, conceptual-based theater" by the NYC critic Randy Gener, Ana Mărgineanu is known for close cooperation with the local communities who are audiences for her work, highly metaphoric visual style, and ability to draw raw, visceral performances from her actors.
Tjaša Ferme is the Founder and Artistic Director of Transforma Theatre Inc., dedicated to creating interactive theater experiences at the nexus of science, consciousness and ritual. She is the creator of The Female Role Model Project blending interactive theater with neuroscience produced on Off-Broadway at the premier Art and Tech Center 3-Legged Dog, in New York in November 2018. They were also featured at the Ammerman Biennial of Arts and Technology 2018. She is the creator of a short film Ophelia’s Flip (Cannes Film Festival, 2012), a farce hit, "Cocktales-Confessions of a Nymphomaniac" (The Cell, Abingdon Theatre, Art Basel Miami), an interactive solo show, "Wild Child in the City", and a new play, "My Marlene. Wild Child In The City", which premiered in NYC (TheaterLab), filled houses on European Tours and received an Audience Choice Award at 46th TSD-Week of Slovenian Drama. "Wild Child" won a grant from Trust for Mutual Understanding for a tour at ITI-UNESCO MonoAkt festival in Kosovo, winning a Special Jury Prize, and "Northern Meetings" in Siberia. Tjaša Ferme is a Slovenian National Film Award and Stane Sever classical stage award recipient.