In partnership with
The Polish Institute of Arts and Science of America
A staged reading of The Emigrants by Slawomir Mrozek, directed by Zenon Kruszelnicki.
CAST
Stage Directions: Olivier Sublet
AA: Wendy Buchanan-Daly
XX: Daniel Holme
The Emigrants: This important play from one of Poland’s most prominent playwrights has had successful stagings in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., and New York. It takes place on a New Year’s Eve in an unnamed country in the home of two immigrants. One is a political exile, an intellectual who gets his money from a mysterious source. The other is a ditch digger who is saving money to bring over his family. At first it seems the laborer is uncouth and dependent upon the intellectual, but gradually we come to see that the opposite is true.
Sławomir Mrożek, Polish playwright and satirist noted for his subtle parody and stylized language. As one of the leading European satiric writers of the last half of the 20th century, Mrożek exposed many of the nonsensical events of modern times. Bordering on the absurd with its combination of humour, wit, and the grotesque, his work transgressed political and economic systems, revealing both their universality and their sillier aspects.
Zenon Kruszelnicki (Director) teaches acting and directs at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and directs annually at SUNY Purchase. A lifetime member of The Actors Studio, the International Federation of Actors (FIA), Stage Directors and Choreographers (SDC), Screen Actors Guild (SAG/AFTRA) and Actors Equity in Poland (ZASP), Zenon earned an M.F.A in Theater Directing from the Actors Studio Drama School at The New School University and an M.F.A. in Acting and Puppetry from The National Academy of Drama in Poland. Zenon was the Liberace Scholar awarded by the Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts and received The Candle of Understanding Award in the Production of Talking Books from The Jewish Braille Institute of America. Recently, he taught a workshop at the London’s Studio National Theatre for emerging directors, presenting The Graphical Method of Text Analysis and Making the Graphical Production Project of The Cherry Orchard, and taught acting workshops at London’s Central School of Speech & Drama. Zenon has served as a dialect coach for Willem Dafoe and collaborated with the Wooster Group on a new production entitled Poor Theater. He co-produced a documentary about Andrzej Zulawski’s 1982 cult classic Possession starring Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani.
Special thanks to: The Polish Institute of Arts and Science of America and Metropolis Artists Agency
VENUE:
Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America
208 East 30th Street
New York, NY 10016
SUBWAY: 4/6 to 28th Street
FREE EVENT – RSVP BELOW