SBCC Theatre Arts Department Presents TROJAN BARBIE 10/12

SBCC Theatre Arts Department will present a student showcase production of the 2007 Jane Chambers' Award-winning TROJAN BARBIE by Christine Evans, directed by R. Michael Gros, as the fall production in the Interim Theatre. 

THE PRODUCTION

Part contemporary drama, part homage to Euripides' Trojan Women, Trojan Barbie recasts the legendary fall of the city of Troy against the vivid reality of modern warfare. Poetic, compassionate, and tinged with great warmth and humor, Trojan Barbie is an epic war story with a most unlikely heroine, who always looks on the bright side even as past and present collide about her.

Past and present violently collide when Lotte, an English tourist who repairs dolls, is captured while on a tour of current-day Troy and flung back into the ancient camp of Euripides' Trojan Women. Lotte Jones, a doll repair expert, needs a vacation. She books herself on a cultural tour for singles and travels with them to modern-day Troy, where she finds more of a change of scene than she'd bargained for- she's in the midst of an attack by the Greek army threatening to destroy the last fragments of a mighty civilization. When the camp is torched, the women are enslaved and Lotte is rescued by the British Embassy. Her life returns to normal - until a revenge-obsessed Hecuba claws her way up through the centuries into Lotte's doll shop, in search of her murdered children's bodies.
Note: Trojan Barbie contains adult language and situations and may not be appropriate for all audience members.

THE PLAYWRIGHT

Christine Evans is an internationally produced playwright originally from Australia, now resident in the U.S. Her work has been produced and developed at the American Repertory Theater (Trojan Barbie, world premiere), Playbox Theatre, U.K., New Vic (London), Belvoir St. Theatre (Sydney), the Adelaide International Festival of the Arts, Deck Chair Theatre, Vitalstatistix, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the Magic Theatre, Theater Simple, Live Girls!, Kitchen Dog Theatre, hotINK Play Festival, Bricolage Theatre, Synchronicity Theatre, Perishable Theatre, New Jersey Rep, Crowded Fire, Ohio Theatre (NYC), The Irish Rep (NYC), Boston Playwrights Theater, Rattlestick Theatre, the Women's Project and Cutting Ball. Honors include an Australia Council for the Arts New Work Award, a Rockefeller Bellagio Center Fellowship, two MacDowell Colony Fellowships, a Millay Colony Fellowship, the 2007 Jane Chambers Playwriting Award; the 2009 Playwrights Theatre "Plays for the 21st Century" Award; the 2009 Rhode Island State Council for the Arts Playwriting Fellowship; a Fulbright Award in Visual and Performing Arts; the Rella Lossy Playwriting Award; the Monash National Playwriting Award (Australia); the Weston Award in Dramatic Writing; and Perishable Theatre's Women's Playwriting Award (2000 and 2001).Christine holds an M.F.A. (Playwriting) and a Ph.D. (Theatre & Performance Studies) from Brown and lectures in playwriting at Harvard.
THE CAST

The talented cast of Trojan Barbie are all current students in the Theatre Arts Department at Santa Barbara City College.

Ryan Baumann (Soldier #2) is a current Theatre Arts student at SBCC. He has performed in The Suicide, Almost Maine, Greater Tuna and Parallel Lives presented by the SBCC Theatre Arts Department.
Megan Connors (Clea) is a Theatre major at SBCC. This is her second year in Santa Barbara, having moved from Flagstaff, AZ. Her other theatre performances at SBCC include Love, Santa Barbara, The Ugly Duckling, and Machinal for which she received an Indie Award.
Cole Robert Eubanks (Max) is an actor from the Santa Ynez Valley. Having started acting sophomore year of high school, he has been a thespian at heart ever since. Cole aspires to bring his acting to more professional venues in the future, hoping to find opportunities in film, as well as onstage. Trojan Barbie will be the 10th stage production he has performed in total, and the 4th stage production he has performed in at SBCC.

Veronica Ekström (Helen) is one of many Swedes on campus, and this will be her third performance at SBCC. Last fall she appeared in Almost, Maine as Rhonda, and the following spring she was a part of the Festival of One Acts playing Arlene in Murder at the Howard Johnson's. She is finishing her AA in Liberal Studies this semester and will then continue working on getting a Green Card.

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