Synopsis
A play with intense audience participation!
Engrossing, controversial courtroom drama, where the audience must serve as judge and jury, deciding motions and verdict, in a case against the five women who betrayed the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, the last surviving daughter of the Tsar of Russia.
Complex ethical questions on a set of folding chairs.
The Anastasia Trials is a farcical, but profoundly engaging excursion into the hidden world of ethics for women who are both survivors and perpetrators of abuse toward women.
The format is a play-within-a-play, where a radical feminist theatre company comes together in order to perform a courtroom drama.
The play is shaped by the audience decisions to overrule or sustain the attorneys' motions, and every night's audience sees a different play.
In presenting the play, the Emma Goldman Theatre Brigade has instituted a new system to insure equal opportunity for the actors: a lottery.
As the women assemble to draw their roles from the hat for the evening's performance, sisterhood is put to the test.
The performance itself is a conspiracy trial against five women accused of denying a woman her identity.
The plaintiff is none other than Anastasia Romanov, sole survivor of the massacre of the Russian imperial family in 1918.
"Elegantly conceived...A feminist Noises Off."
- Washington City Press "Powerful."
-San Diego Lesbian Press "Farce, social history, debate play, agitprop, audience participation melodrama, satire [that] makes the head reel!" -San Diego Union Tribune "Wild...
It's lively and moves quickly...
Very funny yet poignant."
-Washington Blade "Carolyn Gage's raucous, multilayered script explores issues of empathy, loyalty, and betrayal among women..." --The Washington Post.
"Verdict: An unexpected delight...
" --Miami Herald, FL.
"... farcical humor, imaginative plot twists, and just pure theatrical fun..." --South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Ft.
Lauderdale.
"... fascinating and complex play..."--Fresno Beehive.com "I am constantly amazed at Carolyn's ability to make complex social issues not only accessible but also irresistibly fascinating... the play... [The Anastasia Trials ] touched us, made us laugh and gripped us in a white-knuckle intensity usually found only in Hitchcock films."
--R.J.
McComish, Literary Manager of the Portland Stage Company, Portland, Maine.
"... fabulously interesting, brilliantly thought-provoking and exquisitely funny... masterpiece of feminist theater..." --off our backs, Washington, DC.
"Each performance could potentially have a different result and many students saw every performance just so they could see how the show ended."--At Oldfields, Glencoe, MD.
Performance
Cast
A medium cast size of 9 total roles, 9 female roles.
