ORPHEOTIC

“Orpheotic” is an original theatrical work by Ellen Zahniser that reimagines the Greek myths with a blend of noise music, movement, and narrative text transposed all at once into a key of queerness, deathwish, and physical disintegration.

Orpheus is infatuated with his own mortality in song. Ganymede processes his time as Zeus’s adolescent lover. And the Devil worships beauty, ego death, and absolute diffusion.

Guided by a Greek Chorus-inspired ensemble representing the unified voice of everything in the world, audiences are led across the realms of the living, the dead, and the little places in between.

Zahniser is a Providence-based performing artist and writer with a BA in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies from Brown University. They have received support from RISCA with a Make Art Grant and attended residencies at FAWC, Hewnoaks, The Wedding Cake House, and Art Farm.

The cast includes Zahiser along with An Talatinian, Lids Bierenday, Ellen Zahniser, B Dang, Kathy Ng, Riley Ratcliff, and Evelyn Dearbourn. Addie Boyd is the director, and Sam M-H is the sound designer and live musician.

Live ambient music will be performed by Iris M during the pre-show doors and intermission.

“Orpheotic” is designed for and by queer, trans, and neurodiverse people. The cast and producers of this production are thrilled to share it with anyone who would find this type of space to be nourishing and generative – particularly those who could find meaning in symbolic explorations of addiction, suicidality, sexual abuse, or chronic physical malfunction.

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Ellen Zahniser (playwright/Devil) is a Providence-based performing artist and writer with a BA in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies from Brown University. They have received support from RISCA with a Make Art Grant and attended residencies at FAWC, Hewnoaks, The Wedding Cake House, and Art Farm. Ellen’s work has been presented at FringePVD, The Wilbury Group, AS220, The Dirt Palace, Vanishing Performance Festival (NOLA), Philly Fringe, The Brick (NYC), and other delightful locales around the east coast! As an actor, Ellen has participated in various theatrical extravaganzas with Tiresias (NYC), Center Aquidneck, Strange Attractor, The Wilbury Theatre Group, and Brown University. Ellen’s writing has also been featured at the Word Shelter at The Wedding Cake House and in Urgency Reader 2 (Queer Archive Work). They focus on themes of corporeal malfunction, technology, self-ness, queer transgression, spirituality, and animacy, developing interdisciplinary performances through a rigorous process of research, writing, improvisation, and collaborative dialogue with other artists; Ellen ultimately sees performance as one of many diverse tactics of world building in a generative ecosystem of kinship.

Lids Bierenday (sound designer/Orpheus) is a mixed-media artist, and the official mouth runner of the musical project Baby; Baby: Explores the Reasons Why That Gum is Still on the Sidewalk. They received their MFA in Film & Media from Emerson College and can be found organizing artist events at their studio space and other venues around Providence, RI. Lids’s films Bee Piece (film version) and Solo Artist have been shown at End of Days film fest, VASTLAB Experimental film festival, Motif Film Screening Series, NewFilmmakers NY, Peach Theatre & Film Fest.

An Talatinian (Ganymede) is a hammer wielding human instrument in temporary physical form, a dog lover, a transfractal globulous element who enjoys discussing weight and pulley systems, as well as a bagel master, visual artist, writer, performer, sculptor, and carpenter.

Addie Boyd (Director) is an artist in Providence, Rhode Island where he experiments in drawings, words, and objects that play in (dis)obedience, statelessness, and deception. addie is also a jeweler who sometimes teaches metalsmithing, and can be found co-hosting a monthly themed free-writing night in Providence, where he finds joy braided with play in the quiet focus of a room full of people scribbling and sharing.

Content Warning: Disassociation/feeling unreal, substance abuse, self mutilation, mortality, death wish, and SA of a teenager.

Rapid verbal repetition in one scene that could provoke repetition tics.

Run Time: Approximately 90 minutes, including an intermission.