Shuttle disasters serve as backdrop for
SLOW DESCENT FROM HEAVEN
Brian Berendts, Elizabeth A. Harris, Michael Hall & Sue Breving. Photo by: Mikki Schaffner.
New Edgecliff Theatre continues its transitional 15th season with the premiere of SLOW DESCENT FROM HEAVEN by NET’s Resident Playwright Catie O’Keefe. For this production, NET will travel to the Clifton Cultural Arts Center, where they’ve converted a double-sized classroom space into an intimate 88-seat studio theater.
SLOW DESCENT FROM HEAVEN features former NET Artistic Director Elizabeth A. Harris as Molly, a NASA scientist, whose story is told in reverse chronology, beginning with the Columbia disaster in 2003 and ending with the Challenger disaster 18 years earlier, in 1986. Rounding out the ensemble are Sue Breving, Brian Berendts and Michael Hall.
Ed Cohen, who previously directed “Death of a Salesman” for NET, returns to take on this compelling story. He says, “I love Catie’s use of the Space Shuttle program as a metaphor for relationships, which have the potential for spectacular, magical successes and equally spectacular, but paralyzing failures. Presenting the story in reverse chronological order allows the audience to see how the characters’ behavior – their confusions and doubts – developed out of past events.”
New Edgecliff Artistic Director Jim Stump is happy to see NET’s relationship with O’Keefe culminate with the premiere of a full length play. As he says, “When Catie joined New Edgecliff we were impressed with her work – a contemporary voice with a sense of intrigue that kept audiences looking forward to where the story would take them next. We chose one of her short plays, ‘Darker’, for our return to the Fringe Festival and it received wonderful critical and audience response. And the projects we’ve asked her to work on have always been spot on. I felt strongly that we needed to present a full-length piece by Catie as the next step both for her and for us.”
As for the playwright, O’Keefe says this play represents a very personal response in general to great disasters in human history because, as she puts it, “I feel they bring out some very resounding responses in human nature by which we are humbled in our own limits and existence. When the Columbia disaster occurred I remember watching and feeling so incredibly drawn to the trauma of the event – something that has stuck with me for some time. I’ve always wanted to be able to use that in a play.” Through the character of Molly, O’Keefe examines how our relationships are influenced by external events. “My work often follows the course of a relationship and how it changes and develops in relation to the environment. I felt that Molly was the perfect character to place in an experiment of love, career and life choices sandwiched between the Challenger and Columbia disasters in an attempt to capture the path of this one woman’s journey in relation to such monumental events.”
NET Executive Director and founder Michael Shooner adds, “We’re very excited to have Ed Cohen directing Catie’s very honest, human play in such an innovative and intimate setting. The folks at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center have been quite accommodating in allowing us to transform this space. All in all, it should make for a memorable night of theatre.”
Intended for mature audiences only.
SLOW DESCENT FROM HEAVEN
February 20–23 (Wed-Sat) and February 26–March 2 (Tues-Sat), 7:30pm.
Clifton Cultural Arts Center, 3711 Clifton Avenue
Tickets: $23 adults, $18 seniors, and $15 students
For more information or to purchase your tickets, visit newedgecliff.com or call (513) 399-6638
Behind the Curtain Cincinnati 