Yearly Archives: 2017

(CINCINNATI, Aug. 21, 2017) — Xavier University Theatre launches its 2017-18 theatre season with a world premiere play about the relationship between science, spirituality and violence and the struggles we face to find meaning and beauty in a chaotic world.

Performances for Charise Greene’s CANNIBAL GALAXY: A LOVE STORY will take place Sept. 7 and 8 at 7:30 p.m. and Sept. 9 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in Xavier’s Gallagher Student Center Theater.

CANNIBAL GALAXY focuses on a group of Washington, D.C., Science Museum employees confronting a random act of workplace violence during an otherwise typical workday. While trying to move on and face their vulnerabilities in a post-traumatic environment, they’re also fighting to rediscover their identities, search for connections and make sense of the senseless world around them.

Xavier University Theatre will present the first full-scale production of CANNIBAL GALAXY, though students already have a history with the show. In 2015, as part of a professional collaboration with off-Broadway’s Fault Line Theatre, Xavier students participated in a local workshop of the script. According to Greene, “Being with the students’ voices for a week was illuminating. The actors at Xavier taught me so much about the play and led to some wonderful changes that deepened the story.”

Charise Greene was inspired to write CANNIBAL GALAXY following the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. “I visited the Marian Koshland Science Museum in D.C. shortly after hearing the news,” says Greene, “and as I walked through the various exhibits, I was grappling with this impossible event, trying to make sense of the senseless. I rushed off to write 20 pages and then, like most playwrights, I got stuck.

“But then another senseless act of violence happened in our country. And then another … and another. I was working on a television set, and the play started to write itself in my mind. I would rush home at wrap and write more. I think it was part coping mechanism, part love letter to those we have lost to violence as well as mental illness.”

An actor, coach, director and playwright, Charise Greene serves as an associate artist at two New York City theatres, Blessed Unrest and Fault Line Theatre. As an actress, she’s appeared on stage at Signature Theatre, Theatre for the New City, Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Flea Theater. She recently served as a dialect coach for Anne Hathaway
in Grounded at The Public Theater and for Dominic West and Ruth Wilson on the first two seasons of Showtime’s The Affair. She holds an MFA in acting from Brown University/Trinity Rep.

The cast for CANNIBAL GALAXY includes Donald Burns (Vadim), a senior theatre major from Forest Park, Ohio; Cassie Delicath (Jo), a junior theatre major from St. Louis, Missouri; Henry Eden (Chet), a senior theatre major from Jackson, Wyoming; Taylor Maas (Eloise’s Mom), a senior theatre major from Cleves, Ohio; Katie Mitchell (Claire), a senior theatre major from Hyde Park, Ohio; and Hannah Sgambellone (Eloise), a junior theatre major from Lexington, Ohio.

The show is directed by Tiffany Greene. Tiffany Greene earned her MFA from Brown University/Trinity Rep. Her previous directing credits include productions at the New York International Fringe Festival, MCC Theater Youth Company, Hollywood Fringe Festival, The Lark new play development series and Soho Rep Director Lab, as well as assistant credits at Signature Theatre and Dallas Theater Center. She was a finalist for the Drama League Classical Directing Fellowship for Artists of Color in both 2012 and 2013 and is a past participant of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and Soho Rep Director Lab.

Other members of the creative team for CANNIBAL GALAXY include Joe Leonard (set designer/technical director); Joe Beumer (lighting designer); Jessica Pitcairn (costume designer); Kelly Markle (props designer); Lily Dennstaedt (sound designer/assistant director); and Stephen Skiles (producer). The stage manager is Emi Suarez. Assistant stage managers are Ellie Conniff and Meaghan Vaders.

Tickets for CANNIBAL GALAXY: A LOVE STORY are available now through the Xavier University Theatre Box Office. Tickets are $17 each for adults and $12 each for students, as well as Xavier faculty and staff. To purchase tickets, visit www.xavier.edu/theatretickets or call 513-745-3939.

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