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The
company was founded and incorporated in 1993 by Katharine Noon,
Don Gordon, and Ferdinand Lewis who were recent graduates of The
California Institute of the Art's Theater program. Their inaugural
production, Eloise; A Ghost Play, developed by the
three founders, played at numerous theatres in the LA area and
performed at Dell'arte in Blue Lake, CA. In 1995, Ghost Road's
critically acclaimed adaptation of the Elektra story, Elektra-La-La,
by Katharine Noon and Brian Howrey and directed by Noon premiered
in downtown LA at the Spanish Kitchen. In addition to a successful
LA run, Elektra-La-La received stellar reviews at the Edinburgh
Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland and was subsequently invited
to perform at other festivals in Europe and the Middle East. Also
performed in Edinburgh were LRG Lot GRT VU, written and
performed by Kimberly Pearce-Haynes and The Last Vegas Lounge
Act, created by Rodger Henderson, Ferdinand Lewis, Pearce-Haynes
and Cody Henderson.
A collaboration between Ghost Road and the Burglars of Hamm produced
Resa Fantastiskt Mystiskt which ran in 1999 and 2000 in Los
Angeles. The production also completed critically acclaimed runs
at the Seattle Fringe Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival in
2001(and the NY Fringe in 2002). Resa won a Garland award
for writing and was nominated for production of the year by LA
Weekly. Carrots for Hare by Cody Henderson closed out
Ghost Road's 2000 season at the Powerhouse Theatre, for which
Cody Henderson received an LA Weekly award nomination for playwriting.
The
2001 season saw both a workshop and a full production of Katharine
Noon and Chris DeWan's adaptation of Agamemnon entitled
Clyt at Home: The Clytemnestra Project, conceived and directed
by Noon and produced by Ghost Road in collaboration with Theatre
of NOTE. Clyt at Home was developed through workshop by
the ensemble and presented at the ASK Common Ground Festival in
2001 at UCLA and at NOTE. Ghost Road remounted Clyt at Home
in 2003 at the KO Festival in Amherst MA as part of the Network
of Ensemble Theatres Conference and Festival.The Clytemnestra
Project garnered an LA Weekly Award nomination for best adaptation
and Jacqueline Wright won the weekly award for best Lead Performance
for her portrayal of Clytemnestra. The show also recieved numerous
Backstage West Garland Honorable Mentions.
2002
began with the creation of the Ghost Road 5-Year Project and,
after nearly a year of workshops and ensemble development, Ghost
Road presented a workshop production of Excavate the Monster
in 2003 at 24th Street Theater.
In
2004 the Ghost Road Company created a new piece of theatre, loosely
adapted from and influenced by The Tale of the Four Dervishes,
a set of ancient Sufi folk tales. The piece was developed in workshop
with the ensemble and co-written and adapted by Tamadhur Al-Aqeel
and Katharine Noon. The finished product, The Four Dervishes,
premiered in June and July at the 24th Street Theatre in downtown
Los Angeles. The play followed Victorian spy Richard Burtonas
as modern troops collided in the desert. creating a world at once
mystical and real, magical and harsh; intimate moments weave an
epic tale of culture and identity. After a succesful run at the
24th Street Theatre, the production premiered at The Edge of the
World Theater Festival in October, 2005 at LATC.
In
2005 and 2006, the ensemble began work on two new pieces, Duck(t)
Tape Soup and Orestes Remembered; The Fury Project
(an adaptation of the Eumenides). In
2005 Katherine Noon took The Eumenides into workshop rehearsals
with The Ghost Road Company. This adaptation of The Eumenides
focused on justice in public and private life as well as the role
of manipulation as a means to maintain the status quo. In June
2005 Katharine presented an initial workshop using this material
at the Network of Ensemble Theater Festival at Dell'Arte in Blue
Lake, CA. Ghost Road was then invited to develop the piece in
residency at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. In January
2007 a workshop production was presented as part of the LMU theatre
deapartment's season. Orestes Remembered; The Fury Project
then premiered at the Powerhouse Theatre in March '07. The piece
was then invited to tour to the Fool's Fury Festival in San Francisco
in April '07 This piece is now being integrated into the previous
adaptations of Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers.
This will complete Ghost Road's adaptation of the entire Oresteia
which will premiere in the fall of 2008.
In
the summer of 2005, Ghost Road, under the direction of Mark Seldis,
began workshopping a new piece, Duck(t) Tape Soup, a dark
farce about how greed, lies, and manipulation can lead to the
end of the world. Using the Marx Brothers film DUCK SOUP as a
launching point, we are creating an ensemble-devised theatre piece
that mixes the classic farce with both commedia dell'Arte performance
and harsh realism. In May 2006, a workshop of the first section
of Duck(t) Tape Soup was presented at the Shakespeare Festival/LA
over two nights. We will continue to work on this piece throughout
2007 with production planned for 2008.
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