Blackbird

By David Harrower

Directed by Michaela Johnson

Starring (in order of appearance): Sara Marsh* (Una), Luverne Seifert* (Ray), and Kate Regan (Girl)

Presented in production with Myron Frisch and Patricia Johnson at Artspace’s Grain Belt Warehouse

Creative team: Lizzie Strief* (Stage Manager), Mary Shabatura (Lighting Designer), Lisa Jones (Costume Designer), C Andrew Mayer (Sound Designer), Michael James (Technical Director), Emily England (Assistant Director), Reba Landers (Assistant Director, Fight Captain)

Production Photos: Rick Spaulding

“Both actors handle Harrower’s Mamet-y, staccato-rhythmed dialogue deftly, almost as if they’re duetting on a thorny piece of music”

— Chris Hewitt, Star Tribune

“Directed with a sure hand by Michaela Johnson…Seifert and Marsh are together, explaining, accusing, feinting, deflecting, and recalling very different versions of what happened long ago. It’s an emotional tango, a house on fire.”

— Pamela Espeland, MinnPost

“Marsh endows Una with a broken-and-rebuilt sense of toughness. Seifert brings an ambiguous not-quite-creepiness to his performance…Perhaps [Blackbird is] a meditation on the ugly-but-unassailable fact that some humans do monstrous things and some humans are victims of monstrous things. Assuming we live through those experiences, how do perpetrators and survivors (and even observers) live with those experiences? To what degree to they shape us? What do we tell ourselves to endure the days and the years? And how — how? — do we carry on?”

— Dominic Papatola, Pioneer Press

*Member, Actors’ Equity Association