SEASON 19 | OCTOBER 2006

Ring Rip Rent

By Martha Lynn Coon
Directed by Heather Barfield
Presented by the VORTEX
View photos from the production here.

Set in a futuristic, institutional dystopia that strictly scrutinizes women’s sexual and reproductive lifestyles and choices, this dark comedy explores the story of five women as they navigate friendship, unity, and betrayal within the suffocating grip of an increasingly radical, totalitarian agenda. A stylistic montage of burlesque circus, nightmarish memory, and cautionary tale, Ring Rip Rent confronts the bureaucratic authorities that control the lives and bodies of women as they seek freedom. Its a conscious-altering, 3-ring circus asylum.

CAST

Betsy McCann, Tiffany Nicely-Williams, Elizabeth Doss, Amie Elyn, Josephine D. Mays

PRODUCTION TEAM

Directed by Heather Barfield, Scenic Design by Ann Marie Gordon, Lighting Design by Jason Amato, Costume Design by Pam Fletcher Friday, Sound Design by Chad Salvata, Production Photos by Kimberley Mead

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Director Heather Barfield, has been an active player in Austin theatre for 15 years. She wrote and directed an original production based on the life of Antonin Artaud, avant-garde theatre theorist and madman. Wake for the Dark Poet: The Antonin Artaud Project received the 2005 B. Iden Payne Award for Outstanding Production of a Drama. Cole is currently pursuing a PhD in Theatre with an emphasis on Performance as Public Practice at UT Austin.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Playwright, Martha Lynn Coon, is currently pursuing her M.F.A. in Playwriting at UT Austin. Coon’s previous plays have been produced at the David Mark Cohen New Works Festival, Ft. Worth’s ACT Festival, and FronteraFest.

Ring Rip Rent is funded in part by The Department of Theatre and Dance at The University of Texas at Austin, the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.