From the 22nd to the 29th of August, “Looming the Memory”, an award-winning solo show exploring the challenge of having two homelands comes to New York as part of the New York International Fringe Festival which will take place in West Village.
The show is about a Greek who grows up in Australia, with memories that don’t make sense, and journeys back to Greece to visit his family, and to seek out whether the memories reside there in this village where he spent some time as a child.
Along the way, he learns about the politics of life in a dying Greek village, including encounters with an old woman who can put a curse on him, a young cousin who urges him to leave to the big city as he has, a bitter and jealous uncle who refuses to speak to him, and an old man who remembers better days when the village was full of life.
He also discovers the darkness of his family’s history, revealed by past and present family members and ultimately is forced to confront his concept of what home means and where he actually belongs.
For more information and tickets visit www.loomingthememory.com
The play is written by Thomas Papathanasiou, a Greek-Australian who also performs in it. Thomas completed his training in all aspects of theatre at Curtin University (Theatre Arts/Literature) and WAAPA (Music Theatre), and has since performed in numerous theatre productions as well as TV and short film appearances including the Australasian touring production of Chicago – The Musical. He has also been Head of Drama at a Summer Program in Upstate New York, a guest acting teacher/director at Charles Sturt University, and is a freelance drama tutor, director and choreographer, working recently at the VCA, St Martin’s Youth Arts Centre, Barking Gecko Theatre Company and Black Swan State Theatre Company.
In July 2006, Thomas travelled to Greece on a scholarship to study the rehearsal and production processes of the National Theatre of Greece as they prepared for the summer season at the world heritage listed ancient amphitheatre of Epidaurus.
His self-devised solo show Looming the Memory, which examines identity, memory and displacement, has been performed to successful seasons in the 2006 Adelaide Fringe Festival, and Perth, where it has won him Best Actor (2006 WA Guild Equity Awards) and Best Production (2007 Blue Room Theatre Awards) In 2009.
(Photo credit: Mark Coddington)
(With information from http://www.loomingthememory.com)
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