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On New Years Eve, college seniors Icarus and Apollo stand at a crossroads: Icarus is ready to follow his boyfriend Apollo to the ends of the earth following their upcoming graduation, and Apollo is sensing that he and Icarus have the potential to destroy each other if they continue with their relationship. As the minutes count down toward midnight, Icarus and Apollo must confront their pasts as the cosmic arrangement of the order of the universe hangs in the balance. icarus x apollo reevaluates the Greek myth of Icarus, a fearless young man who flew too close to the sun wearing wings constructed by his father. Perhaps we were not told the whole story.
The first draft icarus x apollo was the culminating project for The Art and Craft of Playwriting, a graduate-level playwriting course offered at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in the Spring of 2021. One year later, John directed the world premiere for the UNCG School of Theatre Centennial Fringe Festival. The original cast was as follows: ICARUS: Nathan Paukstelis APOLLO: Noah Goldstein* THE CHORUS: Amaya Lewis, Reanna Vaughan-Williams, and Emily Ann Wright* Due to unforeseen circumstances, the roles of Apollo and the Third Chorus Member were performed by John Perine (director/playwright) and Amabel Prisk (assistant director), respectively. |
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From the Playwright/Director, John Perine: "icarus x apollo was my first time directing my own work. As a director who frequently works to dismantle the hierarchy of power in the rehearsal room in order to promote creative freedom, I knew this was more important than ever in this creation process. "Returning to my love of devised theatre, the earliest rehearsals for icarus x apollo were built around stringing together non-verbal moments of dramatic material in order to create sequences of movement. Much of the script is written in non-literal stage directions, so I wanted to empower the actors to begin the process of removing creative blocks as early as I could. "icarus x apollo often releases the narrative from spoken text and allows incredible expanses of time to be communicated through creative movement and dance. I think it would be a bold claim to identify as a dancer or a choreographer, but as a director I have a keen eye for shape and act as a sculptor to the actors' forms. By increasing the ensemble's comfortability with non-verbal performance, we were able to approach the choreographic portions of rehearsals as a collaborative team. "The video and slideshow on the right are brief looks at what the rehearsal process of icarus x apollo looked like." |
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