DORA-NOMINATED SAGA COLLECTIF RETURNS WITH THE WORLD PREMIERE OF IPHIGENIA AND THE FURIES (ON TAURIAN LAND)

WRITTEN BY HO KA KEI (JEFF HO)
DIRECTED BY JONATHAN SEINEN

JANUARY 6 TO JANUARY 20, 2019 AT AKI STUDIO

TORONTO (December 13, 2018) – Following the Dora-Nominated hit BLACK BOYS, SAGA COLLECTIFreturns with Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho)’s IPHIGENIA AND THE FURIES (ON TAURIAN LAND), a vital new adaptation of the rarely performed IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS by Euripides. The World Premiere production will be presented from January 6 to January 20, 2019 at Aki Studio (Opening Night January 10).

Saved from a sacrifice at Aulis at the hands of her father Agamemnon, Iphigenia is whisked away by the god Artemis to Taurian land. Now a priestess, her role is to slaughter any foreigners that arrive – assisted by a disgruntled Chorus. Two strangers, pursued by the Furies, stumble upon her temple, claiming to be her long lost brother Orestes and his gawgeous lover Pylades. Upon their reunion, Iphigenia is forced to make an impossible choice: risk it all and flee with the newcomers, or stay alive and true to her sacred mission. However, the Chorus might have something to say about all this…

Poetic, quick-witted and genre-bending, IPHIGENIA AND THE FURIES (ON TAURIAN LAND) unapologetically transposes a myth from the ancient past and demands we pay attention to how the next generation must write a new narrative and thus, undo the wrongs of the past.

The play is directed by prolific theatre artist Jonathan Seinen Black Boys (Director), Body Politic (Actor),Charisma Furs (Director/Co-Creator), Like There’s No Tomorrow (Co-Creator/Performer) and the cast includes Dora Award Nominated Thomas Olajide (Black Boys, The Whipping Man, Stratford Festival), Meta Award Winner Virgilia Griffith (Harlem Duet, Other Side of the Game, Da Kink In My Hair), Reveal Indigenous Art Award Winner PJ Prudat (Shaw Festival, Tombs of the Vanishing Indian), and NOW Magazine Top 10 Artist for 2017 Augusto Bitter (The Monument, Chicho).

Ho Ka Kei (playwright) is a Toronto-based performer, playwright and arts educator from Hong Kong. As a theatre maker, his modern adaptation of Antigone will be premiering at Young People’s Theatre in the spring of 2019. He wrote and performed his first piece, trace, with the support of Factory Theatre, b current theatre and the 2015 Banff Playwrights Colony. Ho Ka Kei was a member of the 2016 Stratford Playwright’s Retreat, was the 2016-2017 Playwright-in-Residence with Nightswimming Theatre, and a member of the Cahoots Hot House Writers Unit.

ABOUT IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS BY EURIPIDES:

IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS by Euripides was first performed in 414 BCE. The play presents an alternate history of the house of Atreus. Unlike IPHIGENIA AT AULIS, which ends with  Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia in order to appease the gods and find favourable winds to bring them to the Trojan War, Iphigenia is saved at the last moment by Artemis. A romantic drama with Aristotle’s fav recognition scene, IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURIANS rewrites the final chapter of the Atreus family mythology and suggests the new generation can break the cycle of revenge and war.  

SCHEDULE:
Previews: January 6, 8, 9, 2019, Opening Night: January 10 | Closes January 20, Media Night: January 10 – Runs Tues-Sat 8pm, Sun 2:30pm.

The show is 80 minutes long with no intermission.

TICKETS:
Tickets: Pay What You Can Afford (PWYCA) $5 | $25 | $45 – Box Office 416-531-1402 orsagacollectif.com – Aki Studio, 585 Dundas Street East

For all media inquiries, contact Ashley Belmer, B-Rebel Communications, Ashley@b-rebelcommunications.com / 514-627-5151

ABOUT SAGA COLLECTIF:
Saga Collectif, founded in 2012, is a theatre company that brings to the stage underrepresented bodies and voices in a fashion that is risky, honest, and new. As we are creating in the rehearsal hall and performing on stage, we are dissecting and dismantling, posing questions to unravel identity, ancestry and place in society. We bravely challenge ourselves to move into the unknown to discover personal truths, and hope to offer ourselves as examples of those who see limits and choose to transcend them. Saga Collectif is Virgilia Griffith, Stephen Jackman-Torkoff, Tawiah Ben M’Carthy, Thomas Olajide, and Jonathan Seinen.