Stage Reading of Antigone featuring Zishan Ugurlu
Presented by LaMama E.T.C. in association with Actors Without Borders – ITONY and the Moon and Stars Project

Thursday, May 17, 10 pm
Friday, May 18, 10 pm

LaMaMa E.T.C.
74A East 4th Street (Between Bowery and Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10003

For information please call (212) 475-7710 or visit www.lamama.org.

Written by Jose Watanabe
Directed by Gisela Cardenas
Set and costume design by Oana Botez Ban
Lighting design by Lucas Krech
Video and sound design by Brian Dilg
 
Featuring Zishan Uğurlu as Antigone

Jose Watanabe (Writer)
Born in 1946 in Laredo, a large sugar cane farm in northern Peru, Jose Watanabe is widely recognized as one of the all-time major Peruvian poets. In 1970, he shared the first prize with Antonio Cillóniz in the Young Poet contest organized by Cuadernos Trimestrales de Poesía, an award that has also been presented to poets Javier Heraud and César Calvo. Watanabe intimately fuses his diverse cultural backgrounds – his father was an immigrant from Japan and his mother a Peruvian of Andean Origin - in his brief and intense poems. He won the award Young Poet of Peru in 1971 with his first book, Álbum de Familia (Family Album). After a period of almost two decades, he resumed writing in 1989 with El Huso de la Palabra (The Spindle of the Word) to be followed Historia Natural (Natural History, 1994), Cosas del Cuerpo (Subjects of the Body, 1999) and Habitó entre Nosotros (He Dwelled among Us, 2002). He has been involved in the film industry as a writer, art director and production designer.

Gisela Cardenas (Director)
Gisela Cardenas’s New York City credits include Iphigenia at Aulis, Macbeth at The Riverside Church Theater, Federico Garcia Lorca’s Don Perlimplin for Repertorio Español, Fires adapted by Marguerite Yourcenar’s novel of the same name, Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, which has won the Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Director of a Play in 2006, and In Delirium based on Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. Recently she worked on a contemporary version of Sophocles' Ajaxthat had a workshop production at The Ohio Theater as part of Target Margin's Theater Greek Lab. This year, Cardenas is scheduled to direct Jose Watanabe's version of Antigone for the Sibiu International Theater Festival in Romania and the Vortex Theater Company's New York revival of The Kiss of The Spider Woman.

Zishan Uğurlu (Antigone)
Zishan Uğurlu is an actress and director-in-residence at La Mama E.T.C., Great Jones Repertory Company, where she has performed in various productions including the The Trojan Woman, directed by Andrei Serban and composed by Elisabeth Swados, in which she played Helen of Troy and toured Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Italy, Austria and Greece. Under the direction of Ellen Stewart she performed as Draupadi in Draupadi, as well as Jocasta in Oedipus Rex and Yunus’ wife in Yunus.  She played Carmen in Robert Wooduff’s Godard-Distant and Right, which was awarded the Grand Prix at the Festival Des Jeunes of the Theatre des Amandiers Nanterre in Paris. Other recent roles include the world premier of Dario Fo’s one-woman-show Peasants’ Bible, Dante in Dante and Caliban in Caliban Remembers (Balinese version of the Tempest), all directed by Ron Jenkins. With Jay Scheib, she has played Desdomona in Othello, Monique in Koltes’ West Pier, Medea in The Medea and Bettina in Women Dreamt Horses by Daniel Veronese. Ayline in  Ibsen’s Master Builder directed by Kristin Marting, Antigone in Antigone, Masha in Three Sisters and  Featured Singer in Musica Alla Turca.

She has been featured in two international films: The Letter, which was shown at the Cannes, Argentina, and Calcutta Film Festivals; and Dog Race, which was awarded the Martin Scorsese, Grand Marnier and W. Johnson Awards at the New York Film Festival. She has recently directed Request Programme by Franz Xaver Kroetz, The Last Supper written by Lars Norèn and Operetta by Witold Gombrowicz to rave reviews.  She has previously directed Until the Next Whirl by Rumi, Watershed and Serious At All by Tom Soper, Blood Wedding by Lorca and Big Love by Charles Mee. Uğurlu is the artistic director of Actors without Borders-ITONY and assistant professor at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts. She would like to thank to Ellen Stewart, “B” and her family (honey drops) and dedicate this show to her father K. Uğurlu and G. Ito who is so far away yet so close.