Heddatron

Written by Elizabeth Meriwether
Directed by Alex Timbers
Produced by Aaron Lemon-Strauss
 
Dramaturgy: Anne Davison
Scenic Design: Cameron Anderson
Lighting Design: Tyler Micoleau
Costume Design: Jenny Mannis
Video Design: Jacob Pinholster
Sound Design: Bart Fasbender
Robot Design: Meredith Finkelstein and Cindy Jeffers
Properties Design: Stephanie Wiesner
Graphic Design: Mike Solomon
Production Stage Manager: Kat West
Stage Manager: Alaina Buckland
Assistant Stage Manager: Betty Hong Yiu Tung
Casting: Stephanie Klapper
Press Representation: Richard Kornberg and Associates
 
Cast: Carolyn Baeumler, Sam Forman, Gibson Frazier, Ryan Karels, Daniel Larlham, Julie Lake, Nina Hellman, Spenser Leigh, Michael Schulman, Ian Unterman. With Jeremy Shamos appearing by video.

Les Freres Corbusier finally transforms Ibsen’s classic into something truly well-made: a robot.
 
Half a dozen of them. Live onstage. Really.
 
Les Freres continues its irreverent massacre of historical icons and academic esoterica by taking on famed playwright Henrik Ibsen, the well-made play, and contemporary issues in robotics. Ibsen is thwarted by August Strindberg, and his kitchen slut throughout his fevered struggle to write the great feminist drama, Hedda Gabler, while a contemporary housewife in Michigan is abducted by robots and forced to perform Ibsen’s masterpieces over and over again…

 February 2006: HERE Arts Center

Photography by Joan Marcus

"Strangely moving... The wild side of theater where audiences' hearts are mended by the ritualistic breaking of them on stage… Achieves true, and truly original, theatrical transcendence... Magical… Brings to mind the heady fall down the rabbit hole that begins Alice's adventures in Wonderland… What could have been merely a novelty stunt, or a facile comment on sensitive souls in a dehumanized world, becomes an exultant celebration of the cathartic powers of theater.”
-The New York Times

"Zany... Inspired... Five of the cutest robots that ever rolled off an engineering ramp interact smartly with human actors in this cheeky sendup of Ibsen and the precepts of the well-made play."
-Variety

"Go-for-broke energy and intellectual gluttony… The latest genre-defying head-trip by the dependably bratty Les Freres Corbusier"
-The New York Sun

"An Irreverant Romp"
-USA Today

“Triumphantly goofy… Hilarious coup-de-theatre!”
-Time Out New York

"Packed with intelligence and wit... Take a friend, have some drinks beforehand and enjoy."
-Broadway.com