About
Inspired by internationally best-selling writer Haruki Murakami's shattering 1994 short story, Sleep catapults its everywoman heroine from the threshold of a surreal dream and sleep deprived state, through an explosive deconstruction of her life. As a housewife, she is an unlikely heroine, but one who challenges social constrictions in seismic ways.
After waking from a haunting dream, she suddenly stops sleeping and falls down a rabbit hole into a surreal world of indulgence and danger. Created by the Obie-winning, Brooklyn-based Ripe Time, Alpert- Award winning writer Naomi iizuka and an internationally renowned creative team to explore a shifting universe of gender and power.
Creative Team
Devisor/Director: Rachel Dickstein
Writer/Adapter: Naomi Iizuka
Original Score Composed by New Born Trio:
Katie Down, Jeffrey Leppendorf, Miguel Frasconi
Projections Designer: Hannah Wasileski
Set Designer: Susan Zeeman Rogers
Lighting Designer: Jiyoun Chang
Sound Designer: Jane Shaw
Costume Designer: Ilona Somogyi
Creative Producer: Ronee Penoi, Octopus Theatricals
Tour Schedule
Annenberg Center at Penn, Philadelphia, PA (World Premiere) - Oct 27-28, 2017
2017 BAM Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn, NY (NY Premiere) - Nov 29 - Dec 2, 2017
Additional venues to be announced
Booking
Available for touring. For information and inquiries contact:
Taneisha Duggan: taneisha@octopustheatricals.com
Development History
The world premiere of Sleep is a co-commission by BAM and the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Pennsylvania. Sleep was originally developed for the stage by The Play Company, Kate Loewald Founding Producer, Lauren Weigel, Executive Producer and Ripe Time, Rachel Dickstein, Artistic Director. Sleep was developed with support from The Ground Floor at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Berkeley, CA, and in association with Center Theatre Group with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. A work-in-progress presentation of Sleep was presented at Japan Society in Spring 2016.
Ripe Time
Ripe Time, is an Obie-winning theatre company founded in 2000 and led by director and deviser Rachel Dickstein. We develop and present ensemble-based theatre with rich language, visual power, and physical rigor. We tell stories from the inside out, using the language of memory, imagination and associative thought to trace how women negotiate identity in the face of cultural constrictions. Inspired by the most searing writing and cinema of the past, we create original multidisciplinary events for the 21st century celebrating women’s dreams and awakenings.
Since 2000, Ripe Time has created six large-scale ensemble works that have received three Obie Awards and nominations from the Drama Desk, the Drama League and the Joe A. Calloway Award for outstanding direction. Our work has been presented at BAM-Fisher, the Baruch Performing Arts Center, The JCC in Manhattan, 3LD Art & Technology Center, the Ohio Theatre, PS 122, the Clark Studio at Lincoln Center, and LaMaMa, ETC, Ko Festival, Voice and Vision, and Watermill. Designs from two of our productions will be featured in the 2015 USITT Prague Quadrennial, an international exhibit featuring excellence in design from across the globe. Artistic Director Rachel Dickstein received the 2015 LPTW Lucille Lortel Award in honor of her work with Ripe Time.
The company devotes two to three years to the development of each piece, mounting research and development workshops, residencies, and staged workshops in preparation for the full production. Core to the development of our work is ensemble creation in which company members use improvisation of character, theme, and composition to develop the vocabulary of the work. Our designers are key members of this process, developing design ideas throughout the workshop process.