Ana Kuzmanic, costume designer for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s production of “The Count of Monte Cristo,” is originally from Croatia. She received a master’s degree in costume and scenery design from Northwestern University, where she now teaches. We met at Mix on the Plaza in Ashland.
EH: How did you find yourself in costume design?
AK: I was first fascinated by the representation of the human body in art. If you look at the voluptuous ideal of beauty from 100 years ago, the ideal of beauty today is opposite. Continue reading Ana Kuzmanic→
Susan Aversa-Orrego directs Jean Giraudoux’s “The Madwoman of Chaillot” which opens Friday, June 26, 2015 at the Randall Theatre. The play, which was written during the Nazi occupation of Paris in World War II, mirrors our current economic and environmental state of affairs. During the play, corporations that are attempting to drill an oil well in the middle of Paris clash with the local Bohemian community. Aversa and I visited at the Wild Goose in Ashland.
SA: The setting of the show, as it’s written by Giraudoux, says: “The time is the spring of next year.” We set the play in 2015. It works very well. By making it 2015 it really speaks to the audience now. Now it’s not just a period piece. You can see that undercurrent of evil. It’s just so relevant to what is happening now. We’re staging it in our time period because there’s such intensity about the fracking that’s going on now, and how it’s causing earthquakes.
There’s a line in the show, “What would you rather see in your backyard, an almond tree or an oil well?” There is a very callous attitude toward taking care of the world and life in general. There is that Wall Street greed. And they don’t care. Continue reading The Madwoman of Chaillot→
Ashland Theatre 