Still Now
May 19, 2022 - May 28, 2022
| $15 – $47Orcas Center presents:
Still Now
A play by Katie Bender
Directed by Pepper Binkley
May 19th – 28th
Thursday-Saturday at 7pm
Sunday, May 22nd at 1pm
Tiered Ticket Pricing: $47, $25, $15
Orcas Center charges a $2 per ticket fee
$5 tickets are available for students at the door (not available online), please bring exact cash
Can’t attend live? The Saturday performances will be streamed on our website!
Simply go to www.OrcasCenter.org at the time of the performance and our homepage will magically turn into the livestream!
**Orcas Center’s Tiered Ticket Pricing is based on the needs of your family. The variant in pricing is not based on seat location or dates of performances, rather, what you’re able to afford to help us to maintain our facilities and create quality programming.
Tier A is the true cost per patron of putting on show at the Orcas Center, Tier B is our standard rate, also subsidized by our generous donors, Tier C is a rate subsidized by our generous donors. **
Still Now
Please note: this production uses strobe lights
Join the creators of Still Now for a talk-back after the show!
Following her cancer diagnosis, Annie has a reckoning with her body. How does this new body move in the world? Like the butoh master Ishikawa, with whom she studied, Annie asks, how do I “shake this bag of bones?” The journey of the play is towards her liberation and catharsis, and weaves together dance with theater, exploring how we come to terms with our mortality.
“Still Now” incorporates and is inspired by butoh, a form of Japanese dance that arose in the wake of WWII. Butoh as a theatrical dance form explores the limits and nature of being human. Though the inspiration is often disaster or seemingly insurmountable pain, the dance itself is cathartic, improvisational and filled with humor and beauty.
To learn more about butoh and our Seattle based guest artist Kaoru Okumura, please CLICK HERE to visit her website.
Still Now is directed by Pepper Binkley, and runs May 19th – May 28th at Orcas Center.
Cast
Annie – Chelsea Sherman
Ben – Jamey Moriarty
Ishikawa Junko – Kaoru Okumura
Dr. Beltram – Tom Fiscus
Kaytlin – Liz Doane
Annie Too – Margot Van Gelder
Dr. Drexler – Tiffany Loney
Nurses – Colleen Smith, Sofia Poe
Nurses/Dancers – Tiffany Loney, Colleen Smith, Sofia Poe, Margot Van Gelder, Liz Doane
Director: Pepper Binkley
Playwright: Katie Bender
Set Design/build: Natasha Ratia, Dane Steck
Choreography: Susan Newkumet, Tiffany Loney, Chelsea Sherman
Sound and Lighting Design: Jake Perrine
Butoh Choreography: Kaoru Okumura
About the Author
Katie Bender is a playwright, performer and theatre maker. Her plays grapple with American myths, revel in female bonds and delight in physical exertion. Her plays include The Survivors/Los Sobrevivientes, Instructions for a Séance, The Fault, Still Now and The Howling Gallery. In collaboration with Reisman and Mars she co-created NEXT YEAR PEOPLE which was developed and premiered at Fusebox Festival in 2018 and 2019. Her work has been developed at The Alley, Hyde Park Theater, Kitchen Dog, Icicle Creek and ZACH as well as The New Harmony Project, The Orchard Project, Shrewd Productions, The Hangar, EST and The Playwrights’ Center and Launch Pad to name a few. She is a co-creator of Underbelly, with whom she made ecstatic site-specific performances such as Slip River, Alice in Wonderland and Church of the Passionate Cat. On the Kilroys List and a finalist for the inaugural Shakespeare’s Sister Fellowship, she has her M.F.A. from The University of Texas and is a 2016/2017 Jerome Fellow and current Affiliated Writer at The Playwrights’ Center.
About the Director
Pepper Binkley is a performer, writer and director who has worked extensively in film, television, theater, and voiceover for 20 years. Her award winning web series “It’s Freezing Out There” can be found online at www.itsfreezingoutthere.com She is a member of The Ensemble Studio Theatre and sits on the board of the immersive theater company Woodshed Collective. Her acting film/tv work includes “Stone” with Robert Deniro and Edward Norton, Blumhouse’s “Mercy”, “A Night Without Armor”, “Asylum Seekers”, “Law and Order : Criminal Intent”, “The Good Wife” and “Lipstick Jungle”. She’s acted on stage at The Atlantic Theater, EST, The Public, The Huntington Theater, The Keen Company and many others. She graduated from Princeton University and the 3 year professional acting program at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She resides in Deer Harbor with her family.
About the Guest Artist
Kaoru Okumura is a Japanese Butoh performer based in Seattle, US. A fan of Butoh since the 1970s, Kaoru studied Butoh in 1993 at Asbestos-Kan in Tokyo with Akiko Motofuji, the wife of one Butoh’s originators, Tatsumi Hijikata. This is where Kaoru first performed. She started Butoh activities in Seattle in 2008. Since then, she has enjoyed performing with Danse Perdue, KOGUT Butoh, and others, where she experiences how a body bridges the soul and the world. Recently she is focusing on solo work, periodically premiering new pieces at various venues. Kaoru had more than 20 performances in 2016, including Seattle International Dance Festival, and 9E2 Seattle in collaboration with Google Deep Dream, which was also supported by Google AMI (Artists & Machine Intelligence).
Her unique background balances computer technology and the arts. She has a Master of Science degree in mathematical logics and a career as researcher, developer, and program manager in computer companies with a specialty in natural languages analysis. She also enjoys contributing to the Butoh community as a photographer, and video artist.