The Lewis Center for the Arts will present O Where Are You Going?, an original play written and directed by Program in Theater senior Daniel Rattner, on April 26, 27, 30 and May 1 and 2 at 8:00 p.m. in the Marie and Edward Matthews ’53 Acting Studio at 185 Nassau Street.
O Where Are You Going? tells the story of two sisters, Mike and Kitty, who return home for their father’s second wedding to a much younger woman. They are reunited with old love and an old babysitter as they attempt to reconnect with each other, encounter old friends, and face many changes. In the process they discover new hope for letting go of the past and moving on with the future as they come to terms with the kind of lives they wish to lead.
Rattner has been involved in the Princeton theater community and at the Lewis Center for the Arts over the past four years. He has appeared in such productions as The Baltimore Waltz, Fuente Ovejuna, an original 2010 senior thesis production,Other People’s Houses, and Are You There, Dod? It’s Me, Marquand, the 2012 Triangle Spring Show. He has also directed Garden District by Tennessee Williams and Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl.
He has taken a number of playwriting courses at the Lewis Center. O Where Are You Going? began as an assignment for a course with Program in Theater faculty member R.N. Sandberg, whose newest play, Roundelay, is currently running at Passage Theatre in Trenton. This is Rattner’s first full-length play.
Students in the Program in Theater complete a senior thesis project in fulfillment of the requirements for a certificate, similar to a minor, and which is in addition their major area of concentration. The project can focus on any aspect of theater such as directing, acting, writing or designing.
Rattner is a Classics major. He is writing his senior thesis on sisters in Greek tragedy as they appear in Sophocles’ Antigoneand Electra. He has drawn on this research, as well as other classical mythic stories, such as Persephone’s return home from Hades to her mother Demeter, in writing O Where Are You Going?
According to Rattner, “O Where Are You Going is a play about finding yourself situated between the old and the new, the young and the old, finding yourself looking backward, as you try to move forward. Mostly, it’s a story about two sisters.”
The cast of O Where Are You Going? includes Princeton undergraduates Savannah Hankinson ’13, Sarah Paton ’13, Erin O’Brien ’15, Phil Rosen ’14, and Cody O’Neil ’14. Hankinson’s roles serves as her senior thesis project in Theater as well.
