Presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater.
Icarus and Other Party Tricks
Run Time
Approximately 1 hour 50 minutes, with one intermission.
Program Notes
New York City, present day. Two separate spaces: the Stage and the Arena. On the Stage, realistic conversations and confrontations take place, representing the reality of this play. The Arena represents Ines’s internal state, often treading into the surreal, the psychedelic, and the delusional. The audience will be seated around the Arena, “cocooned in the brain” of Ines.
Content Warnings
Mental illness, discussion of drug use, discussion of relationship abuse/mention of sexual assault, body dysmorphia, dissociation.
Special Notes
Please silence all electronic devices including cellular phones and watches, and refrain from text messaging for the duration of the performance. No flash photography permitted.
Cast
Inès: Gillian Tisdale (GS)
Margot: Vivia Font
Reggie: Ashley Jackson ’25
Cal: Moses Yang ’26
Max: Collin Guedel ’26
Tracey: Elena Milliken ’26
Stacey: Charlotte Defriez ’26
Active Stager: Kristen Tan ’26
Active Stager: Matthew Cooperberg ’26
Active Stager: Daria Popova ’26
Active Stager: Eslem Saka ’26
Production Team
Director: Sarah Grinalds ’23 *
Choreographer: Naomi Benenson ’23
Set Designers: Frank Oliva, Sarah Grinalds ’23
Costume Designer: Sarah Grinalds ’23
Lighting Designer: Ay Marsh ’23
Sound Designer: Sarah Grinalds ’23*, Eslem Saka ’26
Projection Designer: Ay Marsh ’23
Stage Manager: Eslem Saka ’26
Assistant Director: Matthew Cooperberg ’26
Stitchers: Wyatt Kim, Gaea Lawton ’23*
Run Crew: All active stagers and cast members
*denotes a certificate student in the Program in Theater
Special Consultants
Production/Design Mentor: Darryl Waskow
Set and Concept Designer: Frank Oliva
Faculty Advisors
Elena Araoz, primary advisor
Nathan Davis, writing advisor
Talkbacks
Following each performance, a talkback will include discussions about the play’s collaborative design process across lighting, staging, and choreography with Sarah Grinalds, Ay Marsh, and Frank Oliva.
- Sept. 30 at 9:45 PM
- October 1 at 4:15 PM
- October 1 at 9:45 PM
Director’s Note
So many people cared about this project and had a hand in this first production of it, I have many thanks to give. First, thank you to the wonderful cast and our fantastic lighting designer, your time and enthusiasm made this production a wonderful project from start to finish. A very special thank you to Nathan Davis, without whom this play would just be an idea. Thank you for believing in it! Thank you to Frank Oliva for breathing new life into this play, growing narratives with the design and teaching me so much about theater making. An enormous thank you to the Princeton Theater Department, who enabled me to grow as a playwright, a director, and a theater maker. I am very grateful and very lucky for this opportunity to work with Nathan, Frank, and the department for the first semi-staged reading of Icarus and Other Party Tricks.
— Sarah Grinalds ’23
Land Acknowledgement
An estimated 10 million Native Americans lived in North America before the arrival of European colonizers. Many thousands lived in Lenapehoking, the vast homeland of the Lenni-Lenape, who were the first inhabitants of what is now called eastern Pennsylvania and parts of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.
Princeton stands on part of the ancient homeland and traditional territory of the Lenape people. In 1756, the College of New Jersey erected Nassau Hall with no recorded consultation with the Lenni-Lenape peoples.
Treaties and forced relocation dispersed Lenape-Delaware to Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma. We acknowledge the violence of settler colonialism and pay respect to Lenape peoples past, present, and future and their continuing presence in the homeland and throughout the Lenape diaspora.
For more information, see the websites of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Princeton (NAISIP), Natives at Princeton and Princeton Indigenous Advocacy Coalition.
Lewis Center for the Arts
Chair: Judith Hamera
Executive Director: Marion Friedman Young
Interim Director of Program in Theater: Brian Herrera
Producing Artistic Director, Theater And Music Theater Season: Elena Araoz
View a full list of the Program in Theater Faculty & Guest Artists
For a look at all the people working behind the scenes to bring you this event, view a full list of LCA staff members »
The programs of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts are made possible through the generous support of many alumni and other donors. View a full list of LCA Supporters »
