Son of Semele Ensemble's new collaboration project, Wallowa: The Vanishing of Maude LeRay, is an eerie and ominous dramatization of the real-life disappearance of a 76 year old woman in Oregon's bodingly dangerous Wallowa Mountains. Oliver Mayer's script tells LeRay's story through a constantly revolving spectrum of perspectives through action-oriented performers. Working through the nooks and niches of both Maude's mind and a cave-like set, Wallowa is fast-paced, coy, and absorbing. more ›

It's no accident that the title of the Son of Semele Ensemble's new production, On Emotion, sounds something more like a treatise or philosophical contemplation than a drama. Originally presented in the UK as part of a series of theater essays "On" one or another fundamental human condition (Love, Death, Ego, Religion, Truth, and so on), the play was co-written by theater artist Mick Gordon and clinical neuropsychologist Paul Broks to consider the stated opening question "Are we just the puppets of our emotions?" And so we meet Stephen (Michael Nehring), a cognitive behavioral therapist preparing a lecture on human emotion, and his patient Anna (Melina Biefelt), a puppeteer with problems of her own, for whom he harbors strong forbidden feelings. more ›

There's just something so beautiful about puppetry in art. The intimate intricacies of movement and its relation to the music and text of the performance feels uncanny and magical. Continuing tonight and tomorrow, The Saint Plays is an original puppet drama by Erik Ehn (Adapted and Directed by Alison Heimstead) examining the lives of five saints, whose narratives meld with modern human stories that become broad­sided by ecstatic truths. Using masks, puppets, live music,... more ›

Like Circle X, the theatre troupe, Son of Semele (as in Dionysius the God) took 7 of Suzan-Lori Parks plays influenced by the War in Iraq to another level. In a small narrow room that is the theatre's house, the audience is whirled into worlds of chaos, confusion and dark enchantment. Usually, plays in this year-round 365 Days/365 Plays festival last about 20 minutes. Son of Semele took the plays in a lengthy direction, methodically... more ›