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Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard,” has been freely adapted as part of the Theatricum Botanicum’s Summer Season. Director Heidi Helen Davis and along with the Theatricum’s Ellen Geer have shifted the scene and the time of the original play from 19th century feudal Russia to 1970’s Virginia here in the US. Whereas Chekhov’s tragicomedy dealt with former serfs in a transitory historical epoch, Davis and Geer re-imagine the playwright’s intentions with protagonists set in the South during the Civil Rights Movement. This version of the play deals with the history of slavery in the United States and the struggle to overcome its legacy with an aristocratic Southern family that seeks to avoid the loss of their plantation which includes a revered cherry orchard, due to increasingly dwindling finances. The LA Weekly has said of the Theatricum Botanicum’s adaptation of the Cheery Orchard that “it may be the most fully integrated production of the play that we’re likely to see.”

GUEST: Heidi Helen Davis, Director of The Cherry Orchard.

August show dates and times include:
8/8 at 8 p.m. / 8/15 at 4 p.m.
8/22 at 8 p.m. / 8/28 at 8 pm
8/30 at 7:30 p.m.

For a complete calendar visit the Theatricum Botanicum online