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Russian playwright Anton Chekhov\u2019s \u201cThe Cherry Orchard,\u201d has been freely adapted as part of the Theatricum Botanicum\u2019s 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\u2019s Virginia here in the US. Whereas Chekhov\u2019s 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\u2019s adaptation of the Cheery Orchard that \u201cit may be the most fully integrated production of the play that we\u2019re likely to see.\u201d <\/p>\n
GUEST: Heidi Helen Davis, Director of The Cherry Orchard<\/em>. <\/p>\n August show dates and times include:
\n8\/8 at 8 p.m. \/ 8\/15 at 4 p.m.
\n8\/22 at 8 p.m. \/ 8\/28 at 8 pm
\n8\/30 at 7:30 p.m.<\/p>\n