Why We LOVE World Premieres

Valentine’s Day is here and love is in the air! Of course, love is not the only thing that has all of us at PICT so excited right now. In less than one week, our 2015 Season opens with a wonderful world premiere play by Lissa Brennan called For the Tree to Drop. Not only that, but this play kicks off our Downtown Series, new to 2015.  Needless to say, we can’t wait to get this show on the road!

This Valentine’s Day, we want to reflect on why we LOVE doing world premiere plays. So, we reached out to Siovhan Christensen, the leading lady of For the Tree to Drop, and asked her just that.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT WORLD PREMIERE PLAYS?

“I love that often, you have no idea what you are about to read, so you make acting choices on the fly, which is an exciting and fresh way to work. It is also great when you have a script in your hand during the first read-through from someone who knows nothing about you or your work and therefore has no expectations of you. Freedom! Having the playwright in attendance during rehearsals is a wonderful addition to the process, because all of the theater artists are afforded the opportunity to make discoveries as they work, without limits. There is also no need to guess what the playwright meant, or what she or he was going for with a certain moment, because they are in the room and happy to clarify things. I love making art and discovering new things with talented people. This is why working on ‘For The Tree To Drop’ has been a joy.

There is also the added bonus that your audience has never seen the play before. They may have attended a reading of the play or heard about it, but no one has ever seen the show up and running. The audience trusts you to bring them a story that will affect them. They come in without preconceived notions of what to expect, or if they do, they will usually be surprised to leave with something more than what they expected. The audience arrives with open minds, open hearts, and anticipation. This is a wonderful gift to any artist, and sets the stage for the patrons to receive wonderful things in return.

I love classics. They have proved their value throughout the history of theatre. The brilliant ones are still relevant to our world today. However, there is power in new voices, new points of view, and new pieces that resonate and connect to an audience so deeply that they become classics. Lissa Brennan’s new play, in my opinion, is a new classic. And I’m very excited to share this piece with the PICT audience.

-Siovhan Christensen

Estella in For The Tree To Drop”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves! Our artists have been hard at work on bringing this beautiful piece to life and cannot wait for you to see it for the first time. We’re certain that you will fall in love with For the Tree to Drop.

‘For the Tree to Drop’ runs February 19-28 at Pierce Studio in the Trust Arts Education Center in Downtown Pittsburgh. For more information about the play or to order tickets, click here.