There are so many interesting people and places in the world but we did not find one as interesting and vibant as Nohant. Turning the black box at the Mead Theater Lab at Flashpoint was a real creative effort. Thanks to a great artist, Andrzej Pinkowski, who used his artistic magical hand and eye and at a flip of a magic wand, he changed the place into a 19th century salon.
The three act play took us all on a great tour into a 19th century salon where we discovered the beauty of erotic passions, turmoil, and artistic inspiration, where “among kitchen squabbles- something so full of transcendental genius was being produced!” It has been a great pleasure to rediscover this very interesting play depicting a part of the lives of these very special people, George Sand and Fryderyk Chopin with such a great group of American actors and take them on a tour of France and Poland. It has been a very interesting ride, full of passion; snow days and stormy weather which still did not stop us all from bringing some sun to “Summer at Nohant.” Thank you to all its dear “inhabitants” for all their passion and hard work, especially my dear assistant Magda and her family who tirelessly worked to make our salon so beautiful and vibrant. I love you all and let us all breathe in the very extraordinary air of Nohant! Hopefully, we will come back to it very soon!
Our works have been performed at the Shakespeare Theatre, Kennedy Center, the Arc Center, and Flashpoint Theatre, as well as various embassies. We have been featured on Fox News and NBC.com and have received many good reviews and great audience respond. Not ones to merely rest on our laurels, we are dedicated to expanding the variety and range of our programming next year in order to promote cultural awareness and the performing arts to even greater audiences. But we do need your help!
I’m very humbled to introduce to you Madame Helena Modjeska (Modrzejewska), the Polish-American Shakespearean icon of the 19th Century, in whose footsteps many actors would have loved to follow. Thanks to Professor Braun and his writing, I was inspired to further research the life of this mysterious and intriguing personality. I started to dream about all the amazing roles she performed in her life, and fantasized about her railway car tours of the United States. I even thought of building a special train to take our shows on the road, all in the name of Helena. Who was Helena Modrzejewska? How can we suppose to know when, during her life, she asked herself the same question? Mr. Braun in his work conveys this palpable uncertainty in Modrzejewska’s own words: “Who am I in reality?…Helena Modrzejewska, or Countess Modjeska…A fake, or an aristocrat? A player, or a woman?..An usurper, or a legitimate queen?…American or a Pole? I do not know.” Do we know who we are in reality? Although we are not playing our roles on stage as Helena did, we inhabit the various roles in our lives, that of the father, the mother, the friend, at work, at home,…with the same fervor. With the development of technology and information, and the increasing speed our lives gain, we take upon ourselves unfamiliar roles and tasks. The line between reality and artifice is blurred. This dichotomy is one that fully concerned Modrzejewska. We see it in the passion of her performances, both on and off the stage. The conviction with which she lived her life is an emblem of the powerful sense of mystery and enchantment the theatre holds over all of us. Most amazing to me is the innate ability of my American actors to take on the ambitious task of portraying a group of iconic Poles! Without their commitment to their roles, and their eagerness to learn more about the rich lives of Modrzejewska and her friends, the intimate portrait we present to you tonight would have been impossible. A toast to you Madame Helena and to you, her audience!
As we begin to move through this summer and finish the run of our inaugural production, our thoughts are immediately moving onto our exciting projects for the fall and winter. “Hopa Tropa” is just one of our upcoming creative projects that will bring a colorful taste of Bulgarian culture to the DC area.
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