Couples Counseling, presented by CalArts School of Theater, is the first CalArts all-alumni production at REDCAT. This new play by Carey Lovelace (BFA '75) launches the Institute's 35th anniversary celebration that will take place throughout 2005. Nataki Garrett (MFA '02) directs this formally edgy, sexy and satiric play tracing the sexual interplay between a therapist in crisis and his patients whose marriage is unraveling. Pauses, incomplete sentences, single words create a strange musical tapestry exploring love, lust and all that stands between, and serve as reminders of how frequently meaning and violence take form in the silences between expression.

The play features the performances of Hugo Armstrong (BFA '98). Tony Forkush (BFA '83) and Andrea LeBlanc (MFA '01). Scenic design by Madeleine Bernatchez (MFA '04), costume design by Jeaw Nyee Tan (MFA '04), lighting design by Laura Mroczkowski (MFA '03) and sound design by Jamie McElhinney (MFA '04).

Lovelace has an artistic background emblematic of CalArts's interdisciplinary aesthetic. As part of the CalArts revolutionary founding class of 1970, she received her BFA in music composition and ethnomusicology, while taking extensive courses in the Critical Studies Department. After graduating, she moved to Paris, where she studied with such noted composers as Olivier Messaien and Iannis Xenakis. Relocating to New York, she received an MA in journalism from NYU, and fostered a career in New York as an art critic, writing for Art in America and Newsday. (She is currently co-president of the US Chapter of the International Association of Art Critics.) After receiving her MFA in playwriting from the Actor's Studio Drama School, she has written numerous short plays that have been developed and performed at such well-known theater companies as the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Atlantic Theatre Company, and Circle in the Square. She currently co-hosts "The Yay/Nay Show," an arts-and-culture program on WPS1.

For student and CalArts alumni, faculty and staff discounts,
please call the REDCAT box office at 213-237-2800.

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