VPSI Summer Conference presents La Fornarina, by Aurora Mateos

The Virginia Playwright & Screenwriters Initiative
at the
Hamner Theater
presents
La Fornarina
by
Aurora Mateos,
translated by Rick Hite

Sunday, July 25 at 1:00 p.m.
Director – Boomie Pedersen
Dramaturg – Peter Coy
Technical Director – J. Taylor

CAST:
Rafael – Richard Cooper
Marguerita – Carrie Stuart
Julius – Jared Ivory
Cardinal Bibbiena – John Holdren

This play about love, passion, power & religion tells the love story of the Renaissance painter Raphael, who, while engaged to the niece of the most powerful Cardinal in Rome, Cardinal Bibbiena, felt in love with Margherita Luti, “La Fornarina”, the daughter of a baker of Trastevere, a neighborhood in Rome. His love for La Fornarina was the reason he didn’t marry Maria Bibbiena, a tragic decision in Raphael’s life. The first draft of the full-lengh play “La Fornarina” was finished in late 2009, after two years of research and writing, mostly at the libraries of the University of Cambridge (UK) and Rome (Italy). One of the main theatres in Malaga (El Teatro Echegaray, 300 seats) commissioned its first public reading, which took place on 4 February 2010. The Hamner Theater has welcomed this play for a workshop production period in July 2010.
Aurora Mateos is a Spanish playwright. She is considered one of the emerging voices in recent studies and compilations of modern Spanish Theatre, such as Estreno in the US, the University Autónoma de México, and Asociación de Autores de Teatro (Spanish Dramatist Guild). Her plays are already receiving stage readings and productions all over the country. She holds several awards, including the Martin Recuerda for the play Suicide of an Angel, which received a workshop production at the Hamner Theater in 2007. She has been finalist in the most important awards in Spain (like the Calderón, Sevilla, Enrique Llovet…). More information is available at: www.auroramateos.com.
Translator Rick Hite has acted and directed in community, university, and professional theater for over fifty years. He has also worked in film and television. Among his favorite roles he would include Shakespeare’s King Lear, Prospero, Touchstone, Mercutio, and Orlando, Moliere’s Alceste, Chekhov’s Vershinin, Brecht’s Peachum, Pinter’s Deeley, and Albee’s George. His longest run was as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. He also writes and translates plays and poetry (from Spanish). He was Professor of Theater for 30 years at Virginia Wesleyan College and holds degrees from Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, and Michigan State University. He and his wife Barbara live in Norfolk, Virginia. They have three children and four grandchildren.

The Virginia Playwright & Screenwriters Initiative (VPSI) is a part of the Hamner Theater's continuing mission to foster new works. VPSI provides a venue for the writer to workshop, rewrite and rehearse a new script with a company of experienced actors, a director and a dramaturg. The writer participates in a process of readings, rehearsal and discussion with cast, director and dramaturg, culminating in a public staged reading. Following the reading, there is a discussion open to all.

VPSI is made possible in part by grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the BAMA Fund.
The Hamner Theater is a non-profit project of the Rockfish Valley Community Center.