Theatre ‘d Art

This is a quick shout out to all of you cool people who came to the T’dA appreciation BBQ on Saturday the 20th of June.  We all had a terrific time eating hamburgers and supplying you all with entertainment in the form of fake pies being thrown into a variety of peoples faces.

Furthermore I wanted to point out that we still have a good stock pile of NEW T’dA T-shirts available.  The kind that are hand made with love and spray paint. They are for sale for $10 though we do not have a good way of selling them online for the moment but if you are interested in purchasing one, email us at info@theatredart.org and tell us you want one. We’ll get it to you, promise.

We are in the process of getting some nicer (aka professionally made) t-shirts and those should be available when our season opens August 14th.  Check the other blog for more info on our season and stuff.

Also, for those of you who came by, you may have noticed some swanky posters  hanging on our walls.  Those posters are part of our summer awareness/advertising campaign and you may see them hanging around town in the weeks to come.

Thats it for this blog… onto the next!!!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
24 March 2009                                                                                        Contact: Brian Mann
Artistic Director
(719)216-2867 Brian@theatredart.org

Theatre ‘d Art Presents
“R.U.R.”  (Rossum’s Universal Robots)

From April 3rd through the 19th THEATRE ‘D ART presents Karel Capek’s “R.U.R.”  This classic play explores a future where robots are manufactured and sold around the world to replace the workers as cheap labor. This production will be performed at The Osborne Studio Theater on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 8:00pm. The Osborne Studio Theater is located on the second floor of UCCS’ University Hall at the corner of Union and Austin Bluffs. Tickets will be $10 for general admission, $5 for students with a valid ID and free for UCCS students.

“R.U.R.”  is the third and final play in THEATRE ‘D ART’s season of exploitation.  This play examines a more abstract dimension of exploitation: the human exploitation of machines and technology.  The robots of “R.U.R.” have no soul, are not capable of original thought and do not know how to love. They are, however, stronger and more intelligent than any human alive.  They were designed and built to be like humans without actually being human themselves. Thus they are capable of great work and are far more efficient and cheaper than a human.  The humans of this imagined future world, exploit these robots for their own use and are destined to face the consequences of that choice. As the humans continue to develop the robots to make them more perfect, the robots learn how inferior the humans are and begin to take over.

“Rossum’s Universal Robot’s” originally premiered in 1921 in Prague and is famous for introducing the word “robot” into the English language.  Karel Capek wrote the play on the heels of World War I with grim knowledge of how horrifying and effective technology can be when used for the purpose of killing.  This helped lead to his pessimistic view of how technology can destroy human life if it goes unchecked.  This topic resonates greatly today in our technology infused world.  Now more than ever we are saturated with internet, television, cell phones and a million other devices that in many ways rule over our lives already. Director Angie Kinnett goes one step further and asks: “Man needs technology to live comfortably in their everyday lives, but does technology need man? Or will it continue to serve its functions long after humans are not around to use it? Do we rule over technology or does technology rule over us?”  Watch “R.U.R.” to watch one potential outcome of a world transformed by technology that we humans originally intended to exploit for our own purposes.

THEATRE ‘D ART was voted Colorado Springs’ best new theater company in 2008 by the Gazette. We specialize in experimental, absurdist and avant-garde theatre–theatre you won’t see anywhere else in Colorado Springs. Founded by Jonathan Margheim and Brian Mann, we can be contacted through email at info@theatredart.org, through our Myspace page at www.Myspace.com/theatredart, or you can visit us at our website www.theatredart.org.