Fefu and Her Friends
Performances
Feb 14, 2020 -
Mar 8, 2020
Thu 7:30p
Fri & Sat 8p
Sun 2:30p
“Life is theatre. Theatre is life. If we’re showing what life is, can be, we must do theatre.”
Cast & Personnel
Director
Cast
- Amy Bruce
- Brittny Bush
- Lindsay Ehrhardt
- Jeanne Harris
- Courtney Lomelo
- Laura Moreno
- Karina Pal Montaño-Bowers
- Lisa Villegas
Scenic Design
Costume Design
Lighting Design
Sound Design
Prop Design
Stage Manager
Booth Crew
The Play
A signature work of feminist theatre by a giant of the avant-garde. Set in the 1930s, a group of eight women gather at the country home of their brilliant and eccentric friend, Fefu. As multiple conflicts unfold between the old friends, the women struggle to define who they are and what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal society. Though written in the 1970s, FEFU AND HER FRIENDS raises questions and anxieties around gender and identity that endure today. The play features an all-female cast of Houston’s most powerful actors.The Playwright
MARíA IRENE FORNéS was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1930. She immigrated with her family to the United States in 1945 and was naturalized in 1951. From 1954 to 1957, she studied painting in Europe, where she saw Roger Blin’s famous production of Samuel Beckett’s En attendant Godot (pb. 1952, pr. 1953; Waiting for Godot, 1954). Fornes returned to the United States in 1957 and worked in New York as a textile designer. During this time, she read plays and began to think about moving into theater. In 1960, she created The Widow, which was first performed in New York in 1961 and then moved to Mexico in September of that year. In 1963 she joined the playwrights unit of the Actors Studio to further develop her writing skills. In the late 1960’s, she served as a costume designer for several avant-garde theater companies including the New Dramatists Committee and the Judson Poets Theatre. Fornes also wrote during this period and had some success with plays such as The Successful Life of Three and A Vietnamese Wedding. She won her first Obie award for playwriting in 1965, the same year Successful Life of Three was produced. In 1966 she had a brief experience with Broadway when The Office, a play she had written, had several previews at the Henry Miller but never opened.
Fornes continued to work in Off-Broadway and regional American theaters throughout the 1960’s and early 1970’s. In 1972 she helped found and run the New York Theater Strategy, an organization dedicated to the development of avant-garde theater artists. Fefu and Her Friends premiered in 1977 and earned an Obie award. Fornes received another Obie for direction in 1979. Fornes continued to write, producing some of her most popular works, including Mud, The Conduct of Life, and Abingdon Square.
Fornes has also been a major force in the development of young playwrights, especially those of Hispanic descent. She has spent a great deal of her time conducting workshops, classes, and projects on playwriting with a variety of students to bring new voices into the theater.
[excerpted from Critical Edition of Dramatic Literature Ed. Carl Rollyson. eNotes.com, Inc. 2003]
In the Media
WHERE WE GET TO JUST BE: HOUSTON’S CATASTROPHIC THEATRE PRESENTS QUEER PLAYWRIGHT MARIA IRENE FORNES’S ‘FEFU AND HER FRIENDS’
February 28, 2020 |
Spectrum South
| Addie Tsai
BWW Review: FEFU AND HER FRIENDS REIGN AT CATASTROPHIC THEATRE
February 28, 2020 |
Broadway World
| Suzanne Tidwell
Even When the Audience Stays in its Seats, Fefu and Her Friends is Intense
February 20, 2020 |
Houston Press
| D.L. Groover
Catastrophic Theatre’s Fefu and Her Friends Tells a Tale of Sisterhood
February 20, 2020 |
Houstonia
| Holly Beretto
