REIMAGINING PORGY AND BESS


A team of contemporary American theater artists has gathered at the A.R.T. to adapt this classic opera for the contemporary musical theater stage. This is how each of the creative leaders of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess contrib- uted to the making of the show.


THE VISION Diane Paulus


Director Diane Paulus’s vision of Porgy and Bess is one of community:


“The production design breaks free from the tradition of large sets representing real architecture. This production will zoom in on the individuals in the community. So rather than presenting buildings and shut- ters and gates, we’re focusing on the impor- tant relationships and dynamics of the com- munity.”


How do the major events of the play (the murder, the storm, the romance) affect the rest of Catfish Row? How does Catfish Row remind you of your own community?


THE WORDS Suzan-Lori Parks


In revising Porgy and Bess, Pulitzer Prize- winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks drew upon a key concept of her writing style— what she calls “repetition and revision.” In Parks’s other plays (such as Topdog/Under- dog and In the Blood), history is retold but altered in a way that reveals something new in the present context. The idea is similar to the way jazz musicians will replay the same riff and improvise off it, creating new textures, sounds and feelings from a single melody.


“After years of listening to Jazz, and clas- sical music too, I’m realizing that my writ- ing is very influenced by music; how much I employ its methods. Through reading lots I’ve realized how much the idea of Repeti- tion and Revision is an integral part of the African and African-American literary and oral traditions.”


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