The Ashgirls & The Prince of Nothing
by Kevin V. Smith and Elisabeth Barnick
Winter 2011
Stan Mansion
directed by Kevin V. Smith
assistant directed by Elisabeth Barnick
choreographed by Karen Castleman and Kevin V. Smith
featuring Daiva Bhandari, Melissa Lorraine, Kevin V. Smith, and Maria Viteri
An auteur dance piece developed by Barnick and Smith, and performed for one night only at Stan Mansion in Logan Square, The Ash Girls started as a collage of dances from previous Theatre Y productions, but mushroomed into an ambitious full length performance in its own right, complexly interweaving themes of the ideal of love with the Nazi gas chambers. The first act featured evocative lip sync performance, on the topics of gender roles and domestic abuse, developed through intensive textual analysis of modern popular music. The second act, entirely composed of dance, combined the Cinderella myth with the narrative of the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz.
Photo credit: Devron Enarson
