"BEAST ON THE MOON" PRODUCTION IN LOS ANGELES

Armenian News Network / Groong
September 3, 2010
Entertainment Wire

By Alex Fumero

    BEAST ON THE MOON
    By Richard Kalinoski
    Directed by Paul Lampert - http://www.paullampert.com/
    Costume Designer: Sarah Register (Behind the Gates, All My Sons)
    Lighting Designer: Tom Ontiveros (Lascivious Something)
    Dialect Consultant: Joel Goldes
    Production Stage Manager: Shazia Malik
    Assistant Producer: Rita Rani

    OPENING: September 11th and running through October 17th
    Thursday - Saturday @ 8pm, Sunday @ 2pm
    Previews September 9 and 10 (@8pm)

    The Marilyn Monroe Theatre
    at the Lee Strasberg Creative Center
    7936 Santa Monica Blvd,
    West Hollywood, CA, 90046
    (one block West of Fairfax)


Richard Kalinoski's critically acclaimed, award-winning "BEAST ON THE
MOON", which deals with the history of the Armenian people and its
diaspora, opens September 11th at the The Marilyn Monroe Theatre at
the Lee Strasberg Creative Center in West Hollywood, and runs through
October 17th.

"BEAST ON THE MOON" explores the ongoing controversial, and
often-overlooked, tragedy of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.  The play
brings this history to people's awareness through a powerful love
story. It's a new look at how we learn to love others in the face of
challenges like displacement and grief.

Olga Konstantulakis and Zadran Wali star as Seta and Aram, who have
one thing in common: they survived. Now, this young photographer and
his mail-order bride - two exiles in a foreign land - must look to
their future together in order to heal the past.

	`Yes, you are my husband, and I am grateful, but I am Armenian
	too, I am a dead person living too...'
		-Seta, BotM, Act Two, Scene Three

1920's Milwaukee.  In ordering his bride, Aram Tomasian saves a
teenage girl, Seta, from a shared peril: the Armenian holocaust.  His
plan is to start a family, one big enough to replace the family ripped
from him - the plan is to start over in America. But, as the couple
struggles to redefine family amidst grief and displacement, these
kindred strangers realize a love deeper than ever imagined.

Richard Kalinoski's Beast on the Moon won the 2001 Best Play from the
Repertory prize at the Moliere Awards in Paris.  The Wisconsin native
has distinguished himself as a playwright by writing plays with great
international appeal. Since emerging as a `triumph' (Ben Brantley, The
New York Times) at the 1995 Humana Festival, Beast on the Moon has
been translated into 17 languages and produced in venues all over the
world, such as Athens, Brussels, London, Moscow, off-Broadway in New
York, Prague, Sao Paolo, and Toronto.  It has garnered a host of
awards including the Osborn - `Best New Play in America by an Emerging
Playwright', awarded by the American Theatre Critics Association in
1996, and, in 2001, five Ace Awards, including Best Play, in Buenos
Aires, Argentina. In 2005, President of Armenia Robert Kocharian
awarded Kalinoski the Khorenatsi Medal for contribution to the Arts
from the country of Armenia.  Kalinoski also spent a year at the
National Playwrights Conference, and a year as Dramaturg under Lloyd
Richards at the O'Neill Center.

Director Paul Lampert has worked extensively as a director, actor, and
teacher.  His European directing credits include the national premiere
of "Oleanna" for the Stary Theatre in Kraksw, Poland; "Raised In
Captivity" in Berlin, Germany; "I Claudia" in Barcelona, Shanghai and
Munich; twice directing at the renowned East 15 Acting School in
London, England; and, most recently, directing "Problem Child" in
Munich, Germany.  His many directing credits in Canada include work
for the Actors Repertory Company, Globe Theatre, Theatre Aquarius,
Persephone Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Tattoo, The Great
Canadian Theatre Company, Buddies In Bad Times Theatre, The National
Theatre School of Canada, the renowned Shaw Festival and the Blyth
Festival.  He has taught in Canada, England, Poland, Sweden, Cuba,
Austria, Switzerland and China.

Olga Konstantulakis is an actor/producer based in LA, and a partner at
Malabar Hill Films.  Recent LA theatre credits include: Beatrice in
Modigliani and Mademoiselle `Y' in The Stronger (People's Theater),
Collette in Four Dogs and a Bone (Lisa Robertson Studio/Coast
Playhouse), Bess in Bury the Dead (ICAP/Union Film & Theatre Co.) and
Cecily in The Importance of being Ernest (ICAP Theatre).  In 2005, she
produced and starred in Miss Julie, at the Centaur Theatre in
Montreal, which garnered a MECCA nomination and was noted as `one of
the most memorable productions of 2005,' by the Montreal Gazette.


The production is presented by Malabar Hill Films, which strives to
create works of art that illuminate different facets of the world, yet
speak to a global audience. For reservations: Call 323-960-7784 or
online at www.plays411.com/beast. For Press or Media Contact: Alex
Fumero or Racquel Lehrman, Theatre Planners 818-342-4319

Groong has previously reviewed Beast On The Moon in 2003. Bedros
Afeyan's review is at http://www.groong/tcc/tcc-20030108.html.