Snow Queen Marks Xavier Players Venture into Children's Theater
European director and theater artist, Irina Niculescu brings her magic to the Xavier Players production of Hans Christian Anderson's classic tale, Snow Queen, December 6-9 at 7:30 p.m. and December 8 at 1:30 p.m. at the Gallagher Student Center Theater on the University campus. There is also a school performance on Thursday, December 6 at 10:00 a.m. Tickets are $5.00 for students, faculty and staff and $15.00 for all others. Tickets are available by calling the Players box office at 513-745-3939.
The story, which is a free adaptation written by Jonathan Graham, focuses on the relationship between two young friends (Kai and Gerda) and holds a valuable lesson about holding strong to what you believe in. This is the first time the Xavier Players have ventured into children's theater.
"The story of the Snow Queen is adventurous, romantic, heroic and humorous at times. Graham's theater adaptation of Andersen contains the confrontation between reality and illusion. It provoked me to imagine the show in an abstract set composed of screens, where everything is suggestion, and to bring several forms of puppetry, new to Xavier Players," says Niculescu.
"Some puppets are hand held masks. Some are the actor's head with a puppet body, or what we are calling humanettes," she explains. "There is also large shadow puppetry. This big imagery gives a different dimension to the fantastic of the story."
Niculescu is a theater director with a broad background in project management and theater education. She has directed shows and taught theater in Romania, Norway, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, Belgium, France, Canada and the United States. She has created innovative theater for young audiences combining acting, puppetry, dance and live music.
Niculescu taught theater directing and puppet theatre at the Academy of Theatre and Cinema in Bucharest, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut, The Actors Theatre Institute in Seville, L’Ecole Superieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mezieres, Riksteatret in Oslo and in Geneva.