KIA CORTHRON
Seeking the Genesis
The Goodman Theatre, Chicago, IL
When a single mother with a drug-dealing teenage son is told there might be a way to save her hyperactive younger boy from a similar fate, she is willing to listen. When she is told that a hyperactivity drug might even improve the young boy's performance in school, she's willing to try it. But when she discovers that the medication robs her son of his individuality, she is confronted with a nearly impossible choice. In Kia Corthron's Seeking the Genesis, a society attempts to pacify that which it cannot tolerate, and a mother is faced with the ultimate moral challenge: whether to sacrifice her child's present existence for the unknown chance of his outgrowing his problems in the future.
Kia
Corthron's plays Cage Rhythm and Come Down Burning were workshopped
at the Long Wharf Theatre and later were read as part of the Philadelphia Theatre
Company's One Act Festival. Come Down Burning was previously presented
at the Voice & Vision Women's Theatre Retreat in Northampton, Massachusetts,
and read at Playwrights Horizons and Circle Repertory Company. Her play Wake
Up Lou Riser was produced in the Circle Rep Lab and will be produced this
winter at Delaware Theatre Company. She was the first recipient of the Manhattan
Theatre Club's Van Lier Playwriting Fellowship, and under its commission wrote
Catnap Allegiance. Catnap Allegiance had its world premiere last
spring at Otterbien College Theatre in Westerville, Ohio. Corthron wrote Diggin
Eleven under commission from Second Stage Theatre. Corthron has an MFA in
Theater Arts from Columbia University and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
Director: Tazewell
Thompson
Running Dates: October 18 - November 17, 1996.
