Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for Orlando’s Gift, a production by students, faculty, and guest artists, written and directed by PMA Professor David Feldshuh. This new play will have five performances in the Flexible Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts:
Friday, November 1st, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 2nd, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 8th, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 9th, 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 9th, 7:30 p.m.
“Half laughing, half serious, with great splashes of exaggeration.” – Virginia Woolf
Orlando’s Gift is a new play inspired by the novel, Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. It tells the love story of writer, Virginia Woolf, and her hero/heroine Orlando, a character who has too many selves to count. Orlando lives forever in a giddy world of fantasy, wit, surprise and theatrical adventure. Author and character discover the power of words to celebrate life and the ecstasy of the imagination at work.
*Please note that the opening night performance on Friday, November 1st, will be followed by a post-show discussion with Professor David Feldshuh and AD White Professor Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director of the Public Theater, followed by a reception sponsored by AD White Professor at the Large Program. The reception will be for the cast, crew, friends and audience members who stay for the discussion.
Writer and director David Feldshuh spoke to us about the genesis of this new play:
What inspired you to combine these two stories to create Orlando’s Gift?
“I was introduced to Virginia Woolf’s novel, Orlando, more than four decades ago when I spent a long, hot summer in the second floor of an unairconditioned former warehouse in Minneapolis working through the book to transform and direct the story into a play for the Illusion Theater in Minneapolis. Forty years later, when an enthusiastic, dedicated group of Cornell’s advanced acting students asked me to direct them in a project, Orlando popped back into my head and the impulse to revisit the book as an inspiration for a new play became an unrelenting tug on my imagination.
Woolf’s novel, Orlando, is giddy, fantastic, witty and exuberant. Woolf was energized by the challenge of bursting the boundaries of biography by combining fact and fiction in an unbridled writing adventure. Writing became fun for her. You can appreciate her wit in unexpected phrases that burst expectations and make you laugh.
I chose to write a play that explored Woolf’s depression and despair, as a twin to the bubbling life energy that Woolf found when her writing flowed as she joyfully created the immortal spirit of Orlando. Woolf was determined to promote her vision of a world in which each person is given room to explore multiple identities throughout their lives, and you have an irresistible writing and directing challenge.”
What do you hope audience members will take away from this production?
“Fun, fun, fun and I hope the audience is inspired by the brilliance of Woolf’s writing: comedy, farce, soaring poetry, memorable characters and the story of the immortal life-adventurer Orlando traveling an unpredictable journey with the creator/author Virginia Woolf. Two lives that come together in a love story that is a gift to them both. Orlando’s Gift.”
Liv Licursi ’24 who plays Sasha in the play, added: “It means the world to me to be a part of this production. I have studied with David Feldshuh for over a year now, and to be able to work with him alongside my incredible peers in this capacity on a piece he has written is a gift like no other.”
Content warning: This play contains discussions of death and suicidal ideation.
