Karin Coonrod tackles Flannery O’Connor on tour, starting this weekend at Loyola University of Chicago. Her latest work with Compagnia de’ Colombari brings O’Connor’s short story about racism, Everything That Rises Must Converge, to the stage.
Yale drama teacher and theatre innovator Karin Coonrod doesn’t take the easy route, and it’s never been truer than today.
Last we heard from her, Coonrod dodged bad weather in FDR Four Freedoms Park, staging More or Less I Am without rehearsal in a hastily chosen art gallery.
For weeks, Coonrod worked with the park on Roosevelt Island. More or Less I Am celebrates Walt Whitman, and it was set for performance on the eve of his 200th birthday.
Then, it rained.
Calls went out, and the show found a home at Gallery RIVAA. More or Less I Am went on as scheduled.
Photo courtesy of Esther Piaskowski
“It was a hit,” Coonrod told the Roosevelt Island Daily. “Thrilling.”
Next Up: Karin Coonrod tackles Flannery O’Connor
For a first performance on September 21st at Loyola University of Chicago, Coonrod adapts Flannery O’Connor’s Everything That Rises Must Converge for the stage.
A short story that also serves as the title for a collection, it uses racism in the South as its basis. Julian despises his mother’s racism, but he can’t avoid it. Too poor to support himself, he lives with her and sees it every day.
His mother is afraid of the newly integrated public bus system, and Julian escorts her to an exercise class. This device brings warring factions into close contact.
What will Coonrod do with this material? Find out this month in Chicago, New Haven or The Bronx.
After Loyola, the show travels to Yale in New Haven on the 27th. The last public performance is at Fordham University in the Bronx on the 28th.
The Fordham, at 7:00, is free, but you must register.
Also in New York that weekend:
