N  E  W  S

RUTH, a lyric drama by John Crutchfield

Presented Thursday, July 1 - Saturday, July 10, 2010 as part of the Catalyst Series at NCStage in downtown Asheville.

A new version of the verse play that premiered in a Blue Shift Theatre Ensemble production directed by Eric Johnson and designed by Adam Larsen at Lenoir-Rhyne College in 2002. In John Crutchfield's RUTH, the eponymous biblical story is re-imagined in a contemporary Southern Appalachian setting. The production combines original verse, choreography, and live music.

Directed by Steve Samuels. Lighting and Set Design by Jason Williams. Choreography by Julie Becton Gillum. Live Music by John Crutchfield. Stage Manager: Jessica Kammerud. Starring: Kathryn Temple, C.J. Breland, Peter Brezny, Erik Moellering, and Kelley Hinman. Produced by Chall Gray for The Magnetic Theatre.

Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm at NCStage, located on Stage Lane just off Walnut Street in downtown Asheville. Tickets are $12, with $10 tickets available for students and groups. For reservations, visit the NCStage website, call 828-329-0263, or drop by the Pack Place Box Office.

 
The Bars Of Atlantis_cover_image


THE BARS OF ATLANTIS: Selected Essays of Durs Grünbein

Now available from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Translated from the German by John Crutchfield, Michael Hofmann, and Andrew Shields

Edited by Michael Eskin, who praises Crutchfield's translations for having "beautifully caught the original's stylistic visage...with great fidelity and elegance, while...retaining its mild-to-medium-strong undercurrent of wryness and irony," and for having "managed to follow the original on its many stylistic and intellectual explorations without sacrifiing sense and logical consistency."

For more information, click here:   The Bars of Atlantis

 
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LOCAL BOY GOES TO BIG CITY, MAKES GOOD

THE SONGS OF ROBERT wins "Outstanding Solo Show" at FringeNYC 2009

This past August, John Crutchfield took his quirkily poetic one-man show, The Songs of Robert, to the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival. The show ran for five performances at the Milagro Theatre on Suffolk Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side, garnered two very positive reviews, and won the Festival's Overall Excellence Award for "Outstanding Solo Show." For the New York production, Crutchfield worked closely with director Steve Samuels (Artistic Director of The Magnetic Theatre in Asheville) and producer Chall Gray.

To read what the critics had to say, click on the links below:

Time Out New York       NYTheatre

The official playscript is now avalable in the anthology, Plays and Playwrights 2010, edited by Martin Denton. For more information, click here:   Plays and Playwrights 2010

To read Martin Denton's "cyber interview" with John Crutchfield, click here:   Crutchfield interview


UPCOMING EVENTS

*Thursday, May 27th, 2010, 8pm: THE OLD FARMER'S BALL contra dance, at Bryson Gym on the campus of Warren Wilson College, featuring the old time string band, Chicken Train: John Engle (fiddle), John Herrmann (banjo), Meredith McIntosh (bass) and John Crutchfield (guitar).

*Saturday, June 12th, 2010, 3pm: THE BLUFF MOUNTAIN MUSIC FESTIVAL in Hot Springs, NC; featuring the celebrated old time string band, New Southern Ramblers: John Herrmann (fiddle), Phil Jameson (banjo), Meredith McIntosh (bass) and guest John Crutchfield (guitar).

*Premier planned for fall/winter, 2010: SOLSTICE, a new play by John Crutchfield. Produced by The Magnetic Theatre at The Magnetic Field in Asheville's River Arts District. Details forthcoming.

An intense realistic drama about the turning point in a friendship. A young man goes to visit his childhood friend, and finds him living in dangerous circumstances.

 

ONGOING PROJECTS

RedDust, by Mathew Rosenblum. For the past year, John Crutchfield has been collaborating with composer Mathew Rosenblum on the libretto for RedDust, an experimental opera comissioned by NYC-based new music ensemble Sequitur. The piece combines text from a variety of sources to tell the story of a young Asian-American writer who must write 10,000 words about a stone that becomes a boy.

Addictions Project. Asheville's Scapegoat Theatre Collective has brought together three writers (John Crutchfield, Lucia Del Vecchio, and Julian Vorus), along with a flexible ensemble of actors under the direction of Hope Spragg, to create a program of new works dealing with the theme of addiction. Two one-acts by Crutchfield, My Best Friend and A Day in the Life, are currently in development for an eventual production (tentatively planned for winter, 2010 at The Magnetic Theatre in Asheville, NC).