Contribution to the Production of the Play "Full Gallop" by Mark Hampton and Mary Louise Wilson Translated and Performed for the First Time in Catalan

Project location: Spain, Barcelona
Project start date: May 2014 - Project end date: June 2014
Project number: 2014-002
Beneficiary: ELSA PERETTI FOUNDATION

 

This project consists in the production and performing of the theater piece "Full Gallop" written by Mary Louise Wilson and Mark Hampton for the first time translated and represented in Catalan. The play is a monologue focused on the life of Diana Vreeland. The play will be performed in its Catalan version AL GALOP, translated by Joan Sellent, in the Teatre Akadèmia (Barcelona - Spain) performed by Carme Elias and Directed by Guido Torlonia. The release was on May 6th, 2014.

DIANA VREELAND
This brilliant and pungent play is about Diana Vreeland (1906-1989), nicknamed "The Divine" like Greta Garbo, famous, eccentric and powerful fashion journalist who, from the mid-thirties of the past century, was at the hub of New York and international society for over fifty years.
She began her career in London as the owner of a lingerie shop. Then she moved to New York as soon as she married. There she began working at Harper's Bazaar with a sophisticated column entitled "Why don't you?". It was 1936 and Diana Vreeland advanced rapidly on the magazine's staff until she became fashion editor in 1939.
In 1962, she moved to Vogue where she was editor until 1971. She made a huge contribution to the success of this publication, which thanks to her taste, curiosity and journalistic intuition, opened the doors to the revolution in the lifestyles of those years. It was Vreeland who "discovered" models such Veruschka, Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy and Lauren Hutton and made Richard Avedon one of the era's most famous photographers. When she left Vogue in 1971, she became special consultant to the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She curated dozens of memorable exhibits that not only enjoyed enormous success with the public at large, but also had a profound influence in the evolution of contemporary fashion.
In 1984 Diana Vreeland wrote D.V., a book of memoirs that quickly became a best-seller, in which she told her story using the same irony, volatile intensity and sharp, theatrical taste with which she lived her life, to describe her comings and goings between New York, London, and Paris, among the world's most important artists, actors, models, aristocrats and celebrities.
In 2012 a documentary on Diana Vreeland's life was made "The eye has to travel" by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, and in 2013 Diana's grandson published a book named "Diana Vreeland memos: correspondence of Vogue years" with a selection of her work notes and letters and photographs of that period published in this magazine.
She illustrates the evolution of women in positions of power and prominence throughout the 20th century.
She was one of the most influential women of the 20th century, an icon whose influence changed the face of fashion, beauty, art, publishing and culture itself forever.

THE THEATER PIECE
FULL GALLOP is a portrait of this remarkable woman at a turning point in her life. The one-woman play is set in August 1971 at Diana Vreeland's Park Avenue apartment. She has just returned home to New York after four months in Europe --- a trip she took after being fired from Vogue magazine. She throws an impromptu dinner party in the hope that a wealthy friend who is invited will bankroll her in starting a magazine of her own. Other friends, however, attempt to persuade her to take a job at the famed Metropolitan Museum of Art. In her distinctive style, once she decides in which direction her life will move, she goes at it "full gallop"
"Full Gallop" performed off Broadway in 1995, with Mary Louise Wilson in the role of Diana Vreeland.Mary Louise Wilson, with Mark Hampton, wrote this one-woman show for herself to perform. Much of it is lifted straight out of "D.V." What is so wonderful about this piece is that it takes the often formless and rambling but fascinating "D.V." and gives it an excellent structure. Full Gallop was also performed in its original version in Paris in 1996. Ikn January 1997 Full Gallop was released in its Italian version, in the Teatro Goldoni from Florence, with Adriana Asti, directed by Guido Torlonia, and produced by Pitti Immagine in collaboration with Ferragamo.
Full Gallop has never been more translated or represented outside the U.S. This new version translated into Catalan, brings the show in Europe nearly 15 years after the last performance in the US, building on the success of the documentary by Lisa Immordino Vreeland 'The Eyes Has to travel'.

THE AUTORS
Mary Louise Wilson is a Tony and Drama Desk Award-winning American stage, film and television actress. She was born in New Haven, Connecticut. After years of playing showy featured roles in musicals and plays, finally has a starring role: fashion doyen Diana Vreeland in Full Gallop. Her one-woman show was six years in the works - originating in Sag Harbor, NY, followed by a successful Manhattan Theater Club run before moving to the Westside Theater (43rd Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues).

Prior to Full Gallop, Mark Hampton was represented Off-Broadway by The Heebie Feebies, featuring the music of the Boswell Sisters. HE was presented also a play about author Jacqueline Susann entitled Paper Doll, reading first with Christine Baranski and with a premiere at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle the season 1999.
His work has been produced at Bershire Theatre Festival, the Old Globe in San Diego, Mahattan Theatre Club, Bay Street Theatre, the O'Neil Theatre Center and Baltimore Center Stage. As an actor-writer-musician he has performed in New York clubs, Chicago's Second City and Saturday Night Live.

The play will be performed in its Catalan version AL GALOP, translated by Joan Sellent, in the Teatre Akadèmia (Barcelona - Spain) by Carme Elias and directed by Guido Torlonia. The release will be on the 6th of May 2014.

DIRECTION BY GUIDO TORLONIA
Guido Torlonia, born and raised in Rome, has always been passionate about cinema and theater, he studied cultural anthropology at the University La Sapienza, but his real education, at early 90s, was at the 'bottega' of the Piccolo Teatro from Milan, where he worked as assistant to the director Giorgio Strehler. In 1995 he had the first encounter with the cinema, with two short films made for the New York Film Academy. Then in theater, as a director, in Milan, Rome and Florence, where he was also responsible for the events of the Biennial Fashion and Cinema, and then launch the collaboration with Prada, Ferre, Gucci, Tod's, and finally Louis Vuitton. From 2003 to 2007 he moved to Paris, first with Maurizio Scapparo for the Festival des Italiens, then as a consultant at the Italian Institute of Culture. He is very familiar with international talents, as head of the Ceremonial, first at the ‘Venice Film Festival' in Venice (2003-2009), then at the ‘International Film Festival' of Rome (2007-2011). In 2006, he directed an opera: Lucia di Lammermoor, in Kansas. In 2007, he promoted the Cultural Association Caro Amico (Dear Friend) with whom he has written and produced three plays, a tribute to the great masters Visconti, Fellini and Strehler, already presented in Rome, Milan, Venice, Paris and Moscow. In 2011 he was one of the curators of the exhibition Audrey Hepburn in Rome, inaugurated at the ‘Ara Pacis'. The documentary "Handmade Cinema" was his opportunity for directorial debut.
In 1997 he directed Adriana Asti in this very play ‘Full Gallop', in the Italian version at the Teatro Goldoni in Florence.

ACTRESS: CARME ELÍAS
Carme Elias studied at the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona and completed her artistic training at the Laboratory of actors of William Layton and the New York school of Lee Strasberg.
She is an experienced actress in theater, cinema and television. She began her career in the theater with Adolf Marsillach in La señorita Julia (1974), and continues her career appearing in such works as Los cabellos de Absalón (1983) La gata sobre el tejado de zinc (1984), El hombre del destino (1989), Casi una diosa (1993), Edipo Rey (2008), Prometeo (2010) or Purgatorio (2011) to name a few.
Her debut in cinema was in the film La orgía by Francesc Bellmunt, and among others, appears in La flor de mi secreto by Pedro Almodóvar, Los aires difíciles by Gerardo Herrero, Camino by Javier Fesser (role for which she was awarded the Spanish Goya Award for best actress), Planes para mañana by Juana Macías and Tengo ganas de tí by Fernando González Molina.
She reappears in television in 2008 with Herederos (TVE), followed in 2010 with Gavilanes (Antena 3) .

CATALAN VERSION A by JOAN Sellent
Joan Sellent is licensed in Catalan Philology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and later continued his studies with Master in Literary Translation at the University of Manchester.
Between 1984 and 1995, he is dedicated to the translation for dubbing TV series and movie scripts. His are the translations of Mogambo, by John Ford, Al este del edén, by Elia Kazan, or Mucho ruido y pocas nueces, the version of Shakespeare's play directed by Kenneth Branagh.
He has translated the Catalan works of authors like Paul Auster, Willa Cather, Charles Dickens, Noah Gordon, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, Ring Lardner, Salman Rushdie, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain or HG Wells. His work as translator is especially important in the field of theatrical translation, where he has translated about 50 English works that have been shown in major theaters in Catalonia.
In 2006 he won the Prix Ciutat de Barcelona in Catalan Language Translation of the version of View from the Bridge, by Arthur Miller, and in 2008 he was awarded with the Prize of the Drama Critics of Barcelona (2007-2008) for the translation of the King Lear by William Shakespeare.

OTHER PROFESSIONALS
The COSTUME is made by Andres Andreu, known tailor and fashion designer, who has refused to be paid for his work because of his relation with Diana Vreeland and in attention to quality of the production to be carried out.
The SCENOGRAPHY is made by Ramon Ivars, whose design, always under the exigencies of the work, played the famous red room of the house of Diana Vreeland, her "garden in hell", which became the general barracks arts and society in New York.

THE THEATER
Theatre Akadèmia is a project started in 2007 with the support and funding of the Elsa Peretti Foundation and its President Elsa Peretti. It is designed as a home for the district, a theater of the city and the world, open to proposals in different languages and different cultures, where children and adults find poetry and imagination.
During the years 2009 and 2012 it began the exhibition of some works but from the 2012-13 season, the theater, completely refurbished, makes a complete season with 11 shows, 5 of them own productions. The current 2013-14 season, consists of 10 shows for adults, 5 of them own productions, and opens a new line of 7 family shows. Among them the most prominent titles and authors are: Quartet by Heiner Müllert, Romeu i Julieta by William Shakespeare, Ritter, Dene, Voss by Thomas Bernhard, La marquesa de Sade by Yukio Mishima and Amphitryon 38 by Jean Giraudoux.

The entrance of the Theatre Akadèmia is on Buenos Aires street 47-49. It was originally the garage of the house located at Av. Diagonal 467. The building, built in the 1930s, had been adapted to various needs, including a garage for a house with six floors that could no longer accommodate all the cars. The place was then transformed to a very different use: a theater. The activities began with a tiny infrastructure. A team of engineers, architects and consultants gave viable solutions. Therefore this is a project initiated with a consistency between use, design and artistic goals. These goals are as follows:

- Production and theatre shows Centre with artisan consistency, time and risk, where the public can find creations that offer universal themes.
- Core promoter of art projects related to Teatre Akadèmia objectives, with the aim to attract and host resident companies, providing a roof and generating synergies of mutual aid. An environment of respect and support to those projects that accept the fragility of the creative process and wish to explore, discover and harmonize all the voices of those who built the show.
- A training, research and creation space for professional actors taking care of teachers and artists to help their profession, a place where professionals can develop their goals and can perform their works or research in a non-public space.
- Encounter, reflection and debate space, where the inter-action and the contrast of opinion collaborate to nurture and strength the theatre schedule and make bridges between people.
- Axis to dynamize pilot programs in the field of social theatre and orality, dedicated to raising awareness and get the world of performing arts closer to the imagination of children, adolescents and adults.

MERCÈ MANAGUERRA, ARTISTIC DIRECTION OF THE THEATRE
Actress and producer, degree in Hispanic Romance Philology from the University of Barcelona, has also graduated in mime and pantomime from the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona. She received a Fullbritgh scholarship, through which she studied interpretation in HBStudio New York between 1985 and 1987. She is interpretation professor at the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona since 1988, where she developed the work of Head of Performance Techniques for eight years, and she was also part of the Board of Education. She has collaborated with the Association of Professional Actors and Directors of Catalonia and the Foundation AISGE (Spanish performers management company) over 30 years. Her relationship with AISGE started as a member of the boards of education in the selection of foreign teachers to take courses for professional actors until 2006 and even today is a member of the Board of Trustees of Aisge. Managuerra is a professional actress since 1975 and throughout her career has played classic and contemporary works. Among her productions are: Peer Gynt and Casa de Nines from Ibsen; Büchner's Woyzeck; Electra from Sòfocles, Danny i Roberta by J. P. Shanley; Revolta de bruixes of J. M. Benet i Jornet; El Camí de la Meca by A. Fugard; Abans d'esmorzar by E. O'Neill; Apreciada Helena Sergueivna by L.Razumoskaia, La Vida Perdurable of N. Comadira; Manicomi a Goa by M. Sherman; Ismene, germana d'Antígona from I. Ritsos. She has been involved in TV series and films working with foreign and domestic directors. In the field of audiovisual television series she has produced, En escena, cent anys de Teatre Català, TV series of sixteen chapters on TV3; the short Tengo algo que decirle directed by Hervé, played by Angela Molina. Among her professional theater productions are: El camí de la Meca directed by Carol Rosenfeld, American director; Anuncis classificats directed by Konrad Zschiedriech, director of East Germany; Oleanna directed by Mercès Managuerra; Casa de Nines directed by Norwegian actress and director Juni Darh; Una vetllada amb Eugène O'Neill, Abans d'esmorzar and Hughie directed by the American director Ernie Martin, released at the Mercat de les Flors of Barcelona; of this works performed in Barcelona and Catalonia was a tour, which have reached a total of over 300 performances.

Project timetable
MARCH
19th first dress rehearsal
31th second dress rehearsal
APRIL
7th Photographs to the promotion
Delivery of Dress, characterization and wig
10-15 press release
14th - 30th Rehearsals (Sala Poblenou and Teatre Akadèmia)
23 th - 26th installation of the scenery
MAY
1st Rehearsal
2nd Technical rehearsal
3th General rehearsal with public
6 Première
From 7 to 25 May, performances every Wednesday to Sunday (except Sunday 18)

For the Elsa Peretti Foundation this project responds to a double interest and aims at a double effect:

- on the one hand, it wants to introduce Diana Vreeland, tremendously influential in the world of fashion and style for 50 years. It's about recovering the importance of fashion, reflecting the history and life of the people. And make that goal through Diana Vreeland's understanding of fashion and style, a vision that marked not only the style of her days but changed the way of doing fashion, style and ultimately, culture;

- furthermore, the work will occur in the Teatre Akadèmia, a small theater also funded with the support of the Elsa Peretti Foundation, with barely 70 localities, which makes, promotes and encourages theater and theatrical creation from a craftsman point of view. The play Al Galop will answer therefore to these principles.


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