By Andy Boyd
One was a communist. The other was a capitalist. One was an artist. The other, an engineer. And yet, for the year between the spring of 1932 and the spring of 1933, Diego Rivera and Henry Ford were friends. Rivera came to Detroit on a commission from Ford’s son Edsel to paint a mural on the theme of Detroit Industry. Rivera and his wife the painter Frida Kahlo arrived in a city on the brink of revolution or collapse: bank failures, violent labor clashes, rallies by Communists and Bible-quoting proto-fascists that drew audiences in the thousands. River Rouge tells the story of the year that followed in a dizzying collage-inspired style mixing vaudeville, docudrama, folk music, protest theatre, and magical realism. It asks a question as relevant today as it was in 1932: how can we use art to remake the world?
Production Team:
Director: NJ Agwuna
Dramaturg: Philip Santos Schaffer
General Manager: Andreas Huang
Production Stage Manager: Gregory Jackson
Composer: Dylan Neely
Music Director: Cynthia Meng
Dance Choreographer: Ann Cooley
Fight Choreographer: NJ Agwuna
Scenic Designer: Anna Driftmier
Lighting Designer: Eric Norbury
Projection Designer: Shawn Boyle
Graphic Designer: Charles Boyd
Featuring
Yoni Bronstein, Anthony Gabriele, Kaitlin Kaufman, Germainne LeBron, Roger Lipson*, Javier Padilla, Katherine Pena, Vaughn Pole*, Manuela Sosa, Daniel Stompor, Jay Yriberry.
* Appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
Festival Staff
Production Manager: CB Shotwell
Technical Director: John Trevellini
Director of Production: Joe Novak
Festival Stage Managers: Patty Garvey and Morgan Beach
Festival General Manager: Bethany Sharp
Marketing Director: Halla Tryggvadottir
Program Assistant: Zach Marlin
CU Program Assistant: Kate Mulley
Scenic//Props Coordinator: Anna Driftmier
Sound//Projection Coordinator: Ian Wehrle
Lenfest Lighting Coordinator: Kyle Soble
Lenfest Costume Coordinator: Nikolas Tucker
Production Resources: Jack Calk
Run Crew: Aaron Keller
Head of Playwriting Department: David Henry Hwang
Head of Stage Mgmt. Department: Michael J. Passaro
About the Playwright
Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. His previous plays include Os Confederados, She Shall be Praised, and The Trade Federation, or, Let's Explore Globalization Through the Star Wars Prequels. His plays have been produced or workshopped by Naked Theatre, Out Loud Theatre, Epic Theatre Company, and Contemporary Theatre of Rhode Island, and have been shown in the New York, Capital, and Providence Fringe Festivals. In addition to writing plays, Andy records music under the project name Andy the Giant and co-hosts Better than Shakespeare, a socialist theatre podcast, with Danny Erickson. He is the recipient of the Phyllis Anderson Prize awarded by The American Repertory Theatre and a Rhode Island State Council for the Arts Grant in Playwriting and Screenwriting.
