TRAGEDY IN SPADES: A Crime Documentary
Re-enactors at University Settlement, April 2016
...this is how you make a stagecraft of nostalgia in the poor theatre idiom, without hazers, foggers, physical montages set against filmic soundtracks... — Jess Barbagallo, Howlround
OBSESSED WITH A MURDER IN HER RURAL TOWN, VETERINARIAN AND AMATEUR FILMMAKER LORNA DAS UNCOVERS SOME OF THE HARROWING DETAILS THAT LED TO UNSPEAKABLE TRAGEDY IN THIS THRILLING 1994 CRIME DOCUMENTARY
TRAGEDY IN SPADES: A Crime Documentary is a theatrical reenactment of a fictional 1994 documentary about a horrific murder in a tiny Missouri town. The piece asks what makes this prominent and problematic genre so fascinating, and how horrors shape or reflect our communities. With twelve actors from University Settlement and Tele-Violet, TRAGEDY IN SPADES: A Crime Documentary makes us consider the American phenomenon of sensationalized tragedy as we watch it form a community before our eyes.
Director: Katherine Brook
Writer: Liza Birkenmeier
Choreographer: KatieRose McLaughlin
Composer: Chris Giarmo
Lighting Designer: by Josh Smith
AD/SM: Tyler Thomas
Reenactors: Alex Spieth, Anna Young, Arleen Chan, David Gould, G.J. Dowding, Imani Foster, Jessie Shelton, Josh Gelb, Katiana Rangel, Rachel Jackson, Tatyanna Santana, Theo Vidal, and Tyler Thomas
TRAGEDY IN SPADES: A Crime Documentary was developed and presented in residence at University Settlement's Performance Project, 2015 - 16.