Marie Antoinette

Ann Liv Young's Marie Antoinette is a play within a play. The first play is the story of Alex Sabina and Tom Ruth, both amateur performers in real life. They fantasize about being famous but are marginalized citizens: white, fat, poor and mentally ill. For them, performing in front of an audience is as much a fantasy as being a king or queen. Within this real life relationship is the second play, a structured and choreographed historical drama. Sabina and Ruth play Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, another couple with problems. The Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II described them as "two complete blunderers," historically important leaders who lost their constituencies. Overseeing both are Nurses assigned to help Sabina and Ruth through both the embedded production of Marie Antoinette and their “real lives.” This tableau is live directed by Young, who watches from a bunker, unseen among the audience while her voice is broadcast onto the stage. Using professional actors and non-performers in combination with Young's unique methodologies, historical fiction collides with therapy and the very real problems of her cast.

This production includes loud noises, violence, nudity and disturbing content. It is strongly recommended for mature audiences only.

Approximately 2 hours and twenty minutes.

”Young has made a name for herself with transgressive and temporal performances of myth-making proportions.” - Elephant

Ann Liv Young, born in 1981 on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, is a choreographer, performer, creative director, and Sometimes Sherry. In 2003, Young completed an education at the Dance Department of Hollins University, Virginia, then studied at the London Laban Center. With her radically endurance testing performance evenings, she regularly references fairy tales and popular cultural myths to deconstruct gender roles and other norms of today’s Western cultures. Young’s works include Antigone (2018), Peter Pan (2016), Elektra Cabaret (2015), Theo & Leo (2014), Elektra (2014), Sleeping Beauty, Parts 1-3 (2013), Sherry’s Room (2011), Mermaid Show (2011), Cinderella (2010), Sherry Show (2009), The Bagwell in Me (2008), Radio Show (2007), Snow White (2006), Solo (2006), Michael (2005), and Melissa is a Bitch (2004). Her work has been presented at major venues and festivals in New York City and Europe such as MoMA PS1, Brooklyn Museum, American Realness, steirischer herbst, Kampnagel, Inkonst Malmö, Gessnerallee Zürich, Theatre de la Bastille, and Black Box Theater, among others. She was shortlisted for the 2013 Venice Biennale. Ann Liv Young’s creations are essentially a reflection of her life, inspired by her experiences with dancers, family, collaborators and passersby. Young’s mission is to create work that is honest in its inception, creation and execution, combining text, music and choreography to build scenes that set up complex ideas, images and relationships and then destroy them

Created and Directed by Ann Liv Young
Featuring Ann Liv Young, Alex Sabina, Tom Ruth, Stephen Donovan, Megan Sipe, Lovey Guerrero

Commissioned by UNDER THE RADAR.

Photo by Nick Strini. Stephen Donovan playing sailor,  Ann Liv Young playing director/Marie Antoinette/Ann Liv Young.