{"id":148422,"date":"2016-04-04T16:39:24","date_gmt":"2016-04-04T20:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=148422"},"modified":"2017-05-17T17:15:49","modified_gmt":"2017-05-17T21:15:49","slug":"mother-courage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/mother-courage\/","title":{"rendered":"Pop-Rock Mother Courage<\/em><\/strong> updates Brecht for contemporary world"},"content":{"rendered":"

Play featuring program\u2019s first commissioned musical score runs April 7 to 23<\/em><\/h2>\n

Even for a composer known for his innovative work in new music and modern opera, the challenge given to Matt Marks \u201902E by Rochester\u2019s International Theatre Program was intriguing: how do you make music that explores the brutality and sacrifice of war?<\/p>\n

After working with students both in the College and at the Eastman School of Music throughout the spring semester, Marks and Nigel Maister, the Russell and Ruth Peck Artistic Director of the International Theatre Program, will share the results when a Rochester-commissioned production of Bertolt Brecht\u2019s antiwar drama Mother Courage and Her Children<\/em> begins its run on Thursday, April 7.<\/p>\n

Widely considered to be one of the theater\u2019s most powerful antiwar statements, Brecht wrote the play in 1939 as a response to the rise of fascism in Europe, setting the story in another era of civilizational turmoil: the Thirty Years\u2019 War. The play is an unsentimental depiction of a mother of three children who tries to negotiate a living in the midst of violent upheaval.<\/p>\n

Marks, a Brooklyn-based composer who is in residence this semester at Rochester, was drawn to the contemporary resonances in Brecht\u2019s play.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first talked about doing this play, we were getting reports from Europe about Europeans being very open and welcoming refugees. And now, as the play is about to go on, it\u2019s the opposite\u2014now the borders are closing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Maister commissioned Marks\u2019s score as part of the program\u2019s \u201cNew Voice Initiative,\u201d an effort to commission new works for the theater and to expose students to the living, creative process with artists in residence. He says that although the play is rarely performed on American stages, its story is \u201cuncannily timely and deeply resonant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The play \u201cdeals with concerns which are profoundly resonant not only in terms of what\u2019s going on in the Middle East, and the resultant migrant crisis, but also with our current election-year discourse,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The production opens at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 7, in Todd Theater and continues through April 23, with matinee performances at 2 p.m. on April 10 and 17.<\/p>\n

For ticket information, visit, the program’s box office.<\/a><\/p>\n