SFB Coming to Doctorow

Photo courtesy Amy Scheibe.

By Bradley Towle

HUNTER — On April 5th and 6th, the Catskill Mountain Foundation and Maude Adams Theater Hub present a staged reading of “Stupid F*cking Bird” (SFB) at The Doctorow Center For the Arts in Hunter. SFB is an “irreverent, contemporary, and very funny'' take on Anton Chekhov’s 1896 play “The Seagull.” That should not scare off anyone unacquainted with the 19th-century play. “I definitely think someone unfamiliar with Chekhov would enjoy the show,” says director Caitlin McColl. “It’s direct, accessible, and timely. It exists on its own as a standalone great play. That being said, it also serves as a homage to The Seagull, and anyone familiar with the classic will appreciate the play on another level.” The modern retelling of “The Seagull '' in the form of SFB first appeared in 2013 at The Wooly Mammoth Theater Company in Washington, D.C.. Written and imagined by acclaimed playwright and theater director Aaron Posner, SFB won the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding Play or Musical in 2014. Described as “a timeless battle between young and old, past and present, in search of the true meaning of it all,” Posner’s reimagining of the Checkov classic has been consistently staged around the country in its roughly decade-long existence. The performance at the Doctorow Center on April 5th and 6th will mark its first staging on the mountaintop. The cast for the staged reading includes Patricia Charbonneau (Emma), Allegra Coons (Nina), Molly Gaebe (Mash), Phillip X Levine (Trigorin), Michael McDonald (Sorn), James Rooney (Dev), and Sean Walsh (Con). Visit https://www.maudeadamstheaterhub.org/ for tickets and information.