Street Opera
We are excited to present a performance commissioned especially for this event:
The Return
featuring Marc Chibitty
written and adapted by Kristen Chibitty & company
directed by Ric Averill & company
Performances on Thursday, June 8 at 5:30 pm and Friday, June 9 at 9:10 am
This performance features diverse actors, dancers, musicians & storytellers in a Stage(S)Truck Restorative Justice Street & Plains Production. Special thanks to City of Lawrence and Explore Lawrence for their generous support.
Performer Bios
Marc Chibitty is a card carrying Comanche Indian. He Studied at Haskell Indian Junior College and the University of Kansas. While at Haskell he played Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Caliban in The Tempest. He performed as Black Elk in Black Hawk Speaks at Haskell for a special run after he had left Haskell. At KU he was Arturo's bodyguard in The Resistable Rise of Arturo UI. He performed with the SEEM-TO-BE PLAYERS for one season. Currently he helps out with the Ste Genevieve Theatre Guild.
Kristen Chibitty is the founder and director of The Ste. Genevieve Theatre Guild. She has written several plays and musicals. She also works full time as a high school math teacher, completing her MA in mathematics from the University of Kansas where she met her husband, Marc. Currently she is directing all five of her children in a production of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown". In 2022 she published her book, Efficient Homeschooling for the Working Mom, a Memoir and Guide. It is available on Amazon.
Audrey Senger has danced with the art center since 2012. She took classes in multiple genres including ballet, modern, hip hop, jazz, and pointe. Training in ballet and modern helped land her a few lead roles in the many shows she has participated in. She has also enjoyed the many opportunities to help behind the scenes on various performances and summer camps. After graduating from Lawrence high school Audrey’s main focus has been expanding the world of dance through local projects and opportunities to give knowledge to the young.
Tweesna Rose Mills is from the Shoshone-Yakama-Umatilla Nations. As a writer her work entails various ways of storytelling including Digital Humanities that incorporates Indigenous thought, knowledge, and theory, all in which conveys Indigenous activism and history with an Indigenous narrative.
Guadalupe Chibitty is a homeschooled student. She has appeared in several productions of her local theatre guild, including Nobody is Perfick, Hope is a Shy Bird, A Christmas Pageant, and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. She is planning on studying child development in college next year.
Ric Averill has been doing protest and activist theatre since arriving on the KU Campus in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam Protest and Civil Rights Movement. Averill channeled his early theatre efforts for social change into a career doing theatre for youth, touring the entire country with the Seem-To-Be Players. Every show was an opportunity to share a vision of our shared humanity through story and song. During the pandemic, Averill worked with artist and sculptor, Matt Kirby, to create the Stage(S)Truck, a GoFundMe venture that allowed full performance at a safe social distance. Averill's last big Stage(S)Truck project was an environmental piece called; The Silent One: The Moritat of George, The Loneliest Snail. Performed in August of 2022, the production has been the springboard for other opportunities like The Return. Ric is the Artistic Director Emeritus of Performing Arts at the Lawrence Arts Center, a Director and Music Director for Theatre Lawrence, a free lance teacher, actor, director, composer, playwright and musician.
Additional performers include Wapi (Tanner, viola) and Zach Madison (actor).