Kickstarter

Untitled Theater Company #61 (UTC61) is excited to announce its upcoming world premiere of The Lathe of Heaven, an original, authorized stage adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s sci-fi classic about a man whose dreams change reality, adapted and directed by Edward Einhorn, with music by Henry Akona and video design by Kate Freer and David Tennant.

The play examines the human need for certainty and understanding in contrast with Taoist ideas of uncertainty and unknowing, and intersperses verses from the Tao Te Ching as operatic art songs for baritone, cello and piano. UTC61 has been once again granted a residency at 3LD Art + Technology Center. 3LD’s unmatched video technology will be used to make real the ever-changing landscape that emanates from the dreamer.

In order to make the video portions of our show even more exciting, we would love to have top quality equipment, in the form of projectors, computers, and scrims.  Much is provided by 3LD, but we plan to supplement their inventory in order to fully realize our vision.  This campaign will finance that aspect of our project.

Ursula Le Guin, who has read an approved the text, stated “The ideas of the book come through undeformed and not oversimplified." This is the third of Untitled Theater Company’s sci-fi adaptations, following acclaimed productions of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (also at 3LD). Each has been faithful to the original ideas in the novels, while bringing them to physical life with music and video in a rich theatrical experience.

The show stars Robert Honeywell in the role of the dreamer, George Orr; Caroline Saaman in the role of an Arab-American lawyer, Heather Le Lache; John Gallop, as the singer; and Eric Oleson as the neurologist whose scientific inquiries and quest for utopia almost bring the world to ruin.

UTC61 is a Theater of Ideas: scientific, political, philosophical, and above all theatrical. UTC61 previous productions and events have included The Václav Havel Festival; the NEUROfest (plays about neurology); the Off–Broadway production of Fairy Tales of the Absurd; and The Velvet Oratorio, which premiered at the Walter Bruno Theater at Lincoln Center; The Pig, or Václav Havel’s Hunt for a Pig, which was part of the Ohio Theater’s Ice Factory at 3LD; and, most recently, Israeli playwright Motti Lerner’s Pangs of the Messiah.