Theatre Novi Most, in collaboration with The Museum of Russian Art, presents a staged reading of the brand-new play The Cleaner by Wendy Lement and Firouzeh Mostashari.

The performance will be followed by a Q&A session with the playwrights.

Saturday, July 29 |  7:00 – 8:30 PM

Doors will open at 6:00 PM.  All galleries and TMORA Shop will be open prior to the reading.  Tea and sweets will be provided.

TICKETS: $12 General Admission  |  $10 TMORA Members  |  $5 Students

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CREATIVE TEAM:
Director: Vladimir Rovinsky
Performers: Pearce Bunting, Via Logan, and Lisa Channer
Stage Manager: Faith Hagen
Artwork: Sofiia Rovinskaia

PLAY SYNOPSIS:

It is reelection time and the Mayor of a provincial Siberian town is facing an unexpected complication. For the last 12 years, the same dummy “opposition candidate” ran against him, losing miserably of course. This year, however, he inconveniently died right before the elections, necessitating a frantic search for a new fake candidate. At the same time, local business magnates with strong Kremlin ties ask the Mayor to provide water for the snowmaking machine needed for their summer skiing entertainment. Terrified by raging forest fires all around, the Mayor pushes back and now all bets are off and the Mayor has a crisis on his hands. In a moment of desperation, the Mayor asks his office cleaner to “run” against him, which leads to unexpected consequences. Inspired by a true story that surprised the international media in 2020, this is a reimagined story of provincial elections gone wrong by Wendy Lement and Firouzeh Mostashari.

The Cleaner, in true Kafkaesque style, is a comedy that shines light onto the psyche of Putin’s Russia, and reveals the depths of its political, cultural, and metaphysical crisis.

THE PLAYWRIGHTS:
Wendy Lement is a Boston-based playwright, director, producer, and founding artistic director of Theatre Espresso in Massachusetts.

Firouzeh Mostashari is a Minneapolis-based playwright, author, and scholar of Russian History and Literature.

Lement and Mostashari have collaborated on plays since 2008 when they co-wrote Woman with the Red Kerchief about Leo Tolstoy’s romance with a serf on his estate. The play premiered at Theater in the Open in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and was subsequently produced at Regis College and at Boston’s Russian Theatre Festival. Their other collaborations include Tiger and the Queen (2020) and Sister Play (2023).

THEATRE NOVI MOST:

Founded in 1998 by Russian director Vladimir Rovinsky and American director Lisa Channer, Theatre Novi Most is based in Minneapolis and consists of associate artists from New York, Los Angeles, Russia and Minneapolis. Since 1998, Theatre Novi Most has worked to adapt or create new works for the stage through a rigorous and expansive process of exploration and improvisation.  The Theatre’s methodology combines Russian theatre techniques and traditions, along with physical theatre methods from the U.S. and Europe, as well as integration of story and narratives through playwriting.  Theatre Novi Most’s plays tend to use multiple languages and theatrical traditions allowing language to exist side by side with physical expression in the communicating of stories and ideas. Because of the extensive physical and scholarly research involved, the plays develop over an extended period of time, taking from one to three years to reach a final form.

Theatre Novi Most is a member of the Network of Ensemble Theatres.