Round House offers “Throw Me On The Burnpile and Light Me Up”
Lucy Alibar mined some of unforgettable aspects and experiences from her childhood for the show
For her latest work as a playwright, Lucy Alibar, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Beasts of the Southern Wild, has mined some of the more unforgettable aspects and experiences from her childhood — including Alibar growing up in a small farmhouse on a watermelon field in the Florida Panhandle, and helping her dad, a lawyer who defended death row inmates, by serving as his occasional part-time legal secretary when she was only a fourth-grader.
Alibar starred in Throw Me On The Burnpile and Light Me Up when the one-woman play premiered in Los Angeles in 2016. Five years later, Beth Hylton takes on all of the characters in a new digital production from Round House.
Directed by artistic director Ryan Rilette, the company calls the play, presented as a series of vignettes, a “heartfelt, irreverent, one-woman love letter to family, the South, and the belief that everyone deserves a defender.”
Sure to enhance the production if not steal the show outright with any number of signature extravagant costumes is Ivania Stack, part of a design team also including Paige Hathaway on sets, Matthew M. Nielsen handling sound, and Harold F. Burgess II overseeing lights. Meanwhile, well-known actor-about-town Maboud Ebrahimzadeh steps into the role of director of photography.
Throw Me on the Burnpile is the second of three offerings in Round House’s Spring Virtual Season, which launched with Colman Domingo’s A Boy and His Soul, a music-filled memoir and recipient of the GLAAD Media Award for Best Play that recounted the playwright and actor’s coming of age in 1970s West Philadelphia.
The season will conclude with Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die, helmed by Paige Hernandez, which streams for a month starting June 14. Part one-woman play, part live rock concert, the show features Regina Aquino as the Singer, with Jason Wilson as Bass Player, Laura Van Duzer as Keyboardist, Matthew Schleigh as Guitarist, and Manny Arciniega as Drummer — all backed by a real-life, four-piece indie-rock band The Chance Club.
Throw Me on the Burnpile and Light Me Up streams through June 13. Digital Access is $32.50 including fees. Call 240-644-1100 or visit www.roundhousetheatre.org.
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