BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!)

By Jami Brandli

A Joint World Premiere with Moving Arts at Atwater Village Theatre in Los Angeles and in Association with Moxie Theatre in San Diego

It’s 1960 in North Orange, NJ. Clytemnestra and Medea are now discontented housewives, and Antigone is the teenage girl next door struggling with the rules of her overbearing uncle. On the surface, they’re seemingly blissful to follow the “rules” of Emily Post, the American author famous for writing on etiquette. But that’s just the surface. Then Cassandra, a working girl, moves into their neighborhood and all routines are interrupted. Cassandra is determined to finally break the curse of Apollo, the gorgeous and egotistical god who gave her this “gift” of prophecy but made it so no one would ever believe her. He makes it clear his curse is practically indestructible: yet all she must do is convince someone to believe her. Can Cassandra convince them they now have a choice in this modern era? That they don’t have to live a doomed existence? Can all four women escape their ongoing fate?

Director Anna Bahow is committed to the development of new work and a diversity of voices. She is an Associate Artist with The International Voices Project and Chicago Dramatists. She served as the 2011-2012 Michael Maggio Directing Fellow at Goodman Theatre. Her productions have received Jeff Awards for New Work and Use of Multi-Media. Recent work includes Madhuri Shekar’s A NICE INDIAN BOY for Rasaka Theatre and the world premiere of BREWED by Scott Barsotti.  Bahow’s work has appeared on many best of the year lists in Chicago, including 2013’s INVASION! In 2016 she developed ZIRYAB with writer, musician and actor Ronnie Malley, traveled Italy to study with master directors at La Mama Umbria and directed and traveled with MY SWEET LAND by Amir Nizar Zuabi for Silk Road Rising, which was presented at London’s Nour Festival 2016 and Toronto’s Agha Khan Museum.

JAMI BRANDLI’s plays include Technicolor Life, S.O.E., M-Theory, ¡SOLDADERA!, Sisters Three, Through the Eye of a Needle, Medusa’s Song, O: A Rhapsody in Divorce and BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) which was named in The Kilroys Top 46 List in 2014. Her work has been produced/developed at New Dramatists, WordBRIDGE, The Lark, New York Theatre Workshop, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Launch Pad, The Antaeus Company, Chalk REP, The Road, among other venues. Winner of John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, Holland New Voices Award and Aurora Theatre Company’s GAP Prize. Technicolor Life premiered at REP Stage as part of the 2015 Women’s Voices Theater Festival and recently received its Australian premiere at The Depot Theatre. BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) receives a joint world premiere with Moving Arts, Moxie Theatre and Promethean Theatre starting in January, 2018. Through the Eye of a Needle received its world premiere at The Road Theatre Company in Los Angeles, March 2018. She’s been a finalist for the 2016 PEN Literary Award for Drama, Playwrights’ Center Core Writer Fellowship, Princess Grace Award, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Disney ABC TV Fellowship and was also nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Her short works are published with TCG and Smith & Kraus. A proud member of the Playwrights Union, the Antaeus Playwrights Lab, and The Dramatist Guild, Jami teaches dramatic writing at Lesley University’s low-residency MFA program. She is represented by the Robert A Freedman Agency and Gramercy Park Entertainment.

Although the female characters of Greek tragedy were written and performed by men, they are some of the most dynamic, cunning and fierce characters ever depicted — women who transgress their social norms and forge their own paths. Meet the past selves of Cassandra, Clementine, Maddy and Antonia…