4351 Peninsula Players Road Fish Creek, Wisconsin 54212 (920) 868-3287 www.peninsulaplayers.com

Photo Credit: Peninsula Players Artistic Director Greg Vinkler will perform in a reading of ”” by John Logan 7 p.m., Monday, March 4 at Björklunden. “Red” follows the process of Mark Rothko, a painter in the forefront of the abstract expressionist movement, and his efforts to complete a series of murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York City in the late 1950s. “Red” contains mature themes and language.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Audra Baakari Boyle Feb. 15, 2013 920 868 3287

A Glimpse into the of Mark Rothko Players Reading of Tony Award-Winning Red at Björklunden 7p.m. Monday, March 4

Peninsula Players Theatre continues its winter series, The Play’s the Thing, with a public reading of the 2010 Tony Award-winning “Red” by John Logan, screen writer of “The Aviator” and “Gladiator” at Björklunden 7p.m. Monday, March 4. “Red” examines art, the artist and the act of creation while following the process of abstract expressionist Mark Rothko as he struggles to complete a set of commissioned wine colored murals. Admission is free. “Red” contains mature themes and language.

“Red” is a snapshot of a brilliant artist at the height of his fame and the troubled relationship with his young assistant. Set in the changing times of the late 1950s, both artists are locked in an artistic battle of structure and reason over chaos and the unconstrained. They are also torn between fostering their creative impulses or vying for the immediate rewards of fame and fortune.

Peninsula Players Artistic Director Greg Vinkler will direct and be a featured player in the reading with another actor yet-to-be named. Vinkler has directed and performed in numerous Players productions including “,” “Art,” “A Man for All Seasons” “Opus” and recently performed in “The School for Lies” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, as Charlie in “August: Osage County” at the Fulton Theatre, and was Doc in the long- running Broadway revival of “West Side Story.”

“Red” was nominated for seven in 2010, winning six, including Best Play. “Red” was also awarded the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.

Rothko and his assistant Ken argue over the mammoth contrasting canvases of red blocks Rothko was commissioned to paint. Rothko believes to be great painter one must understand Nietzsche, Freud, Jung and Greek tragedy. The works have no human figure or landscape. He sees his work as pulsating life forces intoned to stop the heart.

Rothko challenges the audience, “What do you see?”

Ken supplies prodding criticism. Does he appease his mentor or change the course of art history? The men argue, scream and fight before ultimately bonding.

Rothko was a pioneer of the American art movement abstract expressionism alongside Jackson Pollock, Jay Meuser and Mark Tobey. The new art form elevated New York City’s influence on the international art scene.

“Red” is based on the Seagram Murals, the seven paintings Rothko was commissioned to create to decorate one room of what was to be an exclusive restaurant named The Four Seasons in Manhattan’s Seagram Building.

Rothko was born in Russia in 1903 and immigrated to Portland, Oregon in 1913. He studied at Yale for two years hoping to become an engineer or attorney. In 1923 he gave up his studies and moved to New York to study painting with Max Webber at the Art Students League.

He held a teaching position at the Center Academy and was a guest instructor at the California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco as well as Brooklyn College, the University of Colorado, Boulder and Tulane University.

Rothko’s exuberant canvases establish a one-on-one dialogue with the viewer and his work, through its abstract fields of color and mature style, evoke strong emotions.

In addition to working on the murals for the Four Seasons from 1958 through 1969, Rothko was also commissioned to complete canvases for the Seagram Building in New York; murals for the Holyoke Center, Harvard University; and canvases for the chapel at the Institute of Religion and Human Development, Houston, known worldwide as “The Rothko Chapel.” The dark and somber works he created for the chapel are thought by some to foreshadow the artist’s suicide in 1970.

Rothko returned the Seagram commission funds, broke his contract and kept the paintings after visiting the restaurant and having misgivings about its atmosphere. He became doubtful a luxury restaurant was the appropriate venue for his art. The works he created were forbidding, brooding, tragic and he felt did not belong in a commercial setting.

He created 30 paintings in a palette of red, maroon, brown and black for the project. His sketches show he meant for them to be displayed as a mural, hanging several in sequence. Seven of these are on display at the Kawamura Memorial DIC museum of Art in Sakura, Japan; nine are on display at the Tate Modern, formerly The Tate Gallery, in London and three were on display at The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. when “Red” was performed at Arena Stage in 2012.

The Play’s the Thing is a winter series of play readings sponsored by Peninsula Players Theatre. Phone the Peninsula Players at 920-868-3287 for information on the free public reading of “Red” at Björklunden 7p.m., Monday, March 4. Admission is free, general seating available. “Red” contains mature themes and language.

The Play’s the Thing is funded in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin, as well as generous grants from Ministry Door County Medical Center and the Door County Community Foundation Arts Fund and Education Fund.

Peninsula Players Theatre is America’s Oldest Professional Resident Summer Theatre. The Play’s the Thing is part of the Players’ continuing winter outreach programming, presenting professional play readings for the public and for students receiving play writing instruction. Learn about Peninsula Players’ summer seasons at www.peninsulaplayers.com.

## End ##

Peninsula Players is America’s oldest professional resident summer theater and is unique in the country for its diverse productions, continuing loyalty to a resident company, and its beautiful setting of 16 wooded acres along the cedar-lined shores of Green Bay. In the past 78 years, the theater has become a Door County landmark and its cornerstone arts institution, attracting audience members from throughout Wisconsin and across the country.

###