We Are Pussy Riot: Context for This New Play

We Are Pussy Riot or (Everything Is P.R.), this year’s NewFest New Works Festival’s Workshop Production, opens on March 31 in the Greene Theater. We Are Pussy Riot is, in fact, so new that the script has been continuously edited and updated by playwright Barbara Hammond while the students have been in rehearsal. With insight and commentary from Ms. Hammond and direction from Ken Prestininzi, this performance of We Are Pussy Riot demonstrates the play in its most recent form, and the progress that has been achieved through this workshop.

We Are Pussy Riot tells the story of the five young women who walked into the Church of Christ the Savior in the center of Moscow in February, 2012, and offered up a punk prayer to the Mother of God—“Virgin Mary, Chase Putin Away!” The young activists, who call themselves Pussy Riot, played and shouted for exactly 48 seconds before being dragged out of the church by security guards and sent home. That night they uploaded a video of their performance to YouTube, and within hours became enemies of both Church and State. The girls were arrested, tried, and sent to labor camps for hooliganism and inciting religious hatred. But unlike dissidents from Soviet times, the Western media machine took hold of the story and turned Pussy Riot into the greatest piece of performance art in Russian history.

For some great context and details chronicling Putin and Pussy Riot, see the following link for a fantastic timeline created by our dramaturg, Emily Wingertzahn: http://newmedia.emerson.edu/users/emily_wingertzahn/WAPRTimeline/ 

We Are Pussy Riot or (Everything Is P.R.) runs March 31 – April 3. Be sure to reserve your tickets at www.aestages.org – this is a show you won’t want to miss!