Photos
Charlee Cotton as Carl Bodmer
Charlee Cotton as Carl Bodmer, Heather Riordan as Prince Max, Scot West as the Male Actor
Heather Riordan as Prince Max, Charlee Cotton as Carl Bodmer
Heather Riordan as Prince Max, Charlee Cotton as Carl Bodmer
Heather Riordan as Prince Max
Photos by Matthew Freer
Trailer
Trailer shot by Matthew Freer
Reviews
“It is to the credit of the actors and the design team that this little black box so convincingly transforms before our eyes from a bridge on the Continent to an American metropolis to the wilderness of the country to the abodes of the indigenous people….With a boat that unfolds to be any sort of setting you could want, some nifty projections in the background, and a cast who fluidly inhabit one location after another, Prince Max deftly takes us along for the ride.”
“Struve invents a Prince Max who’s a tourist, a dandy and a true believer in scientific progress— but also a precursor to the bad days of head-measuring anthropology.”
Director’s Note
“The quest for Self through a search for the Other depends on and reveals an image of the Self, an image of the Other, and, most important, a passage between them -- the “wanting to know,” which constitutes travel and finally becomes the narrative.”
-Susan L. Blake
"Pablo Picasso was once asked in a train compartment by a fellow passenger why he did not paint people the way they really are. Picasso asked the man what he meant by the expression. The man pulled out a snap shot and said "that's my wife." Picasso replied "Isn't she rather small and flat?""
-Leonard Shlain
Painting by Johann Carl Bodmer
Dramaturgical Note
Born in Switzerland in 1809, Johann Carl (Karl) Bodmer was a largely self-taught watercolorist and draftsman. In 1832, Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian (1782-1867) invited Bodmer on what would become a five-thousand mile journey up the Missouri River. As the younger son of the house of Weid-Neuwied, Prince Max had little chance of ruling the province and instead made a career as an explorer and naturalist. Influenced by enlightenment scientists, Prince Max first led a pioneering expedition deep into Brazil seventeen years prior
After the Missouri, Bodmer’s deluxe illustrated edition of Prince Max’s writings took a decade to complete–and was ultimately a commercial flop. Bodmer settled in France, part of the Barbizon school of painting, and died in 1893.
Together, Bodmer’s portraits and Prince Max’s ethnographies created vivid, detailed pictures of the Plains peoples they met on their travels, capturing a European understanding of an American way of life that was soon to be lost to nationalistic expansion and disease.
- Claire Alston, Dramaturge
Cast
Prince Max: Heather Riordan
Carl Bodmer: Charlee Cotton
Male actor: Scot West
Production Team
Director: Elizabeth Lovelady
Assistant Director: Marisa Lerman
Stage Manager: Becca Levy
Production Manager: Becky Warner
Dramaturge: Claire Alston
Technical Director: Liam Fitzgerald
Scenic and Props Designer: Janette Bauer
Costume Designer: Emily Swanson
Lighting Designer: Meghan Erxleben
Sound Designer: Benjamin Zeman
Projections Designer: Rasean Davonte Johnson
