The cast includes Tavia Trepte, Rick Zahn, Alex Emanuel and Steven Francisco. The production is designed by Peter S. Case. Its musical score is composed by Bruno Louchouarn.

Playwright Charles Case is a free lance journalist and historian living in Los Angeles. Last year, he published a story on William Mumler, the first practitioner of "spirit photography" (taking pictures of ghosts), in American History Magazine. He is presently working on a book on the shams and charlatans who infected the spiritualist movement. He has an M.A. in History from UCLA. He writes, "The deceptive tricks and practices employed by these sham mediums/psychics in the séance parlor were remarkably theatrical. Yet no play that I have ever seen (or read) has employed or explored them."

"Shekinah" is Charles Case's first play. It displays a masterful command of the ecstatic, poetic language of spiritualism. Case points out that among con artists, there was a whole sub-tradition of sham psychics and spiritualists who had their own con lingo. "They were disreputable people who talked and thought like crooks, thinking in perverse terms, filling their greed from other people's grief," he points out. The play, then, juxtaposes their gutter language with the high-flying language of mysticism and spiritual journey that they also practiced.

Director and Designer Peter S. Case is the brother of the playwright and has been involved with La MaMa since 2002. He directed "Death and the Ploughman" there in 2006 and performed a number of leading roles as a member of the Great Jones Repertory Company. He studied theater in Minnesota and graduated from Columbia University with an MFA in Acting. He has worked in theatre regionally and on both coasts as an actor, designer and director. His recent designing credits include "Death and the Ploughman," "Motel" and "Skins." He has worked the past six years with the La MaMa Umbria International Directors Symposium near Spoleto, Italy, assisting a number of well known American and international theater artists. He lives and works in London.

Composer Bruno Louchouarn studied artificial intelligence in Paris and obtained a Ph.D. in music composition at UCLA where he studied composition with Ian Krouse, Paul Chihara, and Jerry Goldsmith. His music has a broad range, from the futuristic cantina music heard in the film "Total Recall" to live experimental multimedia performances, works for large orchestra and music for the theater. His compositions frequently call on percussion, electronic music, and multimedia, often focusing on the performative aspects of language and music, the structure of myths, and rhetoric. His work has been performed at RedCat in Disney Hall, UCLA’s Royce Hall, the Getty Center, and the Getty Villa. He teaches music, multimedia, and cognitive science at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

La MaMa First Floor Theatre

74A East 4th Street

New York, NY 10003

March 6 - 22, 2009
Thursday - Saturday at 7:30pm
Sunday at 2:30pm

Tickets $18

Written by Charles Case
Directed by Peter Case

Photo by Jonathan Slaff