“What does it mean to be a family?”
This is the question that Katya Stanislavskaya, the writer and the musical director of the show “Resident Alien,” wants the audience to reflect on.
The musical will run from Thursday, Sept. 22, through Sunday, Sept. 25, in the Hoey Auditorium. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. and at 3 p.m. on Sunday.
Tickets are $10 ($7 in advance) for students, $16 for faculty and staff, and $22 for adults.
“Resident Alien” opens the 2016-17 season of the WCU School of Stage and Screen .
“Resident Alien” is the story of Sasha, Sveta, and Nastya Berdichevsky. A family in the middle of Russian/Soviet immigration in the 1990’s. The Berdichevsky’s represent all of the successes and failures of the immigrant experience.
“Essentially, this is a story about family and how three different family members deal with the adversity that is immigration and how they want to deal with it differently. How one of them wants to forget everything and be an American and how another one wishes he was still back in Russia,” explained Stanislavskaya.
Katya Stanislavskaya is a musical director, composer, lyricist and educator. She joined WCU School of Stage and Screen in 2014 as an assistant professor and Program Coordinator of Musical Theater. As an immigrant herself, she said it was easiest to work on a story she was familiar with.
“It has themes and topics in it that I must share with the world and a piece that possibly only I could write,” said Stanislavskaya.
Students on Western Carolina’s campus may recognize the name “Resident Alien” from the Josefina Niggli New Works Reading Series at WCU that was presented last fall after the show won the Weston New Musical Award in 2015.
“People reacted very positively, and my department decided this would be a good production,” said Stanislavskaya.
The play has grown from a small reading made up of students and faculty to a full production including 25 students, a six-member orchestra, and its own design and costume teams.
You can get your tickets in the Bardo Performing Art’s Center or on their website.
