Scandinavian American Theater Company (SATC), the first-ever Scandinavian-American theater company in New York, was founded in 2009 by a group of New York-based Scandinavian theater professionals with the wish to introduce a new generation of Scandinavian playwrights to an American audience. SATC’s mission is to present high-quality, cutting-edge productions of contemporary Scandinavian plays and fresh interpretations of the Scandinavian classics, as well as to foster the Scandinavian-American performing arts community in New York.

In their Contemporary Scandinavian Reading Series, SATC presents five plays annually representing Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands).
Co-presented by the Consulate General of Finland in New York, the Consulate General of Denmark New York, the Consulate General of Sweden in New York, and Scandinavia House.

Me and My Boy

Written by Thorvaldur Thorsteinsson (Iceland, 1998), translated by Anna Yates, and directed by Henning Hegland (Norway). Me and My Boy opens and closes with a call from a telephone salesman… Stuart has just moved into a new apartment, where he has invited his alcoholic father Richard to stay with him (he has difficulty walking and suffers from a heart condition) and his sister Valerie to help decorate. His new neighbors are an argumentative, young couple: Edward, the lazy and sullen boyfriend, and Marie, a hyper-positive and romantic, born-again Christian. When the couple disrupts Valerie’s decorating plans with their arguing, she scolds them through the wall.

Suddenly ghosts of the past capture the stage and everybody except Mary knows one another. It is revealed that Richard was involved with Edward’s mother, who was then married to a disabled worker. After Stuart’s mother commits suicide, questions arise as to whether or not Edward is Richard’s son.

Thorsteinsson is keenly adept at describing rotten family relationships; his language is crisp and sharp, the dialogue sarcastic, and the contrasts glaring as the author sets the stage for serious confessions when death calls. Me and My Boy was originally staged in 1998 with great success at the Hafnarfjörður Theatre.

About the playwright:

Thorvaldur Thorsteinsson (b. 1960, Akureyri, Iceland) studied Icelandic and literary history at the University of Iceland, before he was accepted at the School of Handicraft in Reykjavík in 1983. He finished his education in 1989 at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht in the Netherlands. Since 1982 Thorsteinsson has made a name for himself in Iceland and abroad as a non-traditional sculptor, painter, visual artist, and performer at numerous exhibitions and events.

He has created several literary works for Icelandic radio and television. Thorsteinsson has also written several plays that have all been successfully staged in Iceland, including In Honor of the Occasion (1992), The Message Pouch (1993), Live (1997), Me and My Boy (1999), Fairytale about Love (1999), Talespin (2001), And Björk, Of Course… (2002), The Farting Hill (2002), There was a Child in the Valley (2002), and Guilty (2003).

1291665600

1291665600

Photo by Tuukka Ervasti Millesgården

MON – 12-6-2010 – 8:00 PM
Pre-reception 7:30 pm/readings 8 pm
Starring Charles McMahon* (USA), Evan Joiner* (USA-Norway), Erin Gorski* (USA), Alexis Savino (USA), Amanda Broomell (USA), Annemette Andersen* (Denmark)
free