Embark on a soul-stirring journey through the winding streets of Jerusalem and beyond, with Via Dolorosa: a powerful, moving experience like no other.
In 1997, renowned British playwright David Hare made a journey of discovery to Israel and Palestine. His goal was simply to observe and learn – to explore systems of faith and conviction, He also wanted to answer some fundamental questions: Do we only see what we want to see? Is it ever possible to connect across differences?
Recreated in New York in 2024 by actor and PCTC producing artistic director Joseph Rodriguez, and UK director Anthony Biggs, and staged in a unique, immersive setting, VIA DOLOROSA is a walking meditation – a virtuosic solo piece exploring a dangerous landscape of conflict and violence.
Part of an ongoing collaboration between British and American theatre-makers (Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company, NYC, and Well Played, London), VIA DOLOROSA inaugurates PCTC’s 2024/25 season, dedicated to the notion of radical departures and the power of individual vision to change the world.
Generous, thought-provoking, exciting, humorous, and intense, VIA DOLOROSA invites theatregoers to hear a multitude of voices and add their own thoughts to the mix, in a series of post-show conversations and presentations. Come explore this theatrical phenomenon, and experience the possibilities of reflection, communication, connection and transformation through the live event.
SEPTEMBER 25 – 29
Produced by Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company
Written by David Hare
Directed by Anthony Biggs
Starring Joseph W. Rodriguez
Full creative team TBA.
Presented at Casa Clara
September 25 – 29, 2024
MORE INFORMATION
About the Playwright
David Hare
Sir David Rippon Hare FRSL is an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. Best known for his stage work,Hare has also enjoyed great success with films, receiving two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing The Hours in 2002, based on the novel written by Michael Cunningham, and The Reader in 2008, based on the novel of the same name written by Bernhard Schlink.
In the West End, he had his greatest success with the plays Plenty (1978), which he adapted into a 1985 film starring Meryl Streep, Racing Demon (1990), Skylight (1997), and Amy’s View (1998). The four plays ran on Broadway in 1982–83, 1996, 1998 and 1999 respectively, earning Hare three Tony Award nominations for Best Play for the first three and two Laurence Olivier Awards for Best New Play. His other notable projects on stage include A Map of the World, Pravda (starring Anthony Hopkins at the Royal National Theatre in London), Murmuring Judges, The Absence of War, The Vertical Hour, and his latest play Straight Line Crazy starring Ralph Fiennes. He wrote screenplays for films including the Stephen Daldry dramas The Hours (2002) and The Reader (2008) and BBC’s Page Eight (2011) and Netflix’s Collateral (2018).
In addition to his two Academy Award nominations, Hare has received three Golden Globe Award nominations, three Tony Award nominations and has won a BAFTA Award, a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and two Laurence Olivier Awards. He has also been awarded several critics’ awards, such as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and he received the Golden Bear in 1985.
Hare has been associate director of the National Theatre since 1984.
About the Cast
Joseph Rodriguez | The Pilgrim
Joseph W. Rodriguez is an actor, writer, and Producing Artistic Director of Playhouse Creatures (where he has produced over thirty plays). For PCTC: STILL LIFE (with Ancram Opera House), EXECUTION OF JUSTICE, The Two-Character Play ( 2017 New York/ The Duo Theatre), New Orleans (2018 Southern Rep); Mrs. Packard (with Bridge Rep), One Flea Spare, More Stars Then There Are In Heaven, Hunter/ Gatherers, Charlotte The Destroyer, Love Song, 6xTenn, Closer, The Libertine (The Kirk, Theatre Row), and The Libertine (with Bridge Rep – IRNE Nomination, Best Actor). Other NYC: Buffalo Hair with Jeffrey Wright (The Public Theater); The Normal Heart with Bobby Cannavale (The Duo Theatre); Richard III with Austin Pendleton, Macbeth – title role (New Perspectives); Linnehan’s Daughter (Naked Angels); Landscape of the Body, Hurlyburly (T. Schreiber Studios); Innocent Erendira – world premiere with Miriam Colon (Repertorio Espanol). Regional: Hamlet with Mark Rylance, King Lear with F. Murray Abraham (A.R.T.); Iphigenia (The Huntington); Children of the Sun (The Kennedy Center); A Streetcar Named Desire, American Buffalo, Safe Sex, A Christmas Carol (The New Ehrlich Boston); Vieux Carre, Breaking the Code – Best Supporting Actor, Boston Herald (The Triangle Theatre); The Boys Next Door with Lance Reddick (Worcester Forum Theatre). TV/FILM: Glory, The Opposite of Sex, Desolation Angels, Against the Law, Guiding Light, As the World Turns, Another World, the titular character in Sci-Fi Channel’s Cameron Grant.
He is a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA.
