The Lark will present a limited run of Tim J. Lord's On Every Link a Heart Does Dangle; or Owed this May as part of its BareBones programming. The Oedipus adaptation, directed by Meredith McDonough, will star Glass Menagerie's Madison Ferris as a young woman with a disability from Thebes, Illinois.
The production, which runs May 10–19 at The Lark, culminates Lord's residency as the inaugural recipient of the Apothetae & Lark Playwriting Fellowship, the first national award supporting a Disabled playwright. Tickets are free and can be reserved here.
In On Every Link, the Oedipus Rex story is re-imagined in Southern Illinois with the focus shifted away from the king and on a disabled woman facing the consequences of a city in ruin. The new work, like the classic play that inspired it, is an exploration of power, but told from an often overlooked perspective.
“I pushed Oedipus offstage," explains Lord. "Instead, I wanted to focus on the most vulnerable people in this world. Those left to deal with his inability to see what’s killing Thebes. The new central character is a young woman born in poverty and shunned because she was born with a disability.”
Lord has been developing the play through his residency, which provides a two-year cycle of support to a Disabled writer for the generation of a new play that will challenge perceptions of the "Disabled Experience." Lord became the inaugural recipient of the Fellowship last season, receiving a $40,000 prize and a $5,000 opportunity and resource fund, as well as outreach and scouting toward the commissioning and development of the new play, and a $10,000 production enhancement fund.
“Tim’s play is adventurous and incredible,” said Lloyd Suh, the director of artistic programs at The Lark. “It uses classic myths of history and explodes myths of disability; a heroine’s journey told with wild theatrical imagination.”
Past BareBones productions include Donja R. Love’s In the Middle, Dominique Morisseau’s Skeleton Crew, Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, and Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.
