Berg (Stage Manager), Kirk Vande Brake (Stage Manager). Production Team: Amy Poisson (Director), Anna Ly (Associate Director), Tanya Gagne (Aerial Director), Parmida Ziaei (Set Design), Jocelyne Fowler (Costume Design), Johanna Melamed (Sound Design), Dani Norberg (Lighting Design), Natalie H. Playwright and author Joy McCullough has also adapted Blood Water Paint into a young adult novel in verse.Ĭast: Bianca Raso, Alysha Curry, Meredith Armstrong, Leah Jarvik, Tim Gagne, and Michael D. At a time when female artists were afforded no. Blood Water Paint is an audaciously imaginative and unflinching portrayal of Artemisia Gentileschi, an Italian Baroque painter now considered one of the most accomplished of her generation. Refusing to stay silent about the assault, Artemisia takes her rapist to trial.īased on true events, Blood Water Paint unfolds lyrically through interactions with the women featured in Artemisia’s most famous paintings, and culminates in her fierce battle to rise above the most devastating event in her life and fight for justice despite horrific consequences. Blood Water Paint by Joy MCcullough, directed by Amy Poisson macha theatre works 2019-2020 season. Her father, Tuscan painter Orazio Gentileschi, hires a colleague to tutor his daughter. At a time when female artists were afforded no opportunities, Artemisia’s extraordinary talent earns her the recognition of Rome’s elite. Verdict: Libraries everywhere should have McCullough’s astonishing debut readily accessible in all formats.Blood Water Paint by Joy MCcullough, directed by Amy Poisson macha theatre works 2019-2020 seasonīlood Water Paint is an audaciously imaginative and unflinching portrayal of Artemisia Gentileschi, an Italian Baroque painter now considered one of the most accomplished of her generation.

As Sands shifts into maternal storyteller mode, her voice takes on unwavering solidity, as if infusing Artemisia with resilience, propelling her forward: “I will show you what a woman can do,” Artemisia replies – and becomes one of history’s greatest painters. Written in free verse (as Artemisia) and prose (as Artemisia’s mother), Joy McCullough’s revelatory historical fiction, set in the early 17th century, is enhanced by narrator Xe Sands, whose portrait of an artist as a young woman is sensitively modulated to be deliberate and controlled, hesitant and unsure, resigned and determined. Rejecting silence, Artemisia goes to court, where she’s subjected to further brutality, yet she stalwartly demands justice. When charmer Agostino Tassi becomes her teacher, her innocent infatuation turns to crushing horror when he rapes her. At 12, Artemisia Gentileschi loses her mother, but not before “Prudentia Montone spent/ the last of her strength/ to burn into mind/ the tales of women/ no one else would/ think to tell” – including biblical heroines Susannah and Judith, who thwarted male tyranny.īy 17, Artemisia is her father’s assistant, although she’s clearly the better artist.

Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough