Dear Reader,
Welcome to a very special bonus edition of the Second Drafts podcast in which Peaches and I sit down with former student and soon-to-be college graduate, Elsa Wintersteen, about her upcoming original play, Orpheus Ascending. The show runs March 24-27 at the Montana State University Black Box Theater. Tickets are $15 at the Orpheus Ascending website.
If you’ve read Second Drafts the past couple of months, you know that I play the role of Grandfather in the show. I wrote back in February about what the experience was teaching me, and now that we’re less than a week from opening night, I want to personally ask those in the Gallatin Valley to buy your tickets and come see one of the performances! You won’t be disappointed.
Enjoy this month’s bonus podcast and Elsa’s enthusiasm for the arts and the ancient world.
Hoping to break a leg (and not a hip),
Craig
About Elsa
Elsa Wintersteen is a soon-to-graduate senior at Montana State University here in Bozeman and has spent most of her life living, learning, and working in the Gallatin Valley. She has acted in a number of shows, including Great Expectations (Young Estella), Tom Jones (Squire Allworthy), and Little Women (Jo March), as well as written and directed three shows, all of them premiering in Bozeman.
In her free time, Elsa enjoys hiking, skiing, writing, board games, and commercial fishing. She is newly-married to Matthew and preparing to graduate in May with degrees in Literature and Directed Interdisciplinary Studies, but first she has to complete her senior capstone, which is writing, directing, and producing her original play, Orpheus Ascending.
About the Show
The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice can be found in cultures all across the globe, and is a potent myth type bursting with universal human experience, truth, and beauty. Orpheus Ascending is Elsa’s take on this ageless love story; her original play weaves together the Orpheus myth with the ancient myth of Demeter, Persephone, and Hades, the Greek Lord of the Underworld. In the liminal existence between life and death, her story unfolds for these two star-crossed lovers who must battle demons, gods, and (most of all) themselves if they are ever to see the sun again.
