Object of Her Affection
Conceived, Written, Designed and Performed by Marsian De Lellis
Directed by Michele Spears
Lighting Design by Andrew Schmedake
Sound Design by Rebecca Kessin
Music by Kevin MacLeod
Production Manager: Lupe Lucero
Stage Manager: Kajal Ardestani
Sound Effects: Grant Baciocco
Sound Assistant: Christian Lee
Lead Soft Fabricator: Christine Papalexis
Lead Hard Fabricator: Chris Sheets
Lead Doll Fabricator: Liz Watson + Peter Ceili
Cantonese Language Coach: Felix Kamchung
July 18th-20th, 2014
Automata

Object of Her Affection follows, the protagonist, Andrea Lowe, on her journey through life and love starting with her first love, a baby blanket. During adolescence she attracts a bad-boy hunting rifle and later becomes infatuated with a controversial wall. As Andrea evolves, so do her desires. In adulthood, she seeks companionship from monumental structures: a high-profile statue who becomes vacant, tragic twin skyscrapers, a bridge who cheats, and a crumbling tenement who ultimately fails her. Over the course of her evolution, we see how each relationship changes Andrea.

Object of her Affection explores the synesthetic relationship between objects and personalities as they collide through the eyes of an Object Sexual, and ways that objects can occupy more than one meaning at any given time. Object is a visual narrative about human beings - flesh and blood - developing intimate relationships with inanimate things.

Part staged reading, part performance workshop, these viewings at Automata are the culmination of a developmental residency in which De Lellis teamed up with director and choreographer, Michele Spears, to explore the initial staging of the performance.

Marsian De Lellis is a visual and interdisciplinary performance artist, who constructs visual narratives, spectacles, and installations, centered on seemingly “weird” people that illuminate something essential about contemporary life. De Lellis’ performances have toured throughout the United States, Canada, and Edinburgh; and his installations have been featured in Scar Of Visibility: Medical Performances And Contemporary Art (University of Minnesota Press), and Women And Performance: A Journal Of Feminist Theory (New York University Press).

As an experimental theatre artist, De Lellis uses puppetry, performing objects, cutouts, pop-ups, elaborate costumes, and other elements to create a time-based visual narrative form, like film with its own inherent metaphors. Puppetry International describes De Lellis’ work as containing “a strong idiosyncratic personal aesthetic”, while The New Urbanite credits him with developing “a brand of eccentric adult puppetry that oscillates between adorable, abject, campy, and earnest”. Inspired by tabloids and pop culture, De Lellis writes plays about seemingly weird people, whose stories are surprisingly relatable. In his productions, form collides with content, to serve as both a commentary and compassionate look at the fringes of our shared world.

Michele Spears is a theatre director, choreographer, actress and arts educator living in Los Angeles. As a director/choreographer she has staged works for the Carpenter Center, Alex Theater, The Colony, Falcon Theater, Contemporary Musical Theatre Company of Santa Barbara, Cornerstone Theatre, Santa Barbara CLO Youth Program, The Migrant Youth Theatre Project, Musical Theatre Guild at The Pasadena Playhouse and the Mercury Music Development Company in London, among others. She has been an associate artist with the Academy of New Musical Theatre where she directed and helped to develop original musicals, and with the Los Angeles Gay Men’s Chorus where favorite projects include Simply Sondheim starring Joanna Gleason and Jerry’s Boys starring Jerry Herman.

Object of Her Affection is supported, in part, through The Automata Residency Project, The Jim Henson Foundation, Center for Cultural Innovation/Artist Resources for Completion, and with additional support of time and space from Improv Theater and REDCAT.