OUR COUNTRY

From the wild frontier to Ancient Greece to childhood memories, OUR COUNTRY brings origin myths down to earth in an intimate portrait of a complex sibling relationship. Inspired by Sophocles’ Antigone, artist Annie Saunders sets off on an autobiographical journey using recreations of recorded conversations with her outlaw brother. The past unfurls, enveloping them and the audience. Inside this shape-shifting space they face each other at their most primal. OUR COUNTRY excavates the past to rethink the present, recalling a time when we were young — as individuals, as a nation, as a democratic system. How far have we really come?

CREATIVE TEAM

Co-Creator, Director, Dramaturgy: Becca Wolff

Co-Creator, Performer, Original Writing, with Additional Devising by the Company: Annie Saunders

Performer: Jesse Saler

Scenic Designer: Nina Caussa

Costume Designer: Melissa Trn

Lighting Designer: Jiyoun Chang

Sound Designer: James Ard

Movement Director: Jessica Williams

Illusions Consultant: Christian Cagigal

Fight Consultant: Edgar Landa

PERFORMANCE HISTORY

• Under the Radar, 2022

• Broad Stage, Santa Monica 2019

• Sibiu Festival, Romania 2019

• Summerhall, Edinburgh Fringe 2018

• The Public Theater, Under the Radar 2018 

• The Getty Villa Experimental Theatre Lab 2016

• The San Francisco Playhouse Devised Commission 2015
  

Becca Wolff

(Creator, Director) is a California-based director of theater & film. Her work has been seen at theaters across the country including A.C.T., The Public Theater, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, and Long Wharf Theatre. Her films have screened around the world, including at Bay Area Childrens’, Brooklyn Intl., Outfest and the UK Asian Film Festivals. She is co-founder and artistic director of SCOTUS Theater. MFA Yale School of Drama. Member SDC.

Annie Saunders

Annie Saunders (Creator, Performer) is a multidisciplinary creator and director of site-specific experiences, and has created award-winning multi-platform projects for major arts institutions including The Public Theater, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Broad Stage and Summerhall, as well as site-specific projects in disused spaces set for demolition and experiential campaigns for multinational brands. Her installation The Home, a headphone-based experience for one audience member at a time for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, won the D&AD Yellow Pencil “Creative Excellence for Spatial Design and Installation Design'' and APA Ideas Awards in the UK for “Best Experiential Project” and “Best Use of Technology for Good”. Saunders is the founder and artistic director of site-specific performance company Wilderness, and her experimental project The Wreck for Opera Omaha was called ‘ingenious...a persuasive expression of complex female feeling,’ by the Wall Street Journal.