Columbia Directing alumnus Keenan Tyler Oliphant '20 will direct Ebru Nihan Celkan’s play, Will You Come With Me? Presented by PlayCo, this is the play’s United States premiere.
Will You Come With Me? tells the story of Umut and Janina when they meet and fall in love in Istanbul, where rebellion simmers through the population of queer and displaced youth. Using video recordings and phone calls to fight against physical and emotional distance, Umut is caught between the momentum of sociopolitical change at home and the promise of a quieter life in Berlin with Janina. The play explores the chaos and complexities of living through an uprising.
The play will run from May 4 through June 5, 2022 at MITU580 in Brooklyn. Tickets go on sale March 15.
Keenan Tyler Olipant is a Theatre-maker and Director from South Africa whose work is in the lineage of the communal theatre-making and storytelling traditions of South Africa. He recalls this traditional storytelling lineage by dialoguing with histories and futures to create spaces of healing, investigation, mourning, and celebration through performance. Keenan endeavors to create work that is powerful in its relation to contemporary experience, and that challenges social and political conventions while engaging with performance as a ritual expression of the spiritual. Keenan is the Associate Director of Hadestown (Broadway), Oratorio for Living Things (Ars Nova), and the assistant director for Bengson's work, The Broken Ear Set-list (St Ann’s Warehouse). Keenan is a Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow, a Drama League Directing Fellow, and an Alumni of the Columbia MFA Directing for Theatre program.
