After international success in Australia, My Name is Pablo Picasso -- written by a local playwright -- will make its official debut at the State Theatre this weekend.
Flown to the United States by Penn State in 1987, Mary Gage taught drama at the university and put the previously performed play on the shelf until retiring from Penn State.
"I was trying to keep my head above the water," Gage said. "I had to put my playwriting on the backburner."
Gage said on the 100-year anniversary of Pablo Picasso's birth in 1981 she was granted a playwright residency at an Australian theater. She said she was commissioned by the theater director and the art gallery director to write this production.
"He was a good character to write about because he was so showy," she said of Picasso. "He led a quite public and scandalous life."
The play takes place during Picasso's early years on his brink of exploring cubism -- when his paintings weren't well-liked, and he was anxious about critical reaction, Gage said.
Although his young appearance may be different from what audiences are used to from this famous artist, his tormented personality still comes through the production, she said.
"He is young and angry," she said. "Everything is wrong with everything, and he thinks if he becomes rich everything will be all right."
The play reaches a climactic point when Picasso answers a knock on his door from a character called the Old Man. But Gage was adamant about not giving away the rest of the story.
She referred to her play as a celebration.
"By the end of the play people are going to see that it captivates his life in 90 minutes," she said.
Boalsburg resident Michael Bernosky plays the Old Man and said the play reveals aspects of Picasso's personality as they relate to women, his critics and the world at-large.
Bernosky said audiences will take away a much better understanding of not only Picasso, but of modern art, too.
"Audiences will have a very pleasurable response to this work of theater," he said. "From top to bottom it is a dramatic experience with all the emotions necessary. It never lets up."
Kristy Cyone, the State Theatre's marketing director, said a lot of interest has been shown in Gage's play.
Though Gage is already well-known in the theater community for the play, Cyone said she thinks this could be the beginning of American success similar to Gage's popularity in Australia.
"State College is a great place to introduce a new concept and a new play," she said. "We have a very open-minded audience."
The new Ma and Pa productions -- a joint project of Penn State film professors Rod Bingaman and Maura Shea that recently debuted the film Chasing Butterflies at the State Theatre -- will shoot a DVD of the performance.
"It will be a good marketing tool for us," Bernosky said.
Bernosky said he wants the play to develop local talent and get it nationally recognized.
"If we can do that," he said, "it will be positive for everybody."
