Upcoming: Joan of Arc - The Night Before by Daniella Paluselli, Ad Astera Productions at Boyd Vance Theatre, June 9 and 10

“…riveting, suspenseful, shockingly real.”

Ad Astera

presents

Joan of Arc - The Night Before

by Daniela Paluselli

CANCELLED - Rescheduled for January 2013

BOYD VANCE THEATRE, George Washington CarverMuseum & Cultural Center
1165 Angelina St, Austin, TX 78702 (click for map)$20 ($15 for students and military)   CASH ONLY

www.joanofarcthenightbefore.com
info@joanofarcthenightbefore.com  -- tel 512-258 1617

Through the powerful and moving one-act monologue by Daniela Paluselli, Joan of Arc is portrayed the night before she gets burned at the stake. Prevailing over despair, terror and doubt, Joan's sublime heroism uplifts the audience to a higher level of consciousness and life involvement.

"Being of Irish descent, I am rarely at a loss for words. But afterseeing Daniela Paluselli’s Joan of Arc, The Night Before, I was overwhelmed into silence. I sat in the theater after the performance unable to move, unable to speak. I felt stunned by the power and the raw beauty of this new drama about St. Joan.  Historically, psychologically, and spiritually this play hits the mark… Be warned: this play gets into your blood; it stays with you; it makes you really feel; it makes you really think; it can make you speechless."  -- Sarah Jane O’Shea, Ph.D., M.S.O.M.

Click to view AustinLiveTheatre review of November, 2009

Joan of Arc, The Night Before, with Daniela Paluselli, September 19 - October 11

Imprisoned by the English, unransomed by Charles VII who owed his coronation to her, the 19-year-old Jeanne d'Arc was convicted of heresy by an ecclesiastical court and burned at the stake in Rouen in 1431.

From the age of 12, this illiterate girl from a peasant family had had visions of saints urging the expulsion of the English armies from France. Through force of personality she managed to reach the court of the despairing Dauphin Charles, who agreed to incorporate her as a standard bearer and leader in his army. Twenty-four years after her execution, an inquiry authorized by Pope Callixtus III declared her a martyr, unjustly convicted.

That convenient finding, at the end of the Hundred Years' War, meant that the kingship of Charles VII was freed of any taint of heresy. Jeanne has been a powerful symbol for the French people since then. The church beatified her in 1909 and in 1920 declared her a saint.

Daniella Paluselli takes for this one-woman presentation the dark despair of Jeanne's last night in prison. On a bare stage strewn with straw and furnished with only a bench, some blankets and a couple of buckets, Jeanne appears just as the order of condemnation has fallen. She has collapsed, overcome, rejecting the verdict and seized with fear. Over the course of the following 50 minutes Paluselli explores Jeanne and her dialogue with the mute voice of God.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .