AVT is pleased to announce that we have acquired the rights to our next production: Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, adapted to the stage by Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus, and produced by special arrangement with Dramatic Publishing.

This new, award-winning adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s literary masterpiece Crime and Punishment is set in 1860’s St. Petersburg, where Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov relives the thoughts, ideas and feelings that drove him to his horrible crime. This “conversation on the nature of evil” becomes a dark journey into the mind of a killer and his search for redemption. Raskolnikov speaks directly to the audience at times, putting his case to them, so that the audience becomes another character in the telling. This is an intense psychological and spiritual journey which seeks to unveil hidden dimensions of the human condition, and the power of faith to heal even the gravest and most disturbing wounds of the soul.

I am very pleased to be able to produce and direct this play, as it has been one of my favorite books for a long time.  There will be three shows, two on Saturday January 16th, and one on Sunday January 17th.

Look for an audition notice on the AVT Forums sometime in early August, and rehearsals will begin around early September.  We will be looking for one male for a darkly disturbing lead, and another male and female to play several supporting roles for which demonstrated versatility at playing multiple very distinct characters will be the key factor.

Would you like to help support this production?  Check out the Patronage page to see how you can be a part of our unique arts movement on your local community.

Praise for the theatrical version of Crime and Punishment:

2002-2003 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Adaptation

“Who would have thought that the novel no high school student has ever finished reading would make such engrossing theater?” —New York Times

“Stunningly lean, taut and emotionally searing… a work of theatre that never feels like a condensation of a seminal 500-page novel, but rather has the swift, sharp impact of a blow from an ax.” —Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times

“Only occasionally can the production of a classic make us see the work differently…this adaptation and production remind us how thrilling a classic can be. On opening night you feel the audience holding its breath throughout the performance. Go: it will leave you breathless, too.” —AISLESAY Chicago

“Crime and Punishment, in a feat that rivals the construction of the Hoover Dam, has been distilled into a taut 90-minute play.” —New York Times

“Raskolnikov’s journey may be, in essence, a 90-minute exercise in logic, but here it’s a remarkably absorbing one.”
—New York Times