SARA FARRINGTON
Playwright // Co-Founder Foxy Films // Voice Actor

CasablancaBox is a completely true exploration of the making of America’s favorite movie.

It is an original play inspired by recently unearthed and never before heard archival material, combined with an intricate video design through which Casablanca’s iconic characters are projected onstage, interacting with live actors. Casablanca serves as the spine, from which stories of risk, sacrifice, brilliance and accidents branch off, all told by six performers who jump in and out of time, character, gender, style, tone, aesthetic and, most importantly, Casablanca—all in the pursuit of one answer: What makes a great work of art?

Far from a bio-pic, CasablancaBox is an immersion into 1940s Hollywood—glamour, war, censorship, rampant sexism, racism, addiction and violence. And cigarettes.

The HARP Residency allows a three-year time frame for the piece to develop through Work-in-Progress showings several times a year, monthly meetings with other HARP artists, CultureMart showings (2015 and 2016) and culminating in the premiere of the piece in 2017 at HERE.

This piece is being funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts.