Presents
The Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as translated by Simon Armitage
Adapted for the stage by Annie Loui
December 5-13, 2025
Experimental Performance Media Lab (xMPL)
Scenic & Projection Designer | Genesis Tanner
Costume Designer | Rebecca Shepherd
Lighting Designer | Mac McDermott
Sound Designer & Composer | Ben Scheff
Dramaturg | Rebecca Davis
Vocal Coach | Cynthia Bassham
Director
Annie Loui
Assistant Director
Anna Marjorie Fitzgerald
Production Stage Manager
Jo McEvoy
Content Warning: This production contains flashing lights, loud noises and haze effects.
There will be no intermission for this production.
Created in conjunction with the UCI Humanities Core.
Major support is provided by Robert and Lorna Cohen Endowment for Excellence in Drama, the Theatre Guild
and the Claire Trevor Society.
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
The source material for this theatrical performance; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is fantastically rich in all the storytelling elements—the language is playful, the plot is full of supernatural twists and turns, and our story begins at Christmas in King Arthur’s court. Gawain, in his epic hero’s journey, faces magical and personal challenges of honor in the face of temptation. When I first spoke with Becky Davis, the Director of the Humanities Core, about aligning with their readings and creating a dramatic adaptation of one of their required texts, she handed me the Simon Armitage’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It had all of the elements of an engaging theatrical production, and the translation, with its vivid alliteration and visceral imagery cinched the deal. The journey of adaptation and then staging with my talented design/production team and cast has been a wonderful challenge and a joy. How often do you get to stage a wild boar hunt as well as a headless knight from Arthurian legend? But the more time I have spent in the rehearsal room bringing the poem to life, the more I have been struck by how this supernatural story is also a story of personal growth as young Gawain experiences the world and challenges to his idealism. And underneath it all, woven deeply into the fabric of the poem, embedded truths emerge that reverberate in our times of shifting climate. Our story happens at Christmastide/solstice with an unexpected challenge by the Green Knight, redolent of the Celtic nature spirit “green man” whose face is made of leaves and vines. This December production cannot ignore the Christmas season as the cycle of the seasonal year turns, juxtaposing Christian civilization with even older celebrations of rebirth. The Green Knight seems even stronger now as a metaphor, reminding us of our absolute need to work with nature at risk of peril to our civilized world.
– Annie Loui, director and adapter
DRAMATURG’S NOTE
Annie Loui’s innovative new play, The Green Knight, adapts a medieval poem that is more than 600 years old. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written in Middle English—the precursor to the modern English language we speak today—around the year 1400. The play’s text is based on a modern translation by British poet Simon Armitage, who preserves much of the original’s linguistic character, including its verse form, which blends the older English tradition of alliteration (the repetition of initial sounds) with the continental French style of rhyme. As you experience the play, listen for echoing consonants (“loyal letters linked”) and chiming rhymes : these are the sound effects that delighted medieval audiences.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a romance, the genre of wandering knights, distressed damsels, and supernatural adventures that put chivalric virtues like honor, loyalty, courage, and courtesy to the test. We follow Gawain’s quest to uphold his reputation against physical and psychological threats: freezing weather, gnarly beasts, and perhaps hardest of all, a beautiful lady who won’t take no for an answer. He finds himself caught between loyalty to his host and the demands of courtly etiquette: for a knight with a reputation as “the embodiment of courtliness,” rudely refusing the lady is not an option.
Set in the early days of King Arthur’s court, the poem celebrates Arthurian values while darkly foreshadowing Camelot’s eventual destruction. It establishes stark contrasts— court versus wilderness, human versus non-human, Christian versus pagan, masculine versus feminine, safety versus exposure—which are carefully reflected in the play’s staging. The poem, however, undermines its own binaries through hybrid figures and entangled relationships that defy categorization, a complexity that resonates with contemporary audiences. For us, the poem suggests an ecological allegory. The Green Knight’s intrusion at court and Gawain’s journey into the wilderness invite us to consider our own entanglements with the living world and to ask how art can help us see those relationships and responsibilities in new ways.
– Rebecca Davis, dramaturg
CAST
| Sir Gawain | Esther Pielstick |
| The Green Knight & Lord Bertilak | Kurt Kanazawa |
| King Arthur & Narrator and Others | Heri Cruz Jr. |
| Morgan Le Fey and Winter Storyteller | Lourdes Castillo |
| Servan and Summer Storyteller | Malu Pizzatto |
| Queen Guinevere and Spring Storyteller | Zoe Rose Davidson |
| Lady Bertilak and Autumn Storyteller | Doshima Iyorlu |
| Gawain’s Friend and Porter | Sejal Chopra |
| The Green Knight & Lord Bertilak (Understudy) | Connor Sheehan |
| Female Swing | Alex Keyes |
| Male Swing | Robbie McFarlane |
Special Thanks To:
Our Co-Sponsor, New Swan Shakespeare Center
ARTISTIC STAFF
| Department Chair, Season Producer | Joel Veenstra |
| Department Vice Chair | Tara Rodman |
| Associate Chair, Production | Vincent Olivieri |
| Associate Chair, Donor Relations | Marcia Froehlich |
| Associate Chair, Digital Media | Philip Thompson |
| Scenic Design Mentor | Yee Eun Nam |
| Costume Design Mentor | Holly Poe Durbin |
| Lighting Design Mentor | Lonnie Alcaraz |
| Sound Design Mentor | Vincent Olivieri |
| Stage Management Mentor | Alison Anderson |
ARTISTIC TEAM
| Director | Annie Loui |
| Assistant Director | Anna Marjorie Fitzgerald |
| Production Stage Manager | Jo McEvoy |
| Scenic & Projection Designer | Genesis Tanner |
| Costume Designer | Rebecca Shepherd |
| Lighting Designer | Mac McDermott |
| Sound Designer | Ben Scheff |
| Assistant Scenic Designers | Gretchen Ugalde Safina Wu |
| Assistant Costume Designer | Kari Setlack |
| Costume Design Assistant | Isabel Toteda |
| Assistant Lighting Designer | David Block |
| Assistant Sound Designer | Andrew Yoder |
| Assistant Stage Managers | Sammie Moore Sydney Uliasz |
| Production Assistants | May Tijero Elle Van Kempen |
CREW
Costumes
Vicky Carrillo, Zeniada Guzman, Jonathan Williams, Siyu (Wendy) Yang
E-Hang
Amy Gutierrez
E-Run
Keara McDevitt
Audio
Dufresne Chen
Captions
Abigail Dixon
UCI ARTS PRODUCTION STAFF
| Production Manager | Raymond Simeon |
| Associate Production Manager | Alan Dronek |
| Assistant Production Manager | Alex Golden |
| Production Coordinator | Narea Kang |
| Technical Director | Bill Kingsbury |
| Costume Director | Jenn Dugan |
| Electrics/Lighting Supervisor | Joe Forehand |
| Sound Supervisor | Mike Ritchey |
| Properties Supervisor | Pamela Marsden |
| Shop Foreman | Geronimo Guzmán |
| Scenic Charge Artist | Christine Salama |
| Master Electrician | David Block |
| Costume Shop Staff | Heather Hirvela D Larsson Kaity Kistler Kendall Montunnas Yentrang Le |
| Associate Production Manager, xMPL | Micah Sechler |
| Director of Space Planning & Facilities | Jeff Stube |
| Box Office Manager | David Walker-Doyle |
| Senior Director of Marketing & Communications | Jaime DeJong |
| Senior Communications Specialist | Diana Kalaji |
| Graphic Designer | Emily Zheng |
DRAMA FACULTY
Joel Veenstra, Chair
Lonnie Alcaraz
Cynthia Bassham
Andrew Borba
Richard Brestoff
Juliette Carrillo
Myrona DeLaney
Efren Delgadillo Jr.
Zachary Dietz
Holly Poe Durbin
Marcy Froehlich
Michael Hooker
Daniel Keeling
Daphne Lei
Tiffany Ana López
Annie Loui
Ian Munro
Yee Eun Nam
Vincent Olivieri
Andrew Palermo
Zachary Price
Bryan Reynolds
Tara Rodman
Eli Simon
Jaymi Lee Smith
Philip Thompson
DRAMA STAFF
Marcus Beeman, Management Services Officer
Charmayne Durham, Department Analyst
SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS
Bette and Steven Warner Award in Drama and Music
Alexandra Hoffman
Brogan Keener-Shelby
Jessica Lopez
Sophie Sonntag
Nicole Warkentien
Claire Trevor Society Scholarship
Colt McGuire
Frederick Reines Scholarship in Drama
Robert McFarlane
Edna Helen Beach Scholarship
Genny O’Gilvy
Kai Alicia Tregre
H.B. Yolen and Isabelle Memorial
Arts Scholarship
Nikki Rose
Niko Ramos
Rianna Norman
Kris and Linda Elftmann Scholarship
Logan Brubaker
Leo Freedman Endowed Fellowship
Elissa Saldivar
Marilyn L. Wolfsberg Fellowship in Drama
Diana Fathi Rasgani
Medici Circle Scholarship
Kurt Kanazawa
Marketa McCoy
Colt McGuire
Isabel Toteda
Meyer Sound Design Endowed Fellowship
Melanie Falcòn
The Shubert Foundation Scholarship in Drama
Maya Lavin
Genesis Tanner
Thomas T. and Elizabeth Tierney
Scholarship in Fine Arts
Yebon Park
Sebastian Bojorquez
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The University of California, Irvine, campus is located on the homelands of the Kizh (Gabrieleño), Acjachemen (Juaneño) and Payómkawichum (Luiseño) peoples, who are the original stewards of the land colonially known as Irvine, California. This region extends from the Santa Ana River to Aliso Creek and beyond. As a land grant institution member, we acknowledge these Indigenous Peoples as traditional land caretakers who, in the face of settler colonialism, continue to claim their place and act as stewards to protect their ancestral lands as they have for the past 8,000 years. Additionally, these lands have been shaped by Latino, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipino and Chinese laborers who have built roads and railroads and worked California crop fields, as well as the African Americans in the Civilian Conservation Corps that helped make (southern) California National Parks what they are today.
We pause to acknowledge the colonial devastation of stolen land, genocide, and forced labor that founded much of the social and economic infrastructure upon which we currently live, work and prosper. We also consider the many legacies of violence, displacement, migration and settlement that bring us here today.
UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts recognizes and respects Indigenous Peoples and the enduring relationship between them and their traditional territories. It is essential for the UCI community to acknowledge this history as the first step towards honoring the native people and beginning the healing process.
Today this meeting place is home to many Indigenous Peoples from all over the world, including UCI faculty, students and staff. We respectfully honor and recognize the original and current caretakers of this land, water, and air: The Kizh, Acjachemen and Payómkawichum peoples and all their ancestors and descendants, past, present and future. We are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on these homelands.
Information for our acknowledgement is informed and inspired by efforts made throughout UCI and other related cultural institutions, including the Kizh Nation – Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians public information, UCI Libraries, Sue and Bill Gross School of Nursing, UCI Sustainability Resource Center, and UC Riverside Native American Student Programs and UCR Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion land acknowledgement. Learn more by visiting the websites Native Land and UCI Community Resilience.
Image: Aerial view of central campus, April 1964. (Courtesy of UCI Libraries Special Collections & Archives, http://hdl.handle.net/10575/5304)
Upcoming Events
December
| December 4-6 | New Slate 2025 |
| December 5* | UCI Opera Workshop |
| December 5-13 | The Green Knight |
| December 6* | UCI M.F.A. Open Studios |
| December 7 | TWO-0-NINE |
| December 8* | UCI Chamber Music Concert |
January
February
| February 7-8 | Artist Series: Sounding Iran – Musical Pasts, Presents and Futures |
| February 11* | UCI Symphony Orchestra Express |
| February 13 | Artist Series: Songs About Love and Sorrows |
| February 18* | UCI Jazz Combos |
| February 19-21 | Dance Visions 2026 |
| February 25 | UCI Jazz Orchestra |
| February 28 | UC Irvine Homecoming Festival 2026 |
| February 28 | Artist Series: Song and Wind |
*indicates free event