The Blue Light

Leni Riefenstahl, one hundred years old, is in the office of a young female Hollywood studio executive. Leni’s reason to be there is clear: to make one last desperate pitch to direct her first feature film in fifty years. A thought-provoking contemplation on art, politics, and the seduction of fascism, and a theatrical examination of a woman who danced one perfect dance with the devil and forever changed the way films are made.

Leni Riefenstahl was one of the most remarkable and controversial women of the twentieth century. Dancer, actor, photographer, and filmmaker, Riefenstahl caught the eye of Adolf Hitler with her prodigious first film: The Blue Light. A cinematic innovator, her decision to direct Triumph of the Will, got her blacklisted as a filmmaker until her death in 2003 at 101, unrepentant and mostly forgotten.

AUTHOR

Mieko Ouchi

Mieko is a playwright, actor, and director working in theatre, film, and television. Her plays, which include The Red Priest (Eight Ways To Say Goodbye), The Blue Light, The Dada Play, and Nisei Blue, have been nominated for several awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama and the City of Edmonton Book Prize. Mieko has also been the recipient of both the Carol Bolt Award and the Enbridge playRites Award for an Established Canadian Playwright. Her plays have been produced across Canada and the US and are translated into French, Russian, Czech, and Japanese. Mieko is co-founder and current Artistic Director of Concrete Theatre, a nationally recognized twenty-six-year-old TYA touring company. She is currently working on four new projects: Makepeace, Burning Mom, Consent, and Mariam with Amena Shehab. She lives and works in Edmonton.