Georges Méliès Cine-Concert Comes to Chicago's Music Box Theatre Today, 10/27

This tour is organized by the Délégation Générale des Alliances Françaises-USA

Georges Méliès was one of the most amazing figures in cinema. From 1896 to 1913, he directed, distributed, performed and produced 520 films. This masterful craftsman deserves credit for conceiving film as an original performance, recreating newsreels, advertising films, extravaganzas in color and science fiction. One hundred years later, his films are still relevant today.

Marie-Hélène Lehérissey, Georges Méliès' great-granddaughter, worked as a film editor before joining the television channel TF1. She also takes care of the film collection of the Friends of Georges Méliès Association – Méliès Film Archive. In addition, she offers "cinematographic performances" in the family tradition and memory with films rediscovered from her great-grandfather. Marie-Hélène, full of verve and humor, is the third generation of narrator-presenters in the family.

An alumnus of the Conservatory, pianist, composer and improviser, Lawrence Lehérissey has been a professional musician since age 18. He has made world tours playing on frames of the films of Georges Méliès, his great-great-grandfather. He is first and foremost interested in working on the evocative and illustrative aspect of sound. As pianist, he improvises on each film, emphasizing Méliès' film frames and the text of the narrator.

Barbara E. Robertson most recently appeared at the Goodman in Tennessee Williams' Camino Real in a re-imagined adaptation by Calixto Bieito and Marc Rosich. Robertson received a Joseph Jefferson Award in 20122 for her masterful portrayal of Alice Conroy in the world premiere of Keith Huff's The Detective's Wife at Writers' Theatre. This year, she could also be seen in the ChicaGo Productions of Love, Loss and What I Wore and Working at the Broadway Playhouse, as well as in Wicked's National Tour as Madame Morrible. Other credits include: Yeast Nation (American Theatre Company); Pursued By Happiness (Steppenwolf Theatre Company), Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Mary Stuart, La Bete, Tartuffe, The House Of Blue Leaves (Court Theatre); Grand Hotel (Drury Lane Water Tower); Hamlet, Kabuki Lady Macbeth, A Little Night Music, A Winter's Tale (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre); The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?, House And Garden, Pal Joey, Black Snow (Goodman Theatre); Grand Hotel (Drury Lane Water Tower); Emma's Child (Victory Gardens Theatre); Detachments (Center Theater); Kabuki Medea (Wisdom Bridge And Kennedy Center); Chicago (Marriott Theatre); Angels in America I & II (National Tour). For her work, she has received more than twenty awards and nominations, including Joseph Jefferson, Helen Hayes, Cal-Alpert, Sarah Siddons and After Dark. Her film credits include Robert Altman's The Company and David Lynch's A Straight Story and the soon to be released, LOL. Barbara is a member of Actors' Equity Association, AFTRA/SAG and a teacher at Columbia College Chicago.