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THEATRE NEWS FOR SAN FRANCISCO BAY

Posted by:	Richard Connema 04:41 pm EST 02/02/14

Aaron Loeb’s "Ideation" Wins Glickman Award for Best New Play to Premiere in the Bay Area in 2013 Playwright Aaron Loeb has won the prestigious Will Glickman Award for Ideation, which received its world premiere from the San Francisco Playhouse in November 2013 at Tides Theatre as part of the Playhouse’s second-stage Sandbox Series of small-scale world premieres. Loeb and the San Francisco Playhouse will receive awards at Theatre Bay Area’s Annual Conference on April 14, 2014 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Loeb will also receive the award’s $4,000 purse. In addition, SF Playhouse will open its 2014-2015 main stage season with a revamped remount of "Ideation", scheduled to run September 23 through November 8. This will be the first play from the Sandbox Series to go on to the company’s main stage. In its initial three-week run, Ideation broke all box office records for the Sandbox, selling out every show. Ideation is equal parts savagely dark comedy and psychological suspense thriller. A team of corporate consultants has been hired to brainstorm a project with potentially gruesome ethical implications that become increasingly impossible to ignore. As they methodically work through how the project would work and who exactly would need to know about it, they realize how little they know about what they’re working on. “I am very grateful to TBA and the Glickman committee for the award,” Loeb says. “Ideation is a truly homegrown play: originally written in the Just Theater New Play Lab, developed in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and world premiered at SF Playhouse. It is incredibly gratifying to receive such a warm response from the community.” “San Francisco Playhouse created our Sandbox Series as a creative lab to shepherd the work of new playwrights,” says San Francisco Playhouse artistic director Bill English. “So we feel a particular kinship to the work Theatre Bay Area also does to nurture new works, and we have great respect for their Glickman Award. It is incredibly exciting and rewarding for us to see one of our Sandbox projects win the Glickman Award. We believe Aaron Loeb is an important voice who speaks so profoundly to the moment in which we live. It has been a rare privilege for the Playhouse to serve as the springboard for Ideation, and we can’t think of a better play to begin our 2014-15 season.” This is the first Glickman Award for playwright Loeb, and also for the San Francisco Playhouse. “I am thrilled to be present this award to Aaron—one of the Bay Area’s most exciting young playwrights—for this compelling new play,” says Theatre Bay Area executive director Brad Erickson. “And I am equally pleased to honor SF Playhouse for producing Ideation and for its deep commitment to new works and Bay Area writers.” Administered by Theatre Bay Area and started in 1984 to honor Bay Area playwright and screenwriter Will Glickman, the Will Glickman Award is presented annually to the author or authors of the best play to have its world premiere in the Bay Area. The winner is chosen by a panel of top Bay Area theatre critics: Robert Hurwitt of the San Francisco Chronicle, Robert Avila of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Karen D’Souza of the San Jose Mercury News, Chad Jones of TheaterDogs.net and Sam Hurwitt of KQED Arts and the Marin Independent Journal. The Glickman Award-winning play is published each year in the July/August issue of Theatre Bay Area magazine. ################################### BAY AREA CABARET PRESENTS GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING SINGER/SONGWRITER JUDY COLLINS 8pm, Saturday, March 15, 2014 – Bay Area Cabaret has announced that due to an unavoidable scheduling conflict, Stacey Kent, originally scheduled to perform on March 15, has been forced to postpone her appearance to next season. In her place, Bay Area Cabaret will present Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter JUDY COLLINS. With a crystalline voice that famously introduced generations to her own interpretations of songs by Joni Mitchell (“Both Sides Now”), The Beatles (“In My Life”), Bob Dylan (“Mr. Tambourine Man”) and others in a career that has spanned more than 50 years, Ms. Collins holds a remarkable place in the music lexicon. Her repertoire encompasses folk music, show tunes, pop, and rock and roll. Ms. Collins will perform one-night-only, 8pm, Saturday, March 15, at the historic Venetian Room of the Fairmont San Francisco, 950 Mason Street. Subscriber tickets for Stacey Kent will be honored and additional tickets for non-subscribers ($65, plus a limited number of $100 premium seats) are now available at www.bayareacabaret.org or by phone at City Box Office (415) 392-4400. In addition to the concert, patrons may purchase tickets to a private post-concert Meet and Greet with Ms. Collins, with the opportunity to take photographs and obtain autographs. Tickets for the Meet and Greet ($40) are available at www.bayareacabaret.org or by calling (415) 927-4636, with all proceeds benefiting the non-profit Bay Area Cabaret. ########################### World Premier BAUER By Lauren Gunderson Directed by Bill English March 18 to April 19, 2014 Previews March 18-21 8pm Tuesdays through Thursdays at 7pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm Saturdays at 3pm and (new this season) select Sundays at 2pm (3.23 and 4.13) PRESS OPENING: Saturday, March 22nd at 8pm – San Francisco Playhouse (Artistic Director Bill English & Producing Director Susi Damilano) presents the world premiere commission of Bauer by Bay Area playwright Lauren Gunderson. Gunderson’s play tells the compelling and controversial tale of world-renowned artist Rudolf Bauer, who was so driven to create, he sketched on scraps in a Nazi prison and yet eventually stopped painting forever when a feud erupted amongst himself, his patron and benefactor Solomon Guggenheim, and Bauer’s lifetime love, Baroness Hilla Rebay – one of Guggenheim’s most trusted curators. The Guggenheim Museum, originally built to house Bauer’s works, opened without a single Bauer exhibited. This January, San Francisco Playhouse’s commissioned play presents a freshly imagined face-off between Bauer and the two women he loved most as they each confront the passions of his life and art. Bill English directs a cast starring Ronald Guttman* as Bauer, Susi Damilano as his wife and former maid, Louise, and Stacy Ross* as his lifelong love, Hilla Rebay. WHERE: The San Francisco Playhouse 450 Post Street (2nd Floor of Kensington Park Hotel, b/n Powell & Mason) TICKETS: For tickets ($30-$100) or more information, the public may contact The San Francisco Playhouse box office at 415-677-9596 ########################## The Coast of Utopia Voyage, Shipwreck & Salvage Written by Tom Stoppard Directed by Patrick Dooley —In a tremendous coup for the biggest little theatre company in town, Shotgun Players has secured the rights to Tom Stoppard’s epic trilogy. This season Shotgun is producing all three plays in repertory: Part One: Voyage, Part Two: Shipwreck, and Part Three: Salvage. In Voyage, we meet our young heroes in the first blushes of revolutionary thought and love. With Shipwreck we find them in their 30s. The optimism of their early years has hit the rocks of marital infidelity, social anarchy, and a Tsar that has no intention of stepping down. In Salvage, our group of would-be revolutionaries moves to London where, after suffering decades of personal and political losses, they struggle to find hope for their way of life. As Alexander Herzen states: “Our meaning is in how we live in an imperfect world.” Performances for The Coast of Utopia begin March 20 and run through April 27 at The Ashby Stage. Stoppard’s riff on pre-revolutionary Russia begins on a family estate where fervent ideals and fraught expectations are the name of the game. In Voyage, the first part of the amazing Coast of Utopia trilogy, we meet a group of artists, writers and young revolutionaries wrestling with broken hearts along with ideas of art and society: "If something true can be understood about art, something will be understood about liberty, too." Just on the horizon is the hope of revolution. With Shipwreck the story moves to Paris. A circle of Russian émigrés including Alexander and Natalie Herzen, Ivan Turgenev, and Michael Bakunin have relocated to France, seeking inspiration from this birthplace of revolution. But personal and political ideals begin to unravel. What happens when everything you believed to be true turns out to be something else entirely? Hope staggers after each betrayal, setting the stage for the final part of the trilogy. The journey concludes with Salvage. Alexander Herzen moves to London prepared to relinquish his dream of inspiring change in Russia. He says: "I have lost every illusion dear to me." It seems every failed revolutionary from across Europe has emigrated to England. Then, in an instant, inspiration comes: a free Russian press. When his closest friend Nicholas Ogarev arrives from Russia, they join forces and create The Bell, a newspaper smuggled into Russia advocating for the abolition of serfdom. But a new generation in Russia has other ideas for how to change Russia. Is Herzen out of touch? With Salvage, Stoppard once again weaves together both the political and the deeply personal. Betrayals of the heart, mind and very soul are explored throughout Salvage. Founding Artistic Director Patrick Dooley writes: "Stoppard gets great attention for his spectacular wit and intellectual prowess, but his greatest achievement is to gain access where we feel most vulnerable - our hearts." The Coast of Utopia features Joe Salazar, Patrick Jones, Sam Misner*, Sarah Moser, Sachi Granich, Luisa Frasconi, Eli Wirschafter, John Mercer, David Sinaiko, Danielle O’Hare, Trish Mulholland, Daniel Petzold, Megan Trout, Nick Medina, Kenny Toll, Don Wood, Sam Tillis, Dan Saski, Molly Clancy, Caitlyn Louchard, Richard Reinholdt Set Design by Nina Ball, Costume Design by Heidi Hanson (Salvage), Alexae Visel & Ashley Rogers (Voyage, Shipwreck), Sound Design by Matt Stines, Light Design by Ray Oppenheimer & Properties Design by Shaun Carroll. ############################## Performances of FOOL FOR LOVE resume after motorcycle accident Plus three performances added to THE RIVER BRIDE — Performances of FOOL FOR LOVE resume on Wednesday, February 5th, after a motorcycle accident put one of the actors on bed rest for a week. Actor Matt Lai, who stars as Eddie, is eager to get back on the boards. Doctors put Mr. Lai on bed rest, following an in-line fracture caused by a motorcycle accident on Monday. Performances will resume on Wednesday, February 5th at 7:30 pm. “Missing a week's worth of shows has been agonizing. I'm working with my orthopedist and will be ready to hit the boards again on February 5th,” says Matt Lai. “Be forewarned: the next guy that says "break a leg" to me will get a swift kick in the shin from me. That is, of course, if I could actually kick.” While Matt Lai is on bed rest this week, AlterTheater cancelled four performances of FOOL FOR LOVE. Performances resume as scheduled on Wednesday, February 5th. The final four performances of FOOL FOR LOVE in San Rafael will be: Wednesday, February 5th at 7:30 pm Friday, February 7th at 8 pm Saturday, February 8th at 8 pm Sunday, February 9th at 2 pm. ####################### Cinnabar’s Young Rep tackles Macbeth, Grease, and more – Cinnabar Theater, the beloved professional theater in Sonoma County, has announced a series of exciting activities for local kids. From youth productions of Grease and Macbeth to discounted performances of The Marriage of Figaro and Of Mice & Men, there are numerous opportunities in the months ahead for kids to enjoy terrific music and theater. “Local parents can count on Cinnabar to provide positive and productive activities for their kids,” said Artistic Director Elly Lichenstein. “In our classes, summer camps, and shows, children learn valuable skills that are essential to success in today’s society, such as creativity, collaboration, communication, and leadership. And they also have a ton of fun!” In the months to come, Cinnabar’s Young Rep serves up the following programs: Auditions for the spring musical: Cinnabar invites local kids between the ages of 12 and 18 to audition for Once on This Island, a Broadway musical based on the famous story of the Little Mermaid. There is a tuition cost for those cast in the show, but no one is ever turned away for lack of funds. Auditions are held on February 9. Call 707-763-8920 to schedule. Performances of Macbeth: The talented teens in Cinnabar’s Young Rep tackle Shakespeare’s masterpiece. The show features 15 youth from Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Sebastapol, and Sonoma. Macbeth opens on February 21 and runs through March 2. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for ages 21 and under. This show is generously underwritten by Richard and Carol Burnham and the Paisley family. $9 tickets for Friday Night Live: This new program lets middle-school and high-school students enjoy live professional performances for the same price as a movie. Make friends, eat pizza, talk to the artists, and see a show… for only nine bucks! This discounted ticket also includes a pre-show dinner with peers and a chat with a professional artist that puts the show in context. Friday Night Live is made possible by a generous grant from the Community Foundation Sonoma County. Sign up to see Of Mice & Men on March 21 or The Marriage of Figaro on May 30. Summer camps: Spend the summer rehearsing and performing the legendary musical Grease. The camp for ages 6 to 11 takes place from June 23 through July 20. The camp for ages 12 and up takes place from July 7 through August 3. Every year, Cinnabar Theater produces a thrilling mix of plays, musicals, operas, and concerts in a remarkable range of genres. Cinnabar’s Young Rep offers extensive activities for local youth, and the Cinnabar Singers welcome anyone who wants to be part of a chorus. All these events take place in the iconic red schoolhouse perched atop a grassy hill on the outskirts of Petaluma. This intimate venue is the perfect place for young people to discover the thrill of theater and to immerse themselves in the original 3-D, high-definition style of storytelling. Cinnabar Theater is located at 3333 Petaluma Boulevard North, just off Highway 101 and only minutes from historic downtown Petaluma. There’s ample parking up on the hill… and a friendly herd of goats grazing in the neighboring field. For more information, or to purchase tickets, call 707-763-8920 or visit cinnabartheater.org. #

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