Rob Melrose News

Veteran Guthrie actors Sally Wingert and Richard Ooms team with director Rob Melrose for Samuel Beckett's masterful two-character drama Happy Days. The production, which serves as the Dowling Studio debut for both actors, begins previews February 14, opens February 18 and plays through March 8, 2009. Single tickets are priced from $18 to $30, with opening night priced at $34. Tickets are now on sale through the Guthrie Box Office at 612.377.2224, toll-free 877.44.STAGE, 612.225.6244 (Group Sales) and online at www.guthrietheater.org.)

Veteran Guthrie actors Sally Wingert and Richard Ooms team with director Rob Melrose for Samuel Beckett's masterful two-character drama Happy Days. The production, which serves as the Dowling Studio debut for both actors, begins previews February 14, opens February 18 and plays through March 8, 2009. Single tickets are priced from $18 to $30, with opening night priced at $34. Tickets are now on sale through the Guthrie Box Office at 612.377.2224, toll-free 877.44.STAGE, 612.225.6244 (Group Sales) and online at http://www.guthrietheater.org/. This intense and strictly concentrated two-character drama features an eternally optimistic Winnie inexplicably buried waist-deep in a mound of earth, clinging to her life of arbitrary routines and rituals. Her husband, Willie, appears from time to time and replies only occasionally to her cheerful chatter, a source of comfort as she remains ever hopeful that 'this is going to be a happy day.' With its vivid sense of the bizarre and a blend of humor and compassion, Happy Days represents one of the Nobel Prize-winning writer's finest works. The play is minimalist, concentrated to the bare elements needed to make Winnie's resilience apparent in the stream of her thoughts and emotions, allowing the Irish playwright, poet and novelist an opportunity to offer a penetrating and uncompromising exploration of the human condition. As is the case with all of Beckett's work for the stage, Happy Days is an utterly spare and precise play, with every detail carrying the exact weight and degree of importance determined by the author. Co-founder and artistic director of San Francisco's The Cutting Ball Theater, Melrose previously directed Pen (2007) in the Dowling Studio, and served as assistant director for the Guthrie's 2003 production of Othello. He leads an artistic team that includes Michael Locher (Set Designer), Christine Richardson (Costume Designer), Frank Butler (Lighting Designer), Michael Lupu (Dramaturgy), Martha Kulig (Stage Manager) and Meaghan Rosenberger (Assistant Stage Manager). About the Guthrie The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is an American center for theater performance, production, education and professional training. The Guthrie is dedicated to producing the great works of dramatic literature, developing the work of contemporary playwrights and cultivating the next generation of theater artists. Led by Director Joe Dowling since 1995, the Guthrie opened a new three-theater home on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis in June 2006. The Guthrie is located at 818 South 2nd Street (at Chicago Avenue), in downtown Minneapolis. To purchase tickets or season subscriptions call the Guthrie Box Office between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. daily at 612.377.2224 or toll-free 877.44.STAGE. For more information, or to purchase tickets online, visit http://www.guthrietheater.org/.

San Francisco's cutting-edge Cutting Ball Theater announces the extension of the company's current production of Mar?a Irene Forn?s's poetic and penetrating MUD. MUD will extend for an additional week of performance, playing now through February 15 at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street in San Francisco. For tickets ($15-30) and more information, the public may visit cuttingball.com or call 800-838-3006. It is 1973 and Mae has just begun to learn how to read; things finally seem to be taking a turn for the better. As she tries to rise above her humble Midwestern origins, Mae must keep the two men in her life, foster brother and former lover Lloyd, and new boyfriend Henry, from dragging her back down. Little does Mae know that the first strong decision she's ever made about her life may be the last decision she will ever make. 'After spending two weeks at the Dialog Festival in Wroclaw, Poland last year, I came back to San Francisco with a new idea about what really good and interesting theater ought to be,' said MUD director Paige Rogers. 'The sense of humanness I experienced, where the audience breathes along with the performance, is such an elemental aspect of theater and something I feel Cutting Ball can give its audience in its new performance space. I am directing Fornes' MUD with this idea, that less is more, and I believe that each audience member will take away something personal and different that will stay with them for a long time.'

San Francisco's cutting-edge Cutting Ball Theater continues its 2008-09 season with the Bay Area Premiere of Will Eno's London and Off-Broadway hit THOM PAIN (based on nothing). Crowded Fire Artistic Director Marissa Wolf helms this Pulitzer Prize-nominated one-man meditation on the empty promises that life makes, starring Jonathan Bock. THOM PAIN (based on nothing) plays March 13 through April 5 (Press opening: Friday, March 13) at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at Exit on Taylor (277 Taylor Street) in San Francisco. Will Eno will be in residence at Cutting Ball; there will be a special opening night reception and Q&A on March 13 at 6:30pm with Eno, director Marissa Wolf, and Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose. For tickets ($15-30) and more information, the public may visit cuttingball.com or call 800-838-3006.

Berkeley's acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company announces the four plays chosen as winners for the Global Age Project (GAP), the company's new works initiative that promotes the creation of forward-looking theatre: The First Grade by Joel Drake Johnson; Birnham Woods by Wendy MacLeod; Right? by Dan Hoyle; and and when we awoke there was light and light by Laura Jacqmin. The selected plays will be presented as staged readings in a four-week festival at the Aurora Theatre, Mondays, February 2-23, 7:30pm, coinciding with the company's fully-staged West Coast Premiere of George Packer's provocative Lucille Lortel-winning play Betrayed (January 23-March 1).

San Francisco's cutting-edge Cutting Ball Theater announces the extension of the company's current production of Mar?a Irene Forn?s's poetic and penetrating MUD. MUD will extend for an additional week of performance, playing now through February 15 at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street in San Francisco. For tickets ($15-30) and more information, the public may visit cuttingball.com or call 800-838-3006. It is 1973 and Mae has just begun to learn how to read; things finally seem to be taking a turn for the better. As she tries to rise above her humble Midwestern origins, Mae must keep the two men in her life, foster brother and former lover Lloyd, and new boyfriend Henry, from dragging her back down. Little does Mae know that the first strong decision she's ever made about her life may be the last decision she will ever make. 'After spending two weeks at the Dialog Festival in Wroclaw, Poland last year, I came back to San Francisco with a new idea about what really good and interesting theater ought to be,' said MUD director Paige Rogers. 'The sense of humanness I experienced, where the audience breathes along with the performance, is such an elemental aspect of theater and something I feel Cutting Ball can give its audience in its new performance space. I am directing Fornes' MUD with this idea, that less is more, and I believe that each audience member will take away something personal and different that will stay with them for a long time.'

Berkeley's acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company announces the four plays chosen as winners for the Global Age Project (GAP), the company's new works initiative that promotes the creation of forward-looking theatre: The First Grade by Joel Drake Johnson; Birnham Woods by Wendy MacLeod; Right? by Dan Hoyle ; and and when we awoke there was light and light by Laura Jacqmin. The selected plays will be presented as staged readings in a four-week festival at the Aurora Theatre, Mondays, February 2-23, 7:30pm, coinciding with the company's fully-staged West Coast Premiere of George Packer's provocative Lucille Lortel-winning play Betrayed (January 23-March 1). Each GAP reading will be followed by an audience discussion of the contemporary issues raised in each work. Additionally, the company announces that it has received a $20,000 grant from the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation to support the Global Age Project. For information on GAP events (free and open to the public) an d Betrayed, the public may call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org.

Veteran Guthrie actors Sally Wingert and Richard Ooms team with director Rob Melrose for Samuel Beckett's masterful two-character drama Happy Days. The production, which serves as the Dowling Studio debut for both actors, begins previews February 14, opens February 18 and plays through March 8, 2009. Single tickets are priced from $18 to $30, with opening night priced at $34. Tickets are now on sale through the Guthrie Box Office at 612.377.2224, toll-free 877.44.STAGE, 612.225.6244 (Group Sales) and online at www.guthrietheater.org.)

Berkeley's acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company announces the four plays chosen as winners for the Global Age Project (GAP), the company's new works initiative that promotes the creation of forward-looking theatre: The First Grade by Joel Drake Johnson; Birnham Woods by Wendy MacLeod; Right? by Dan Hoyle; and and when we awoke there was light and light by Laura Jacqmin. The selected plays will be presented as staged readings in a four-week festival at the Aurora Theatre, Mondays, February 2-23, 7:30pm, coinciding with the company's fully-staged West Coast Premiere of George Packer's provocative Lucille Lortel-winning play Betrayed (January 23-March 1).

San Francisco's cutting-edge Cutting Ball Theater opens its 2008-09 season with VICTIMS OF DUTY from the master of absurdism, Eugène Ionesco. Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose helms Ionesco's most surreal and autobiographical play, starring David Sinaiko and Felicia Benefield, and featuring Avery Monsen and Ryan Oden, October 24 through November 23 (Press opening: Thursday, October 30).

San Francisco's cutting-edge Cutting Ball Theater continues its 2008 season of critically acclaimed stage-work with Avant GardARAMA! Like Cutting Ball's 2004 edition of Avant GardARAMA!

San Francisco's critically acclaimed, cutting-edge Cutting Ball Theater continues its 2008 season with Samuel Beckett's Endgame. Rob Melrose, Cutting Ball's co-founding Artistic Director, directs this modern take on one of Beckett's most important works.

The Guthrie announced that Rob Melrose will direct David Marshall Grant's Pen. A sly, perceptive new play about finding love, losing control and making the ultimate sacrifice, Pen begins previews November 3 and runs through November 25 in the Dowling Studio.