Beowulf: A Thousand Years Of Baggage Opens 4/1

2008 winner of the Bay Are Glickman Award for Best Play, Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, a Banana Bag & Bodice SongPlay, presented by the Shotgun Players. Beowulf was written by written by Jason Craig with music by 2009 Larson Award Winner Dave Malloy, and directed by Rod Hipskind. Beowulf will be begin performances on March 31, opening on Sunday, April 1 and will initially run through April 18 at the Abrons Arts Center (466 Grand Street @ Pitt).

Flawed heroes, sympathetic monsters and haughty professors collide as this hefty poem is rescued from the grasp of 1,000 years of highbrow analysis and transformed into a defiantly raucous musical. Presented by San Francisco's infamous Shotgun Players and New York's infectious Banana Bag & Bodice, this new SongPlay is an irreverent dissertation on art versus criticism in blood soaked Scandinavia!

Shotgun Players and Banana Bag & Bodice have gotten down to work inspecting this classic poem-adapting its powerful narrative to make a new play that is part homage and part parody. Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage combines Weillian cabaret, 40's jazz harmony, indie rock, electronica and Romantic lieder into a new musical voice, allowing the original epic poem and the language of modern musical theater a uniquely outrageous platform on which to unite.

The cast of Beowulf features Banana Bag & Bodice company members Jason Craig (The Fall & Rise of the Rising Fallen, Oh What War) and Jessica Jelliffe (Panel. Animal, The Sewers), as well as Bay Area darlings Chris Kuckenbaker, Anna Ishida, Shaye Troha & Beth Wilmurt. The band, led by composer Dave Malloy on Piano/Accordion, includes Benjamin Geller on Viola, Mario Maggio on Bass Clarinet/Clarinet, Jen Baker & Andy Strain on Trombones, Andre Nigoghossian on Guitar/Saw, Ezra Gale on Bass and Daniel Bruno on Percussion. The production is directed by Rod Hipskind; set design by Banana Bag & Bodice; original costume design by Kaibrina Sky Buck, with additional costumes by SF Buffoons; lighting design by Miranda Hardy; sound design by Brendan West. Cat Coffey will stage manage.

Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage was awarded the Glickman Award for Best New Play of 2008! As well as the winner of the East Bay Express' Best Theatrical Production of the Year. The critics raved: "Hilarious...clever...has the makings of a cult fave." Variety, "Exhilaratingly eclectic and comic Banana-Shotgun Players world premiere, a two-hour creative deconstruction and celebration ... with a terrific, eclectic score" San Francisco Chronicle, "Part funky rock opera, part tart Brechtian parable, thoroughly visceral." San Jose Mercury News, "Rages with an anarchic energy" - SF Weekly, "brilliantly funny, muscular, and plain irresistible..." SF Bay Guardian, "One of the most exciting and unusual theatrical events of 2008...shrewd, highly imaginative, often startlingly designed." SF Bay Guardian, "That was f-ing awesome...the most thoroughly enjoyable theatrical display I've seen yet this year." East Bay Express.

Banana Bag & Bodice, an ensemble theatre company that works to redefine the traditional notion of performance through original texts and music has brought its own brand of outlandish, creative and poetic style to the downtown theatre scene for the past 5 years, creating such critically acclaimed favorites as Panel.Animal, The Sewers and The Fall & Rise of The Rising Fallen, mixing music and text with provocation, satire and whim. Shotgun Players is a company that exists to create fearless, provocative, relevant theatre. Over the past 18 years Shotgun has made a significant contribution to the modern theatrical canon with its bold, innovative commissions from playwrights such as Adam Bock, Marcus Gardley, Eisa Davis and Liz Duffy Adams.

Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, begins performances at the Abrons Arts Center (466 Grand Street @ Pitt) on Wednesday, March 31 and will open on Sunday, April 1, running through April 18. Beowulf will run Wednesday-Saturday at 8PM, Sunday at 5PM with a 2 hour running time with the intermission. 

Subway: F train to Delancey; J or M trains to Essex Street; D or B trains to Grand Street.

Bus: M15 to Grand Street; M22 to Montgomery Street; M9 to Grand Street; M14 to Grand Street; B39 to Essex

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