Aurora Theatre Company to Stage World Premiere of LITTLE ERIK

Aurora Theatre Company continues its 24th season with the World Premiere of LITTLE ERIK. Written and directed by award-winning Bay Area auteur Mark Jackson (The Letters, The Arsonists, Salomania), LITTLE ERIK features Marilee Talkington, Joe Estlack, Wilma Bonet, Greg Ayers, Mariah Castle, and Jack Wittmayer. LITTLE ERIK plays January 29 through February 28 at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley. For tickets ($32-60) and information the public can call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org.

Joie brings in the big bucks from the tech industry. Her husband, Freddie, wants to write a great novel about human responsibility. On a weekend getaway to the new home they have built in the mountains north of San Francisco, their crippled son, Erik, drowns and their world turns upside down. This new play, developed at Aurora, grapples with the unsolvable mysterious forces that bind marriage, family, nature, and technology to our deepest hopes and dreams. About Jackson's work, the San Jose Mercury News said, "Playwright/director Mark Jackson has made his name as a first-class theatrical provocateur. Gutsy showmanship, brainy literary instincts, and laser-sharp satire mark his canon," and the East Bay Express declared "Anyone familiar with the work of playwright and director Mark Jackson can attest that he is an unparalleled talent in the Bay Area theatre scene, and possibly the nation at large."

LITLE ERIK is the mainstage production in this season's Global Age Project 2.0, an Aurora Theatre Company new works initiative whose purpose is to create theatrical work for Aurora's stages.

"Sometime in 2013 my partner, actor Beth Wilmurt, picked up an old copy of Ibsen's Little Eyolf at a used bookstore. She liked it and described it to me, and I was really intrigued by how contemporary the story sounded," said writer/director Mark Jackson. "The situations and emotions felt undeniably, at times shockingly, current. I was really excited by it because I'm a big fan of flawed characters in difficult emotional circumstances. I learn much more from them than I do from simplistic characters that function as poster children for some point of view."

Continued Jackson, "One great thing theater can do is provide a public space to gather and witness people struggling with life's conundrums. So we watch characters like those in LITTLE ERIK try and fail, almost succeed, fail again, and press on. They give us something to bounce off of. How might we ourselves handle their struggles? If a friend was going through something similar, how would we help them? Theater is a chance to practice compassion. My hope is that LITTLE ERIK offers people the chance to exercise compassion for the questionable choices we all make in our relationships from time to time."

Award-winning director, performer, and playwright Mark Jackson returns to Aurora Theatre Company, where he helmed the company's lauded productions of The Letters, The Arsonists, Salomania, Metamorphosis, Miss Julie, and Salome, to direct LITTLE ERIK. His most recent directorial projects include Bonnie & Clyde at Shotgun Players and The Beauty Queen of Leenane at Marin Theatre Company. Additional directing credits include Woyzeck, God's Plot, Shakespeare's Macbeth, The Forest War, The Death of Meyerhold, and his adaptations of Schiller's Mary Stuart and Goethe's Faust Pt1, all performed at Shotgun Players. Additional productions include The Companion Piece at Z Space, Yes, Yes to Moscow at Deutsches Theater Berlin (Germany) and the San Francisco International Arts Festival, and his original play American $uicide at Encore Theatre Company. The Death of Meyerhold garnered a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Original Script in 2003, which Jackson also received in 2002 for his original one-man show I Am Hamlet. Jackson was the founding Artistic Director of Art Street Theatre, for which he wrote and directed a number of plays. He was a 2005 German Chancellor Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and a 2003 playwright in residence at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program; he spent the autumn of 2013 as playwright in residence at the English Theatre Berlin in Germany.

Aurora Theatre Company has assembled a talented ensemble for LITTLE ERIK. Marilee Talkington, who appeared in the company's productions of Rapture Blister Burn, and the World Premiere of Mark Jackson's Salomania, returns as Joie in LITTLE ERIK. Credits include productions at Berkeley Repertory Theater, Crowded Fire Theater, American Conservatory Theater, Magic Theatre, and Center REPertory Company; she appeared off-Broadway in the World Premiere of Justin Quinn Pelegano's The Last Day and in A.R. Gurney's The Middle Ages. She has appeared in several off-Broadway productions and is the founder of Vanguardian Productions. Also returning is Joe Estlack as Freddie in LITTLE ERIK; he previously appeared in Aurora Theatre Company's Bay Area Premiere of THE LYONS. Additional credits include productions at Shotgun Players, Magic Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, San Jose Stage, Boxcar Theatre, Theater First, and Mugwumpin, among others.

Making her Aurora debut is Bay Area favorite Wilma Bonet as Rat Wife. Credits include productions at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Mark Taper Forum, Berkeley Repertory Theater, American Conservatory Theater, Magic Theatre, Marin Theater Company, and Campo Santo, among others. Greg Ayers returns to the Aurora as Bernie; he previously appeared in the company's production of Small Tragedies.

Rounding out the cast and making their Aurora debuts are Mariah Castle (San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Boxcar Theatre, and Willows Theatre) as Andi, and Jack Wittmayer (Berkeley Playhouse) as Erik.

Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen is considered one of greatest writers of 19th-century Norwegian literature and is generally acknowledged as the founder of modern prose drama. He launched a movement away from the Romantic style, unmasking the romantic hero, and bringing the problems and ideas of the day onto his stage. In his plays, Ibsen focused on characters rather than situations and created realistic dramas of psychological conflict. The productive life of Ibsen is divided into three periods: the first ending in 1877 with the successful appearance of The Pillars of Society; the second covering the years in which he wrote mostly dramas of protest against social conditions, such as Ghosts; and the third marked by the symbolic plays, The Master Builder and When We Dead Awaken. Other works by Ibsen include Peer Gynt (1867); The Emperor and the Galilean (1873); A Doll´s House (1879); An Enemy of the People (1882); Hedda Gabler (1890); Little Eyolf (1894); and John Gabriel Borkman (1896). Ibsen continued to write until a stroke in 1900.

Following the World Premiere of LITTLE ERIK is the West Coast Premiere of Sarah Treem's THE HOW AND THE WHY in March, directed by Joy Carlin and staged in the company's second stage performance space, Harry's UpStage, located in the Nell and Jules Dashow Wing. The season continues in April with the West Coast Premiere of David Ives' THE HEIR APPARENT directed by Josh Costello. Timothy Near makes her Aurora directing debut with the company's season closer in June, Athol Fugard's modern classic "MASTER HAROLD"... and the boys.

Voted Best Theater Company in 2012 by SF Weekly, Aurora Theatre Company continues to offer challenging, literate, intelligent stage works to the Bay Area, each year increasing its reputation for top-notch theater. Located in the heart of the Downtown Berkeley Arts District, Aurora Theatre Company, declared "one of the best regional theaters around" by 7x7 magazine, has been called "one of the most important regional theaters in the area" and "a must-see midsize company" by the San Francisco Chronicle, while The Wall Street Journal has "nothing but praise for the Aurora." The Contra Costa Times stated "perfection is probably an unattainable ideal in a medium as fluid as live performance, but the Aurora Theatre comes luminously close," while the San Jose Mercury News affirmed Aurora Theatre Company is "arguably the finest small theater in the Bay Area," and the Oakland Tribune stated "it's all about choices, and if you value good theater, choose the Aurora."
FOR CALENDAR EDITORS:

Aurora Theatre Company continues its 24th season with the World Premiere of LITTLE ERIK, written and directed by award-winning Bay Area auteur Mark Jackson (The Letters, The Arsonists, Salomania). Joie brings in the big bucks from the tech industry. Her husband, Freddie, wants to write a great novel about human responsibility. On a weekend getaway to the new home they have built in the mountains north of San Francisco, their crippled son, Erik, drowns and their world turns upside down. This new play, developed at Aurora, grapples with the unsolvable mysterious forces that bind marriage, family, nature, and technology to our deepest hopes and dreams. Featuring Marilee Talkington, Joe Estlack, Wilma Bonet, Greg Ayers, Mariah Castle, and Jack Wittmayer.

About Jackson's work, the San Jose Mercury News said, "Playwright/director Mark Jackson has made his name as a first-class theatrical provocateur. Gutsy showmanship, brainy literary instincts, and laser-sharp satire mark his canon," and the East Bay Express declared "Anyone familiar with the work of playwright and director Mark Jackson can attest that he is an unparalleled talent in the Bay Area theatre scene, and possibly the nation at large."

LITLE ERIK is the mainstage production in this season's Global Age Project 2.0, an Aurora Theatre Company new works initiative whose purpose is to create theatrical work for Aurora's stages.

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