Berkeley Rep Announces Full Cast For METAMORPHOSES

Berkeley Repertory Theatre today announced the full cast and creative team for Metamorphoses. This co-production with the Guthrie Theater is led by nationally and internationally renowned writer and director Mary Zimmerman.

At the turn of the millennium, Berkeley Rep presented Mary Zimmerman's breathtaking Metamorphoses - it later received a critically acclaimed Broadway run and garnered her the Tony Award for best director. Since then, Zimmerman has become a Berkeley Rep favorite, enthralling audiences with eight gorgeous productions including most recently The Arabian Nights, The White Snake, and Treasure Island.

"Mary Zimmerman is an artist whose work is infused with beauty, imagination, and intelligence," says Artistic Director Tony Taccone. "At the heart of her storytelling lies a wellspring of empathy that always feels restorative. Metamorphoses is a soaring, lyrical play that touches the very core of our humanity. We are thrilled to present it as a part of our 50th anniversary season."

Dreams and reality collide with gods and mortals in Mary Zimmerman's ode to the power of love - and the shadows that lurk beneath it. From a pool of water in the intimate 400-seat Peet's Theatre, she summons Ovid's classical tales of passion, betrayal, hope, and transformation, inviting us into a realm of shared cultural myths and beautiful, unshakable visions.

Previews for Metamorphoses begin Thursday, January 24, 2019 and the show runs through Sunday, March 10, 2019. Press day will be Thursday, January 31, 2019. Ticket for the run start at $40, and can be purchased online at berkeleyrep.org or by phone at 510 647-2949 (Tue-Sun, noon-7pm).

Metamorphoses premiered in New York City at The Second Stage Theatre in September, 2001 (Artistic Director: Carole Rothman; Managing Director: Carol Fishman; Executive Director: Alexander Fraser) and was originally produced by Lookingglass Theatre Company, Chicago. It is based on Ovid's Metamorphoses translated by David Slavitt and published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. The section of Rainer Maria Rilke's poem "Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes" was translated by Stephen Mitchell (1995, Modern).

CREATIVE TEAM

Mary Zimmerman (Adaptor/Director) Mary received the 2002 Tony Award for Best Director and a 1998 MacArthur Fellowship. This is her ninth show for Berkeley Rep, following acclaimed productions of The Arabian Nights, Argonautika, Journey to the West, Metamorphoses, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, The Secret in the Wings, Treasure Island, and The White Snake. These plays - and others that she's adapted and directed such as The Jungle Book, Eleven Rooms of Proust, The Odyssey, Silk, and S/M - have enjoyed celebrated runs at Brooklyn Academy Of Music, Goodman Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Lookingglass Theatre Company, the Mark Taper Forum, McCarter Theatre Center, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Second Stage Theatre. She also directed All's Well That Ends Well and Pericles for the Goodman, Henry VIII and Measure for Measure for the New York Shakespeare Festival, A Midsummer Night's Dream for the Huntington, and Guys and Dolls for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and at L.A.'s Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. In 2002, Mary created a new opera with Philip Glass called Galileo Galilei, which was presented at BAM, the Goodman, and the Barbican in London. In recent years, she has staged Armida, and La Sonnambula for the Metropolitan Opera in New York and Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met and at La Scala, Milan. Based in Chicago, Mary has won numerous Joseph Jefferson Awards - the city's top theatrical honors - including prizes for best production and best direction. She is a member of Lookingglass, an artistic associate of the Goodman, and she holds the Jaharis Family Foundation Chair in Performance Studies at Northwestern University.

Willy Schwarz (Composer)

Willy composed the original music for Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses, for which he won the 2002 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play. Other collaborations with Ms. Zimmerman include The Odyssey, for which he received the 2000 Joseph Jefferson Award for Original Music, and Journey to the West, which won the Bay Area Theatre Critics' Circle Award for 1997, as well as The Baltimore Waltz at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. For Steppenwolf Theatre he served as onstage music director for the La Jolla, London, and Tony Award-winning Broadway production of The Grapes of Wrath, and composed for and appeared in A Clockwork Orange. He founded and conducted the highly praised All-American Immigrant Orchestra, which he then revived in Germany with his Bremen Immigrant Orchestra. He composed and performed an original score for the silent film classic The Light of Asia, which was screened twice at the 2018 Berlinale filmfest. Willy has toured and performed with such diverse artists as Tom Waits, Theodore Bikel, Ravi Shankar, David Amram, Robert Bly, Shlomo Carlebach, Holly Cole, and Leon Russell. His solo CDs received the highest critical acclaim in Europe, and the CD of Metamorphoses and other plays directed by Mary Zimmerman was issued by Knitting Factory Records in 2002.

Daniel Ostling (Scenic Designer) Daniel is a two-time Tony Award-nominated scenic designer based in San Francisco and Taipei whose credits at Berkeley Rep include The White Snake, The Arabian Nights, Argonautika, Black n Blue Boys/Broken Men, Closer, Metamorphoses, and The Secret in the Wings. He is a longtime collaborator with Mary Zimmerman and a fellow ensemble member of Lookingglass Theatre Company. Recent productions include Journey of the Midnight Sun in Shanghai, Love's Labour's Lost at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Cleopatra (ballet) for K-Ballet in Tokyo. He has worked at numerous regional theatres across the country, including the Brooklyn Academy Of Music, New York Shakespeare Festival, Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, Steppenwolf, Goodman Theatre, American Conservatory Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, and Arena Stage, among many others. Opera designs include Rusalka, Lucia Di Lammermoor, and La Sonnambula (Metropolitan Opera/La Scala), and Philip Glass' Galileo Galilei (Goodman, Barbican). Internationally, Daniel's work has been seen in Milan, London, Tokyo, Shanghai, Melbourne, and Calgary.

Mara Blumenfeld (Costume Designer)

Mara is a Chicago-based freelance costume designer and an ensemble member of Lookingglass Theatre Company, where she has designed over 35 productions. Elsewhere in Chicago, she has designed numerous productions for Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Writers Theatre, and Court Theatre. Regional credits include multiple productions with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Rep, Seattle Repertory Theatre, McCarter Theatre Center, Asolo Rep, the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC, and the Arden Theatre in her hometown of Philadelphia. New York credits include Mary Zimmerman's off-Broadway and Broadway productions of Metamorphoses as well as her productions of Lucia di Lammermoor, La Sonnambula, and Rusalka for the Metropolitan Opera. A frequent collaborator with Ms. Zimmerman, she has designed over 15 of her productions, including The Jungle Book, The Arabian Nights, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, The Odyssey, and Eleven Rooms of Proust. Her international credits include productions for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada; Tokyo DisneySea and K-Ballet in Tokyo, Japan; the Barbican Center and Donmar Warehouse in London; Melbourne Theatre Company in Australia; and Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy. She has been honored with the 2012 Michael Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration, a TCG Design Fellowship and is the recipient of four of Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Awards for Costume Design.

T.J. Gerckens (Lighting Designer)

T.J. is pleased to return to Berkeley Rep where he previously designed The Arabian Nights, Journey to the West, Metamorphoses, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, The Secret in the Wings, Treasure Island, and The White Snake. Recent designs include Guys and Dolls at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Wallis Annenberg Center, Treasure Island and Blood Wedding at Lookingglass Theatre Company, and Mary Zimmerman's adaptation of Disney's The Jungle Book at Goodman Theatre and the Huntington Theatre Company. Other notable designs include the Mary Zimmerman and Philip Glass opera Galileo Galilei at the Goodman; Pericles at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC; and Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy. T.J.'s New York designs include Lucia di Lammermoor and La Sonnambula for the Metropolitan Opera, Measure for Measure in Central Park, Metamorphoses on and off Broadway, and The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci at Second Stage. He has received numerous honors for his lighting, including a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award, Chicago's Jefferson Award, Drama Critics Circle Award, Los Angeles Ovation Award, and New York's Drama Desk Award. T.J. is the faculty lighting designer at Otterbein University.

Andre Pluess (Sound Designer)

Andre has worked with Berkeley Rep on numerous shows: after the quake, Angels in America, The Arabian Nights, Argonautika, Blue Door, Ghost Light, Honour, Metamorphoses, The Secret in the Wings, Treasure Island, and The White Snake. His Broadway credits include 33 Variations, The Clean House, I Am My Own Wife, and Metamorphoses. His other credits include many productions for About Face Company (artistic associate), Court Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre Company (artistic associate), Northlight Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Victory Gardens Theater (resident designer), and other Chicago and regional theatres. His more recent projects include Cymbeline at the Shakespeare Theatre, Equivocation at Arena Stage, Ghost Light and The Merchant of Venice at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Macbeth and Titus Andronicus at California Shakespeare Theater (where he is an artistic associate), Palomino at Center Theatre Group, Sex with Strangers at Steppenwolf, and Stage Kiss at the Goodman, as well as the score for the film The Business of Being Born. Andre received a Barrymore Award, a Drama Critics Circle Award, Drama Desk and Lortel nominations, multiple Joseph Jefferson Awards and Citations, and an LA Ovation Award for composition and sound design.

CAST

Steven Epp (Erysichthon) Steven has appeared at Berkeley Rep in Treasure Island, Tartuffe, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, A Doctor in Spite of Himself, Figaro, The Miser, and Don Juan Giovanni. His off-Broadway credits include Hamlet at the New Victory Theatre and Servant of Two Masters at Theatre for a New Audience. Regional credits include productions at American Repertory Theatre, Alley Theatre, the Guthrie Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, the Spoleto Festival, Center Stage in Baltimore, Shakespeare Theatre Company in DC, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Trinity Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, South Coast Rep, and The Old Globe. Steven was an actor, writer, and co-artistic director at Theatre de la Jeune Lune, winner of the 2005 Tony Award for Best Regional Theatre, 1983-2008. Acting credits include title roles in Tartuffe, Hamlet, Figaro, The Miser, and Man of La Mancha. He received the 1993 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Play for Children of Paradise, was a 1999 Fox Fellow, a 2009 McKnight Theatre Fellow, and a 2011 Beinecke Fellow, and received the 2012 Best Actor Helen Hayes Award and the 2017 Best Actor Ivey Award.

Raymond Fox (Midas and Others) Raymond is delighted to return to Berkeley Rep where he previously appeared in The Secret in the Wings and Metamorphoses. He was in the original off-Broadway and Broadway casts of Metamorphoses (Second Stage Theatre, Circle in the Square Theatre). His regional credits include Goodman Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Arden Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, Route 66 Theatre, Hartford Stage, American Repertory Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Meadow Brook Theatre, the House Theatre of Chicago, Mark Taper Forum, Court Theatre, McCarter Theatre Center, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, First Folio Theatre, Canada's Stratford Festival, and TimeLine Theatre, where he appeared in Blood and Gifts, receiving a 2013 Equity Jeff Award for Supporting Actor. Raymond is an ensemble member with Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre and a graduate of Northwestern University and the ART Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University.

Rodney Gardiner (Phaeton) Rodney has spent the last nine years as a vital company member at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, playing a wide range of roles. Among his favorite credits are Guys & Dolls, Julius Caesar, Comedy of Errors, The Wiz, and several world premieres. Regionally, Rodney has also performed at The Old Globe, Kirk Douglas Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, and Utah Shakespeare Festival. As an associate artist with Waterwell, Rodney has co-devised and performed in several shows, including Marco Millions, which was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. Rodney also holds an NAACP Award for his performance in Gem of the Ocean (Fountain Theatre). Rodney has performed his solo show, Episodes in Blue, at schools and festivals in New York and New Jersey. Currently, he is workshopping a new piece, Brick City Chronicles, a retelling of the Moses narrative through soul music. Rodney is a graduate of SUNY Purchase.

Benjamin Ismail (Hermes/Vertumnus) Benjamin is happy to be returning to Berkeley Rep after playing Louis in last season's revival of Angels in America. Select regional credits include The Invisible Hand (American Stage Theatre Company); Disgraced, Speech & Debate, Tribes, and The Santaland Diaries (Capital Stage); Peter Pan and The Secret Garden (Playhouse on the Square); Cloud 9, The Pillowman, The Submission, and Compleat Female Stage Beauty (Big Idea Theatre); and The Mystery of Irma Vep and Cinderella (Sacramento Theatre Company). Benjamin has also directed many shows from Florida to California, most recently including productions of Between Riverside & Crazy, Much Ado About Nothing, August: Osage County, and Antony & Cleopatra. Love to the J's.

Louise Lamson (Alcyon) Louise is thrilled to return to Berkeley Rep where she appeared in Metamorphoses and The Secret in the Wings. Most recently she was at Lookingglass Theatre in the world premiere of Plantation! Other Lookingglass credits include The Idiot, Hard Times, The Secret in the Wings, Icarus (the Getty Villa, Los Angeles), The Brothers Karamazov, Our Town, The Arabian Nights, Ethan Frome, The Little Prince, and Death Tax. Other Chicago credits include About Face Theatre's Bash (After Dark Award and Jeff Award nomination) and The Odyssey (Goodman Theatre). New York credits include Metamorphoses (Second Stage Theatre and Broadway) and The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Second Stage Theatre). Louise is a graduate of Northwestern University.

Felicity Jones Latta (Aphrodite) Felicity last appeared at Berkeley Rep 25 years ago in Don Juan Giovanni and 15 years ago in Metamorphoses on Broadway. Other credits include the Broadway tour of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Captain's Tiger with Athol Fugard (Manhattan Theatre Club), and Measure for Measure (New York Shakespeare Festival). She has performed on stages around the country including American Conservatory Theater, Baltimore Center Stage, Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre Company, La Jolla Playhouse, McCarter Theatre Center, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Westport Country Playhouse, and Yale Repertory Theatre. She was artistic associate with Theatre de la Jeune Lune from 1985 to 1995. She is currently associate director at Lattawork Productions, devoted to arts in education. Film and television credits include Signs, Julie & Julia, The Carrie Diaries, Wonderland, Deadline, Ed, and Law & Order. Felicity is a 2014 Lunt-Fontanne Fellow.

Alex Moggridge (Ceyx) Alex is delighted to be reuniting with Mary Zimmerman at Berkeley Rep, having appeared in 2016's Treasure Island. Also at Berkeley Rep, Alex appeared in Three Sisters and Chinglish. Regionally, he has appeared at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Long Wharf Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, and Artists Rep, among others. New York credits include the Broadway production of Betrayal, starring Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz and directed by Mike Nichols. In the Bay Area, he has performed at American Conservatory Theater, Aurora Theatre Company, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Center Rep, Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, SF Playhouse, and Shotgun Players. Film and TV credits include Batman Begins, The Defenders, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Person of Interest, and Trauma. Alex is also a writer. His plays have appeared off Broadway and regionally. Most recently, his play The Boatman made its world premiere at the newly formed Flint Repertory Theatre.

Sango Tajima (Eurydice) Sango is happy to be making her Berkeley Rep stage debut, after facilitating discussions in the audience for Anna Deavere Smith's Notes from the Field. Recent regional credits include Women Laughing Alone with Salad (Shotgun Players); In Braunau (SF Playhouse Sandbox Series); The Wolves, Shakespeare in Love, and The Jungle Book (Marin Theatre Company); The Mineola Twins and Life is a Dream (Cutting Ball Theater); and We Are Pussy Riot (Theatre Battery). She is a proud member of the political theatre collective, the Bonfire Makers, with whom she has created several shows and actions. She has a BFA from the University of Michigan.

Lisa Tejero (Therapist) Lisa appeared at Berkeley Rep in The White Snake, Journey to the West, and Metamorphoses. She was also in the Broadway production of Metamorphoses at Circle in the Square Theatre. She just finished a production of Anything Goes at Arena Stage where she last did Metamorphoses. Before that she was King Lear with BackRoom Shakespeare Project. She is an artistic associate of Lookingglass, where she has appeared in 1984, Argonautika, and Ethan Frome. Also in Chicago Lisa has appeared in As You Like It, Ghostwritten, Journey to the West, Mirror of the Invisible World, The Odyssey, and Silk at Goodman Theatre; Kafka on the Shore at Steppenwolf Theatre; as well as Lady Bracknell at Iowa Summer Repertory and Lady Macbeth with Oak Park Shakespeare Festival. She has also worked at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Cincinnati Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, McCarter Theatre Center, Milwaukee Rep, Seattle Rep, and Shakespeare Theatre Company. Lisa is a recipient of a Drama League Distinguished Performance nomination and, recently, a Jeff Award nomination for her portrayal of Vivian Bearing in Hypocrite Theatre's production of Wit.

For the 2018-19 season, Berkeley Rep recognizes the continued commitment and support of season sponsors BART, Peet's Coffee, and Wells Fargo. Berkeley Rep is also delighted to have Jack and Betty Schafer, Michael and Sue Steinberg, and The Strauch Kulhanjian Family on board as individual season sponsors. Metamorphoses is made possible by lead sponsors Bruce Golden and Michelle Mercer and executive sponsor Susan Chamberlin.

ABOUT BERKELEY REP

Berkeley Repertory Theatre has grown from a storefront stage to an international leader in innovative theatre. Known for its ambition, relevance, and excellence, as well as its adventurous audience, the nonprofit has provided a welcoming home for emerging and established artists since 1968. Over 5.5 million people have enjoyed nearly 500 shows at Berkeley Rep, which have gone on to win five Tony Awards, seven Obie Awards, nine Drama Desk Awards, one Grammy Award, and many other honors. Berkeley Rep received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 1997. Its School of Theatre engages and educates some 20,000 people a year and helps build the audiences of tomorrow with its nationally recognized teen programs. Berkeley Rep's bustling facilities - which also include the 400-seat Peet's Theatre, the 600-seat Roda Theatre, and a spacious campus in West Berkeley - are helping revitalize a renowned city. Be a Rep. Learn more at berkeleyrep.org.

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