Cutting Ball Theater Announces Their 2010-11 Season

San Francisco's cutting-edge Cutting Ball Theater proudly announces the lineup for its 11th season. The season opens in November with a distinctive take on Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST. Back by popular demand is Eugenie Chan's retelling of the Ariadne myth BONE TO PICK, which received its World Premiere in Cutting Ball's 2007-2008 season as part of Avant GardARAMA!; this provocative play, starring Paige Rogers, will be accompanied by a newly commissioned companion piece, DIADEM, in January. The company is also poised to present playwright Will Eno's LADY GREY (in ever lower light) and other plays in March. Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose will direct all three productions. RISK IS THIS...THE CUTTING BALL NEW EXPERIMENTAL PLAYS FESTIVAL returns to round out the season in May with five exhilarating new works for the stage, three of which were commissioned by Cutting Ball. In addition to the mainstage season, Cutting Ball Theater continues its Hidden Classics Reading Series with five new installments. The entire 2010-11 season will be staged in San Francisco at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor. For tickets and information, the public may visit cuttingball.com or call 800-838-3006.

"The Cutting Ball Theater's mission is to create productions of experimental new plays and re-visioned classics with an emphasis on language and images," said Artistic Director Rob Melrose. "This season, we live up to that mission in many ways with a re-visioned Shakespeare, works by Will Eno, a World Premiere by resident playwright Eugenie Chan, plus our experimental new plays festival Risk is This. With support from The Kenneth Rainin Foundation and The San Francisco Foundation, we have been able to expand Risk is This to include three new play commissions - an exploration of a fairy tale through movement and songs by Eugenie Chan; a documentary theater piece about the Tenderloin district by Annie Elias; and a musical version of L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz. Our 11th season indeed promises to be one of our most exciting seasons yet."

In chronological order, The Cutting Ball Theater 2010-11 season is as follows:

THE TEMPEST
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Rob Melrose
November 5 - 28, 2010
Press Opening: November 11
Gala Opening: November 12

Cutting Ball Theater opens its 11th season with THE TEMPEST, one of Shakespeare's most magical and romantic plays. The exiled Duke of Milan uses sorcery to cause a shipwreck to take his treacherous brother to an enchanted isle. But magic works both ways in this tale when the creatures of the island turn against the Duke and his daughter falls in love with his enemy's son. In the tradition of Cutting Ball's uniquely San Franciscan Taming of the Shrew and expressionistic Macbeth, this three-person chamber version of THE TEMPEST promises to give an up close and personal look at the monsters lurking inside all of us.

BONE TO PICK/DIADEM
By Eugenie Chan
Directed by Rob Melrose
January 14 - February 13, 2011
Press Opening: January 20
Gala Opening: January 21

Back by popular demand, Cutting Ball Theater presents playwright Eugenie Chan's BONE TO PICK. Re-imagining the myth of Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur in a postmodern exploration of love, war, and complicity, this incendiary play, nominated for the 2008 Glickman Award for Best New Play, received its World Premiere in Cutting Ball's Avant GardARAMA!, becoming a stand-out of the 2007-08 season. The San Francisco Chronicle called the production "richly rewarding right down to its marrow," noting Paige Rogers' performance as "riveting;" Rogers will reprise her tour de force role for this re-staging.

Accompanying BONE TO PICK is a newly commissioned companion piece, also by Chan,DIADEM, a classical retelling of the earlier parts of Ariadne's myth, when she was first in love. Together, these two original works tell the complete story of Ariadne's epic romance.

LADY GREY (in ever lower light) and other plays
By Will Eno
Directed by Rob Melrose
March 11 - April 10, 2011
Press Opening: March 17
Gala Opening: March 18

Cutting Ball Theater welcomes the spring with LADY GREY (in ever lower light) and other plays, three short plays by acclaimed contemporary playwright Will Eno, hailed by The New York Times as "a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart Generation." An intimate, hilarious, and ultimately searing confrontation of actor and audience, Lady Grey is the perfect follow-up to Cutting Ball's 2009 hit production of Eno's Thom Pain. In Intermission, the fourth wall is broken as the audience watches another audience during the intermission of another play in this meta-theatrical wonder. Finally, in his brief time on the world's stage, Mr. Theatre lives out the seven ages of man in a playful manner that echoes Shakespeare as much as it does Beckett in Mr. Theatre Comes Home Different.

RISK IS THIS...THE CUTTING BALL NEW EXPERIMENTAL PLAYS FESTIVAL
May 6 - June 25, 2011

Risk is This...The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival is the only play festival in America solely dedicated to experimental works for the stage. This year's festival features five staged readings of new plays that push the boundaries of what theater can be.

TONTLAWALD
Cutting Ball Commission
By Eugenie Chan
Directed by Paige Rogers
May 6-7, 2011

Based on an ancient Estonian tale about a dark forest and an abused girl who hides there,TONTLAWALD weaves movement, a cappella singing, and storytelling together into a gorgeous spectacle for the eyes and ears. Written by Cutting Ball's resident playwright Eugenie Chan and directed by co-founder Paige Rogers, TONTLAWALD is slated to receive its fully staged World Premiere as part of the company's 2011-2012 season.

KRISPY KRITTERS THE SCARLET NIGHT
By Andrew Saito
Directed by Rob Melrose
May 20-21, 2011

Drumhead looks for Jesus as he puts dead mice into boxes of Lucky Charms. Snowflake freezes on the corner waiting for customers in her coat lined with baby blue fur. With KRISPY KRITTERS THE SCARLET NIGHT, playwright Andrew Saito dazzles with sublime, surreal language and imagery fit for a Dalí painting.

MADAME HO
By Eugenie Chan
Directed by Rob Melrose
May 27-28, 2011

MADAME HO tells the story of a formidable woman in the Wild West, a real-life 19th century brothel hostess, single mother, Chinese immigrant, great-great grandmother, and ghost.

OZMA OF OZ
Cutting Ball Commission
Adapted from the novel by L .Frank Baum
Rob Melrose (book and lyrics)
David Levison (music)
Directed by Rob Melrose
June 10-11, 2011

Cutting Ball Artistic director Rob Melrose collaborates with Dave Levison of the San Francisco-based punk/funk group Z.O.N.K. to create Cutting Ball's first musical, a trip-hop fantasy that captures L. Frank Baum's American breed of surrealism with just a hint of the post-modern. InOZMA OF OZ, Dorothy is transported to the land of Ev with a talking chicken named Billina. Together, they plot to overthrow the evil Nome King, but realize they cannot succeed with out the help of a mysterious princess.

TENDER LOIN
Cutting Ball Commission
By Annie Elias
Directed by Annie Elias
June 24-25, 2011

Annie Elias brings her years of experience in documentary theater to the Tenderloin, creating an unforgettable piece about the people and places in Cutting Ball's neighborhood.

Hidden Classics Reading Series

This season, Cutting Ball's Hidden Classics Reading Series explores a variety of extraordinary works ranging from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the Elizabethans, and from 18th century France to modern experimentalism. The series offers a profound look at some of the greatest authors ever to write for the stage in a program that continues to be one of San Francisco's best-kept secrets.

ANDROMACHE

By Euripides

Directed by Amy Clare Tasker

October 3, 2010

Cutting Ball opens the Hidden Classics Reading Series with Greek playwright Euripides' rarely performed play ANDROMACHE. Long after the Trojan War ends, Hector's dutiful wife Andromache finds herself in Sparta as the concubine of Achilles' son Neoptolemus. When Neoptolemus's wife, daughter of Helen of Troy, learns that Andromache has a son with her husband, she vows revenge.

EPICOENE, OR THE SILENT WOMEN
By Ben Johnson
Directed by Michael Sexton
December 5, 2010

From playwright Ben Johnson, Shakespeare's greatest literary rival, comes EPICOENE, OR THE SILENT WOMEN. A man with a pathological hatred of noise seeks to disinherit his nephew by marrying a quiet woman named Epicoene. Little does he know that the entire marriage was orchestrated to make him go mad in a hilarious cacophony of chaos.

THE BRAGGART SOLDIER
By Plautus
Directed by Evren Odcikin
January 30, 2011

A pompous soldier can't help bragging about his exploits while his followers feign admiration (and secretly plot his downfall). THE BRAGGART SOLDIER witnesses the birth of the stock character used for centuries by Commedia dell'Arte in the form of Capitano, later revived in Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

THE FALSE SUITOR
By Marivaux
In a new translation by George and Anne Crowe
Directed by Rob Melrose
April 3, 2011

Master comedian Pierre Marivaux is the true heir to Molière in this comedy about class and identity. In THE FALSE SUITOR, his last play performed in a Public Theater, Marivaux explores social prejudice from a new angle, by digging deep into the heart of his heroine.

THE INSECT PLAY
By Josef and Karel Capek
Directed by Bennett Fisher
June 12, 2011

One of the last plays from renowned Czech dramatist Karel Capek and his brother Josef, THE INSECT PLAY constructs an impish satire of human relationships, using butterflies and beetles to explore human vices.

Co-founded in 1999 by theater artists Rob Melrose and Paige Rogers, Cutting Ball Theater presents avant-garde works of the past, present, and future by re-envisioning classics, exploring seminal avant-garde texts, and developing new experimental plays. Cutting Ball Theater has partnered with Playwrights Foundation, the Magic Theatre, and Z Space New Plays Initiative to commission new experimental works. The company has produced a number of World Premieres, West Coast Premieres, and re-imagined various classics. Recipient of the 2008 San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie award for outstanding talent in the performing arts, Cutting Ball Theater earned the Best of SF award in 2006 from SF Weekly and was selected by San Francisco Magazine as Best Classic Theater in 2007. Cutting Ball Theater was recently featured in the February 2010 issue of American Theatre Magazine.

All main stage performances Thursday-Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 5pm
All Hidden Classics readings are Sundays at 1pm

WHERE:

The Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor
277 Taylor St., San Francisco

TICKETS:

For tickets or more information, the public may visit cuttingball.com or call 800-838-3006; discounts available for students, seniors, and groups

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