Cutting Ball Theater Presents PELLEAS & MELISANDE, Previews Tonight

Cutting Ball Theater opens its 12th season with French symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck's PELLEAS & MELISANDE, in a new translation by Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose. PELLEAS & MELISANDE has all the ingredients for a classic fairy tale: a princess in distress, a handsome prince, and a beautiful castle. Yet this seminal avant-garde play reveals that it is often easy to hide secrets in The Shadows of the familiar. After Melisande's royal wedding does not lead to nuptial bliss, her growing feelings for her husband's brother Pelleas threaten to jeopardize her happily ever after. Their tragic love affair has inspired music from Claude Debussy's opera to orchestral works by Gabriel Faure, and Jean Sibelius. Director Rob Melrose's production will feature a musical score by composer Cliff Caruthers, video installations by Wesley Cabral, and choreography by Laura Arrington. Joshua Schell, Catilyn Louchard, Derek Fischer, Paul Gerrior, and Gwyneth Richards star in this story of forbidden, doomed love, along with Bennett Fisher, Jessica Rudholm, Carla Pauli, and Brittany Kilcoyne McGregor.

Additionally, San Francisco's EXIT Press will publish Melrose's translation of PELLEAS & MELISANDE, along with his translations of Ubu Roi and Woyzeck; the book will include an introduction by Oscar Eustis, Artistic Director of The Public Theater.

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. Voted "Best Theater Company" in the 2010 San Francisco Bay Guardian Best of The Bay issue, Cutting Ball Theater also earned the Best of SF award in 2006 from SF Weekly, was selected by San Francisco Magazine as Best Classic Theater in 2007, and received the 2008 San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie award for outstanding talent in the performing arts. Cutting Ball Theater was featured in the February 2010 issue of American Theatre Magazine.

DATES:
Previews: October 21, 22, 8pm; October 23, 5pm
Opens: October 27, 2011 (Press opening: Thurs., October 27, 8pm; Gala Opening: Fri., October 28, 8pm)

Closes: November 27

All performances Thursday-Saturday at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm, and Sunday at 5pm

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

TICKETS:
For tickets ($15-50) and more information, the public may visit cuttingball.com or call 800-838-3006; student discounts available

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