Cutting Ball Theater Sets 2016-17 Season

San Francisco's cutting-edge Cutting Ball Theater announces the lineup for its 18th season. The main stage season opens in October with Avant GardARAMA!, a festival of seven short experimental plays, featuring Bay Area directors, followed by Henrik Ibsen's HEDDA GABLER, directed by Yury Urnov. The season closes with Jean Racine's PHÈDRE, directed by Cutting Ball Producing Associate Artistic Director Ariel Craft, in a new translation by Founding Artistic Director Rob Melrose. The entire 2016-17 season will be staged in San Francisco at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor (277 Taylor Street at Ellis). Memberships on sale now; single tickets on sale June 13. For information about season memberships, tickets, and information, the public may visit cuttingball.com or call 415-525-1205.

"Cutting Ball's 18th season champions two of drama's most radical female protagonists: Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and Jean Racine's Phèdre. These two women, who rail against what society pushes them to do, exemplify a line-crossing boldness that sits at the core of Cutting Ball's identity," said incoming Artistic Director Paige Rogers. "As an experimental theater, we are committed to refusing the boundaries of modern dramatic form, charting new territory in poetic, abstract, resonate performance. Breaking the rules is an integral part of our practice. Rededicating ourselves to this identity, we've programmed a season rooted in and inspired by the act of rule-breaking."

Continued Rogers, "The 2016-17 season marks Cutting Ball's eighteenth year of creating work and also marks my first season as Artistic Director. I look forward, in this coming year of programming, to defying our audiences' expectations of Cutting Ball. As with our previous seasons, nurturing an appreciation and appetite for the non-traditional is our ultimate goal."

In chronological order, The Cutting Ball Theater 2016-17 season is as follows:

Avant GardARAMA!

October 5 - October 23, 2016

Cutting Ball Theater opens its 18th season with Avant GardARAMA! For the first time since 2008, Avant GardARAMA! returns with a raucous anthology production of short, sharp experimental works helmed by some of the Bay Area's most enterprising directors. An eclectic collection of pieces, the Avant GardARAMA! festival encourages audiences to embrace wildness, unpredictability, and different directorial voices.

HEDDA GABLER

By Henrik Ibsen

Directed by Yury Urnov

January 19 - February 26, 2017

Press opening: January 23

Hedda has returned from her honeymoon with a sigh of ennui, burdened by a husband who fails to ignite or enthrall her, and a new life that fails to impress. When old acquaintances come knocking, she discovers a direction and purpose in manipulating the fates of those around her with callous abandon, leading to disastrous ends. Visionary director Yury Urnov (Ubu Roi) returns to Cutting Ball to tackle one of Ibsen's most revered plays and one of theater's most riveting protagonists.

PHÈDRE

Written by Jean Racine

In a new translation by Rob Melrose

Directed by Ariel Craft

April 20 - May 21, 2017

Press opening: April 24

Cutting Ball closes its 18th season with Jean Racine's PHÈDRE, directed by Producing Associate Artistic Director Ariel Craft. Phèdre used to be a devoted wife and a model mother. Now her secret desires are becoming harder to hide as her resolve cracks and an attraction to her maturing stepson becomes inescapable and all-consuming. Impossible passions and absolute taboos combust in this classic dramatic tragedy, first staged in Paris in 1677. Dating back to Ancient Greece, PHÈDRE remains the reigning champion and golden standard for salacious and scandalous familial dysfunction.

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