Cutting Ball Theatre Presents LADY GREY, 3/11-4/10

San Francisco's cutting-edge Cutting Ball Theater welcomes the spring with the Bay Area Premiere of LADY GREY (in ever lower light) and other plays by Will Eno, hailed by The New York Times as "a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation." LADY GREY (in ever lower light) and other plays, featuring Danielle O'Hare, Galen Murphy-Hoffman, Gwyneth Richards, and David Sinaiko, runs March 11-April 10 (Press opening: March 17) at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor (277 Taylor Street) in San Francisco. For tickets ($15-50) and more information, the public may visit www.cuttingball.com or call 800-838-3006.
 
In Lady Grey, a young woman relives a painful memory of show-and-tell in the classroom when she was a little girl. Intermission is a meta-theatrical wonder.  Like looking in a mirror, the Cutting Ball audience watches another audience during the intermission of a mysterious play. 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. An intimate, hilarious, and ultimately searing confrontation of actor and audience, LADY GREY (in ever lower light) and other plays is the perfect follow-up to Cutting Ball's 2009 hit production of Will Eno's Thom Pain (based on nothing).
 
"Cutting Ball Theater is honored to produce the Bay Area Premieres of Will Eno's Lady Grey, Intermission, and Mr. Theatre Comes Home Different," says Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose. "What makes Eno 'a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation' is that he is so much of our time.  Just as Beckett exploited the forms of slapstick comedy, vaudeville, and silent movies, Eno puts his profound ideas in the forms of stand-up comedy and the 24-hour news cycle.  The fact that he is able to tackle such weighty themes in these forms is exactly what makes his work so surprising and catches us off guard. He is one of the most exciting playwrights alive today and having him in residence at Cutting Ball this March is an extraordinary treat."
 
Continues Melrose, "Cutting Ball prides itself on producing playwrights who push the boundaries of what theater can be.  In these meta-theatrical plays, Eno looks at theater from many peculiar angles - from the view of a child doing show and tell, from the view of actors looking at the audience, and from the view of a character who embodies the very idea of theater itself. LADY GREY (in ever lower light) and other plays is a refreshing reminder of what makes this art form alive, vulnerable, comical, and mysterious."
 
Playwright Will Eno lives in New York. His play The Flu Season debuted at the Gate Theatre in London and won the Oppenheimer Award for the best New York debut by an American playwright in 2004. Thom Pain (based on nothing) ran for a year in New York and was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Drama; it was produced by Cutting Ball Theater in 2009. Eno's collection of short plays Oh, the Humanity and other good intentions was produced at The Flea Theater in 2007, starring Marisa Tomei and Brian Hutchison. TRAGEDY: a tragedy received its U.S. premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theater in 2008; an excerpt of the play appeared in the June 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine. Eno's most recent play, Middletown, premiered at the Vineyard Theatre in New York in 2010 and will appear at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago in 2011; the play made Eno the first recipient of the inaugural Horton Foote Prize.
 
In addition to LADY GREY (in ever lower light) and other plays, Rob Melrose, Artistic Director and co-founder of Cutting Ball Theater, has directed numerous productions for the company, including this season's productions of Eugenie Chan's Bone to Pick and Diadem (World Premiere), and The Tempest. Other Cutting Ball credits include Krapp's Last Tape, The Bald Soprano, Victims of Duty, Avant GardARAMA!, Endgame, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Hamletmachine, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Mayakovsky: A Tragedy, Roberto Zucco, The Vomit Talk of Ghosts (World Premiere), The Sandalwood Box, Pickling, Ajax, for Instance, Helen of Troy (World Premiere), and Drowning Room (World Premiere). Additionally, MelRose Translated No Exit, Woyzeck, Pelléas and Mélisande, and Ubu Roi. Other directing credits include productions at the Magic Theatre (An Accident), Guthrie Theater (Happy Days, Pen), California Shakespeare Theater (Villains, Fools, and Lovers), and Crowded Fire (The Train Play), among others. He has assistant directed productions at The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival (Hamlet, Oskar Eustis, director), Berkeley Repertory Theatre (The Pillowman, Les Waters, director), American Conservatory Theater (Indian Ink, Carey Perloff, director), Guthrie Theater (Othello, Joe Dowling, director), and Yale Repertory Theatre (Twelfth Night, Mark Rucker, director). Melrose was a 2007 recipient of the NEA / TCG Career Development Program for Directors; last spring, he was The Public Theater's artist in residence at Stanford University, where he directed a production of Troilus and Cressida. 
 
Cutting Ball Theater has assembled a talented ensemble for LADY GREY (in ever lower light) and other plays. Cutting Ball Associate Artist Danielle O'Hare (Lady Grey/Jill) returns to Cutting Ball, having appeared in the company's productions of No Exit, Helen of Troy, Fighter Airplanes, The Sandalwood Box, the evolutionists club, Mr. Fujiyama's Electric Beach, and The Hidden Classics Reading Series. Additionally, she has performed with theatre Q, Unidentified Theatre Company, Minnesota Fringe Festival, and Theater in the Round, and has appeared in numerous commercials and independent films. Galen Murphy-Hoffman (Jack) makes his Cutting Ball debut in Lady Grey (in ever lower light) and other plays. A recent transplant from Chicago, credits include productions with American Theater Company, Vintage Theater Collective, Drury Lane Oakbrook, The 16th St. Theater, and LiveWire Chicago, among others. Upcoming productions include roles at California Shakespeare Theater and San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.
 
Also returning to Cutting Ball are Gwyneth Richards (Intermission/Mrs. Smith) and David Sinaiko (Mr. Theatre / Mr. Smith). Richards has appeared in Cutting Ball's productions of The Taming of the Shrew, The Train Play, Trojan Barbie, Snakewoman, and Pelleas and Melisande. She is the recipient of a Bay Area Critics Circle Award and has numerous Bay Area stage credits, including her one-woman show, Born Again through Shakespeare, and the title roles in Ruth and the Sea and The Widow West for Wily West Productions, with whom she is a company member.

Additionally, Richards has taught classes on Shakespeare for over 25 years at venues including California Shakespeare Theater, American Conservatory Theater, and the College of Marin. An Associate Artist, Sinaiko most recently appeared in Cutting Ball's productions of The Tempest, Krapp's Last Tape, ...and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, The Bald Soprano, Victims of Duty, and Endgame. Other Cutting Ball credits include The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, The Sandalwood Box, Ajax for Instance, Macbeth, 365 Plays/365 Days, Woyzeck, Chain Reactions, and Risk is This...The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. Additional credits include Golden Thread's Jihad Jones & the Kalashnikov Babes, Crowded Fire's Wreckage, and SF Playhouse's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Sinaiko has been seen at the Goodman Theatre, The Actor's Gang, and in the popular Bay Area one-man production of David Sedaris's SantaLand Diaries.  He is a founding member of Chicago's New Crime Productions.
 
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.
 

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