Cutting Ball to Continue Hidden Classics Reading Series with VENUS AND ADONIS, 4/27

Cutting Ball Theater presents the fourth installment of this season's Hidden Classics Reading Series, VENUS AND ADONIS by William Shakespeare.

Presented as a one-woman piece featuring Cutting Ball Associate Artist Ponder Goddard (Ubu Roi, Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep), this long poem from Shakespeare, inspired by a passage from Ovid's Metamorphosis, depicts the love between the goddess Venus and the hunter Adonis. Celebrated for its visionary use of shifting perspective and shocking sexuality, Shakespeare's poem showcases both the Bard's unparalleled command of language and profound insight into the nature of love.

VENUS AND ADONIS will take place the weekend following Shakespeare's 450th birthday. Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose directs.

This season, Cutting Ball's Hidden Classics Reading Series celebrates a variety of works ranging from the ancient Mayans to the ancient Greeks, the Elizabethans to French avant-garde, and Brazilian experimentalism. The series offers a profound look at some of the most adventurous authors to write for the stage in a program that continues to be one of San Francisco's best-kept secrets.

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. The company has commissioned, developed, and produced new experimental plays, and has partnered with Playwrights Foundation, and the Magic Theatre/Z Space New Plays Initiative to commission new experimental works. In addition to producing West Coast Premieres and re-imaging various classics, Cutting Ball Theater has produced nine World Premieres and seven World Premiere translations. Cutting Ball received the 2008 San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie award for outstanding talent in the performing arts, and was voted "Best Theater Company" in the 2010 San Francisco Bay Guardian Best of the Bay issue. The company also earned the Best of SF award in 2006 and "Best Experimental Theater Company" in 2012 from SF Weekly, and was selected by San Francisco magazine as Best Classic Theater in 2007. Cutting Ball Theater was featured in the February 2010 and 2012 issues of American Theatre Magazine. In 2012, Cutting Ball was awarded a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund a three-year residency for resident playwright Andrew Saito. The American Theatre Wing, best known as the creator of the Antoinette Perry "Tony" Awards, awarded the company with a 2013 National Theatre Company grant.

The reading is set for Sunday, April 27, 2014, 1pm at The Cutting Ball Theater in Residence at EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor St., San Francisco. Readings are free and open to the public. For more information, visit cuttingball.com or call 415-525-1205.

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