Dave Malloy's GHOST QUARTET to Open in San Francisco Next Month

On December 5-8, 2024, New Performance Traditions and Oakland Theater Project will present the San Francisco performances of Ghost Quartet by Dave Malloy. Ghost Quartet is a song cycle about love, death, and whiskey from Tony-nominated composer and playwright Dave Malloy (Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812), directed by Oakland Theater Project Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director William Thomas Hodgson (Is God Is).

In November, Dave Malloy's Ghost Quartet was met at opening with a warm, enthusiastic response from audiences and press alike. Ghost Quartet was described as "an intoxicating musical..." "Among the most unusual theatrical experiences" and "beyond comparison. Leave your expectations at the door..."

Ghost Quartet by Dave Malloy runs November 1—24 at Oakland Theater Project and transfers December 5-8 to San Francisco's ODC Brenda Way Theater.

A camera. A fiddle. An astronomer. A subway train. A raven. 

I don't know if this is me at all
Or just some ghost of me
That I dreamed up just to sing myself to sleep…

In Dave Malloy's captivating ghost-story-musical, a group of friends trade tales over whiskey—of love, longing, heartbreak, and betrayal. As the vignettes spanning seven centuries begin to unfold, characters, themes, events, and choices from one story begin reverberating into others, weaving a collective tale that unearths the bonds of the human spirit. At once innovative, haunting, and life-affirming, Ghost Quartet offers a unique musical theater experience that engages audiences. 

The cast includes award-winning artist Rinde Eckert  TENOR (piano, organ, slide guitar, percussion), an inaugural Doris Duke Artist (2012), recipient of an Alpert Award (2009), Guggenheim Fellowship (2007), and a Marc Blitzstein Award (2005), and a 2007 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Eckert is joined by Ami Nashimoto SOPRANO (cello, ukulele, erhu, percussion), Veronica Renner ALTO (accordion, autoharp, percussion), Monica Rose Slater SOPRANO (glockenspiel, accordion, harp, percussion), and Michael Perez BARITONE(percussion).

“Ghost Quartet enraptures you. In the stories that overlap, all these iterations of ghosts relate. It's a meditation on many different types of ghosts, like the ghost of regret, a past lover, a mistake, a thing that haunts you—or a literal ghost, an apparition. It's also about love, betrayal, and keeping memories alive—and all of that is encapsulated in a ghost story, " said Director and OTP Co-Artistic Director William Thomas Hodgson.

Oakland Theater Project is delighted to partner with New Performance Traditions (Paul Dresher Ensemble) to present OTP's first musical collaboration. 

“New Performance Traditions is thrilled to partner with the Oakland Theater Project in co-producing Ghost Quartet,” said NPT Artistic Director Paul Dresher. “Ghost Quartet" is a unique and outstanding music theater work featuring long-time Paul Dresher Ensemble collaborator and extraordinaire Rinde Eckert. Over the past seven years, we've watched Oakland Theater Project grow and become one of the Bay Area's most innovative theater companies. The idea of collaborating has long been on the table, so we're incredibly excited to have found the right project to start what we believe will be a long and extraordinary partnership.”

Paul Dresher has collaborated with Rinde Eckert for more than 4 decades in over fifteen projects (Rinde in varied roles as performer/singer, writer/librettist, and director), many produced by the Dresher Ensemble. The projects include large-scale collaborations beginning with The Way of How (1981, with the George Coates Performance Works; the long-running & touring Slow Fire (1985-88), Shelf Life (1987) with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, and the intimate Schick Machine (2009) to name just a few. The collaborations have been truly transformative, leaving a lasting impact on both the collaborators and the lives of those who experienced them.

Ghost Quartet is the sixth production in Oakland Theater Project's 2024 Season: Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future, a collection of seven plays that echo from the past into the present—hoping to illuminate the future.

About New Performance Traditions

Created by the Paul Dresher Ensemble, New Performance Traditions is a dynamic hub for nurturing multidisciplinary arts projects from conception to production, performance, and recording. We are dedicated to fostering daring and innovative performing artworks while providing unwavering support to the visionary artists who create them. We support and incubate the next generation of creative performing artists by providing affordable access to rehearsal and production spaces, professional equipment, video recording and live-streaming technologies, and performance opportunities and by offering multi-week residencies, production stipends, technical mentorship, and fiscal sponsorship to emerging and mid-career artists.

About Oakland Theater Project

Oakland Theater Project's mission is to create exquisite theatrical experiences to inspire compassion and forge bonds across socio-economic and racial barriers. Oakland Theater Project was founded in 2012 by Michael Socrates Moran, William Hodgson, and Colin Mandlin in Oakland, CA, and produces year-round professional theater for Oakland and the Bay Area. Rooted in Oakland, OTP's work explores how theater can act as a vehicle to reveal and invigorate the latent interconnectedness in society. 

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