Photo Flash: Magic Theatre presents THE EVA TRILOGY

Magic Theatre (Loretta Greco, Artistic Director and Jaimie Mayer, Managing Director) announced today the complete cast of Barbara Hammond's World Premiere The Eva Trilogy. Previews begin on Thursday, October 19 at Magic Theatre's Fort Mason location, with a press opening on Saturday, October 28. The production is helmed by Magic's Artistic Director Loretta Greco. Tickets are on-sale now, and subscriptions to Magic Theatre's 2017-2018 Season are also available.

Julia McNeal (Fred's Diner, A Lie of the Mind) stars as "Eva." The Company features Caleb Cabrera as "Tom," Justin Gillman as "Father O'Leary," Rod Gnapp as "Eamon," Amy Nowak as "Roisin," Lisa Anne Porter as "Teresa," and Megan Trout as "Nymph."

Barbara Hammond's The Eva Trilogy is a lyrical Irish epic spanning thirty years over the course of three plays: Eden, Enter The Roar and No Coast Road. All three plays will be performed, in succession, during each performance. Each play stands alone as a complete work. Together they comprise a trilogy that artfully tells one comprehensive story.

In Hammond's trilogy, an Irish expat named Eva returns home after 20 years and is forced to make a choice when her ailing mother's fate is placed in her hands. Moving through time and space, the mundane and the magical the play fiercely questions, how do you stand up for what you know to be true when all of the forces around you ask you to compromise? Each play in the trilogy champions its own theatrical landscape, reflecting the tremendous range of Hammond's writing and the evolving state of her subject.

Loretta Greco, Director of The Eva Trilogy and Artistic Director of Magic Theatre, said "I am thrilled to welcome Barbara Hammond to our Magic Theatre family of writers and to introduce her extraordinary work to Bay Area audiences. These three magnificent and distinct plays of The Eva Trilogy bring us together for a mystical, theatrical evening that challenges our minds, questions our values and ultimately touches our hearts."

"The Magic Theatre has a stellar national reputation amongst theatre artists," said playwright Barbara Hammond, "and actors from across the country who have worked with Loretta Greco all can't wait for a chance to do it again. Rod, Lisa, Julia -- who knew San Francisco had such a perfect cast for an Irish play? The role of Eva is a particularly difficult one to fill: deeply sensual but not overtly provocative, street smart but inadequately educated, wicked funny but with a hard-won compassion-and be believable from age 35 to 65. She has to have serious chops. Thank God San Francisco has a treasure like Julia McNeal."

In addition to Ms. Hammond and Ms. Greco, the creative team includes Hana S. Kim (Scenic and Projection Design), Alex Jaeger (Costume Design), Stephen Strawbridge (Lighting Design), and David Van Tieghem (Sound Design and Composition).

Barbara Hammond is a New Dramatists resident playwright and is a citizen of both the United States and Ireland. Awards and recognitions: 2015-17 Royal Court Theatre new play commission, 2017 Headwaters Theatre Festival in Creede, CO, 2017 University of Arkansas New Play Award, 2017 Theatresquared Festival of New Plays, 2017 lyricist for the 25th anniversary concert of the AIDS Quilt Songbook at National Sawdust, 2016 Duke University residency, 2016 Emerson Stage workshop production, 2015 Play Commission from the Contemporary American Theatre Festival for We Are Pussy Riot, 2015 Lippmann Family "New Frontier" Award, 2015 P73 Fellowship finalist, 2014 Seven Devils Theatre Conference; the 2012 Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwright Award; Yale Playwrights Festival mentor since 2010; a 2011 Edward Albee Foundation Fellow; Tyrone Guthrie Centre repeat resident in
Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan, Ireland; finalist at the Tennessee Williams One-Act Play Festival and the Kerouac Project; Special Jury Award, First Irish 2009 Theatre Festival. She is a member of ASCAP and the Dramatists Guild, and was named one of the Influential Women of 2011 by the Irish Voice. Her work has been funded by the National Endowment of the Arts, The Venturous Theater Fund, the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Plays: We Are Pussy Riot or Everything is P.R., Terra Firma, Visible from Four States, The Eva Trilogy: Eden, Enter The Roar and No Coast Road, Beyond The Pale, James, Norman and Beatrice, Paper Tigers and a collection of three one-acts entitled New York in June. Visit her website at barbarahammond.com.

Loretta Greco, Artistic Director is embarking on her tenth season as Magic Theatre's Artistic Director. At Magic, she has developed and premiered Taylor Mac's Hir; Luis Alfaro's Oedipus El Rey; Polly Pen and Victor Lodato's Arlington; Sharr White's Annapurna; Lloyd Suh's American Hwangap; and Octavio Solis' Se Llama Cristina. Ms. Greco's directing credits at Magic include Theresa Rebeck's Mauritius, Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters, the revival of Sam Shepard's Fool For Love, and the World Premiere of Han Ong's Grandeur. This season Ms. Greco will direct Barbara Hammond's The Eva Trilogy and Jessica Hagedorn's The Gangster of Love.

Ms. Greco's New York Directing premieres include: Tracey Scott Wilson's The Story, Lackawanna Blues (Obie) by Ruben Santiago Hudson, Nilo Cruz's Two Sisters and a Piano at NYSF/Public Theater, Rinne Groff's Inky at Women's Project, and Nilo Cruz's A Park in Our House at New York Theatre Workshop. Prior to her Magic post, she served as Producing Artistic Director of New York's Women's Project and the Associate Director/Resident Producer at the McCarter Theatre. Ms. Greco received her MFA from Catholic University, her BA from Loyola University New Orleans, and has received two Drama League Fellowships and a Princess Grace Award.

Following The Eva Trilogy, Magic Theatre's 2017-2018 Season continues with the World Premiere of John Kolvenbach's Reel to Reel (January 31 - February 25, 2018) and the World Premiere of Jessica Hagedorn's The Gangster of Love (April 11 - May 6, 2018). The season will also include the annual Martha Heasley Cox Virgin Play Festival (showcasing exciting new work from bold emerging playwrights) in December 2017, and marks the fifty-first year of operations and the tenth year under the leadership of Artistic Director Loretta Greco. Complete casting and creative teams for Reel to Reel and The Gangster of Love will be announced at later dates.

Magic Theatre is located in the Marina District of San Francisco, at the historic Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture (Fort Mason, 2 Marina Blvd., Building D, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94123). The entrance to Fort Mason is at the intersection of Marina Blvd and Buchanan Street. The performance schedule is Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., Wednesday - Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

Tickets, priced from $35.00 to $80.00, are available online at MagicTheatre.org; by calling Magic Theatre at (415) 441-8822; or visiting Magic Theatre's Box Office, Monday - Friday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. during non-performance dates. On performance dates, the Box Office is open Tuesday - Saturday from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and on Sunday one hour prior to the show. For more information, visit MagicTheatre.org.

Now celebrating its 50th year of continuous operation, Magic is dedicated to creative risk: we cultivate bold new plays and playwrights to produce incendiary and ideologically robust stories that ask substantive questions about our place in humanity. Magic provides a nurturing yet rigorous artistic home where innovative writers can create a body of work. We believe that developing an evolved artistic vocabulary with the playwright at our side greatly improves a playwright's chances to thrive. By adding voices to the canon, we ensure the vibrancy of the American theatre.

Magic's impact has resonated throughout the country and beyond since its founding by John Lion in 1967; Lion brought in Sam Shepard and Michael McClure as playwrights-in-residence, establishing Magic as a space for the communion of playwright and audience. From these early plays to the World Premieres of Luis Alfaro's Oedipus el Rey and Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge and Hir, Magic continues to produce groundbreaking new work.

Since Artistic Director Loretta Greco assumed leadership of Magic in 2008, the theatre has produced nineteen world premieres, seventeen of which have enjoyed life beyond the Magic stage. Magic plays have received numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize, ten Obie Awards, the Kennedy Center Award, Bay Area Critics' Circle Awards, and the NAACP Image Award.

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