PianoFight productions presents the world premiere of Stuart Bousel's TWINS, a darkly comic docudrama sourced from Greek mythology but more relevant than ever in a world where violence often targets youth. TWINS opens May 4th and plays Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:30pm through June 10th, at PianoFight, 144 Taylor Street in San Francisco. Tickets are
Through a series of interviews and flashbacks we get the story of the birth and life of Artemis and Apollo, beautiful young gods who begin their existence as promising forces for light and evolve into terrifying powers of devestation, ultimately killing all the children of the mortal queen, Niobe, after she insults their mother, the goddess Leto. Ostrasized from an early age by the other gods, unable to form lasting connections with others, the sibilings see themselves as against the world, but in their alienation form a deep and lasting bond with one another that could prove to be their redemption- or our destruction.
This dark little show, "May be the darkest thing I have ever written," says playwright and director Stuart Bousel, "It was born out of my love for mythology, my fascination with this violent and grotesque myth that I first read in grade school, and an adult fascination with documentaries and accounts of real world crimes and massacres. Though I set out to write something harrowing, I realized the piece would never get written until I accepted it would probably also be a bit of a black comedy, and if there is something I'm really proud of here it is the slow and unsettling shift of the piece as it moves from being ridiculously funny, almost absurd, to somber, and then progressively devastating. The first public reading happened just a couple of days after the Newton Massacre and despite the timing I went through with it because I strongly believe art can be very therapeutic at times like these."
Directed by the author, the show features Kyle Goldman and Kathleen McHatton in the title roles, with supporting work by Andrew Chung, Laura Domingo, Kyle McReddie, Tonya Narvaez,
Kim Saunders and Ron Talbot. The design team include
William Campbell on lights,
Ryan Lee Short on sound, Cody Rishell on artwork, and Lindsey Eifert on costumes. It opensMay 4th and plays Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8 PM till June 10th, at PianoFight in San Francisco.
Stuart Bousel (author/director) is the founder of the San Francisco Olympians Festival, the Director of New Work Development at Custom Made Theatre Company, the hospitality coordinator for the San Francisco Fringe Festival, and a resident artist at the EXIT Theatre. As a director he has worked with Atmostheatre (A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Frogs, Twelfth Night), San Francisco Theater Pub (Measure For Measure, Taming of the Shrew, Richard III, The Morrissey Plays), Wily West Productions (Ruth and the Sea), No Nude Men (Edward II, Hamlet, Love's Labors Lost, Phaedra, Fishing, Merchants, The Desk Set), and Custom Made Theatre Company (M. Butterfly, The Merchant of Venice, Prelude to a Kiss, The Crucible, Grey Gardens The Musical, Six Degrees of Separation, The House of Yes). Twins will be his first time directing for PianoFight, who previously produced his play Adventures In Tech (With Pillow Talk On The Side). His work as a playwright includes the plays Everybody Here Says Hello! (recipient of the 2014 TBA Award for Outstanding World Premiere, nominated for the BATCCA for Best New Play), Pastorella (nominated for the 2015 TBA Award for Outstanding World Premiere), and the stage adaptations of Kristin Hersh's memoire Rat Girl (nominated for the 2014 TBA Award for Outstanding World Premiere),
Peter S. Beagle's Giant Bones (which he also directed at the EXIT Theatre), as well as co-authoring the short film Insomnia (winner of the John C. Cosgrove prize in short film) and dramaturging/re-cutting the libretto for the recent Custom Made Theatre Company production of Chess (in which he also played the role of Walter). You can find out more about his work at
www.stuartbousel.com.
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