Ragged Wing Celebrates 15th Anniversary With TIME SENSITIVE

In celebration of its 15th anniversary season next year, Ragged Wing Ensemble is pleased to present TIME SENSITIVE, with an updated script written and directed by the company's Artistic Director Amy Sass. Time Sensitive opens in preview on Friday, April 5, 2019, and runs through May 4. Opening night is scheduled for Saturday, April 6. Performances run Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 5 p.m. Two Saturday matinees at 2 p.m. will take place on April 27 and May 4. Tickets are $25 - $45, and may be purchased online at raggedwing.org.
Set sometime in the near future, "when the City has swallowed the world, the day and the night, the tides and the seasons,"

Time Sensitive is a dark fantasy with several intersecting storylines including a Clockmaker and his "Clockwork Kid" invention, a pregnant mid-level office manager, a pair of street urchin thieves and a lonely, corporate tycoon. The play received its premiere in Oakland in 2013, with excerpts subsequently presented at various events including a fundraiser this year for The Borneo Project, a nonprofit in support of Borneo's rainforest.

"Time Sensitive is a play that asks us to think about the ways in which we make ourselves the slaves of time," said Sass. "We live in a culture that values speed and efficiency, but speed has a dark side, too. Is it any accident that death is present in the word 'deadline'?

"For this reimagining of Time Sensitive, we are reorienting the relationship between the performers and the audience, who will be seated inside a scenic installation. With its immersive environment, clockwork choreography and rhythmic, fugue-like dialogue, Time Sensitive is more than a play. It is a theatrical event.

"We are also delighted to be working again with ice designer Carter Brooks, who collaborated on the original production. Carter is an environmentalist and a philosopher in addition to being an artist. For Time Sensitive his melting ice sculptures will appear as a metaphor for time's inexorable transformations. But his sculptures are more than that, too. In a very real way, ice - in the form of the earth's polar ice caps - is like time itself. Its rapidly retreating strata reveal the history of the world over many millions of years."

An additional member of Time Sensitive's creative team is Jean-François Revon, a prolific scenic designer who has worked on more than 250 productions in the Bay Area. Currently the Chair of Production Design at Oakland School for the Arts, Revon will lead a team of high school-age students in the design and construction of Ragged Wing's set. As a member organization at The Flight Deck, Oakland School for the Arts partners with Ragged Wing Ensemble to provide mentorship opportunities in theater arts to young people.

Other collaborators include William Campbell (lighting design), Keith Davis (assistant direction), Jaren Feeley (song direction), Laura Inserra (music composition and sound design), Edward Liptzin and Asha Sundararaman (stage management), and Lauren Tannous (costume and properties design).

The cast includes Simone Bloch, Rachel Brown, Keith Davis, Jordan Don, Perry Fenton, Akaina Ghosh, Mary Matabor, Alicia Piemme Nelson, Emmy Pierce, Kaylamay Suarez, Alex Trono and Joshua Waterstone.

ABOUT AMY SASS
Amy Sass is the co-founder and artistic director of Ragged Wing Ensemble and The Flight Deck. Master director, teacher, award-winning playwright, visual artist and performer, Sass delights in cultivating artistic agility. She is the creator of Fierce Play, a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to dramatic storytelling and creative practice. Sass serves as master teacher for Ragged Wing's core company, leading trainings, retreats, mentoring artists and cultivating creative alliance among powerhouse arts professionals. Her plays, installations and artistic events feature a unique blend of visual design, unpredictable characters and poetic language. More information at amysass.com.

ABOUT CARTER BROOKS
Carter Brooks is an artist and philosopher of climate art whose work explores how humanity and civilization will evolve in a rapidly changing world. In 2000, the year that Brooks' daughter was born, a scientific report forecast that the polar ice cap will disappear by the time she reaches her grandmother's age. While environmentalists began to fret about the future, Brooks found himself compelled instead by the urgency of witnessing and discovering meaning in this profound event. Brooks' installations of melting ice have been featured at numerous events and festivals, including MountainFilm in Telluride, The Art in Nature Festival, the Bioneers Conference, The San Francisco Green Film Festival, and numerous small events. He was selected as one of the first 50 presenters of Al Gore's Climate Reality Project. Brooks is also co-founder of Climate Earth, Inc. He holds a Master of Science from the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley, and a Bachelor of the Arts in History from Yale University. More information at carterbrooks.com.

ABOUT RAGGED WING ENSEMBLE

Founded in 2004 by Amy Sass, Anna Shneiderman and Keith Davis, Ragged Wing Ensemble produces original shows through its signature development process, employing both collaborative creation techniques and strong artistic leadership. Ragged Wing cross-trains its core members in music and the visual arts, in addition to theatrical performance techniques. It also runs cross-disciplinary trainings open to the general public through its educational arm called The School of Fierce Play. Among its recent honors are three TBA Awards: one for Best Anthology for Overnight, a collaborative project with the resident companies of The Flight Deck, and two for sound and set design for The Winter's Tale.

Before opening The Flight Deck in downtown Oakland, the company performed throughout the East Bay for almost 10 years. Ragged Wing Ensemble now operates The Flight Deck as a shared, multidisciplinary arts venue featuring a black box theater, rehearsal studio and co-working office. In 2015, the theater received a Google Impact Challenge award for its pilot Launch Pad program, supporting Oakland arts leaders to become job-creators. Now in its fifth year of operation, The Flight Deck continues to grow. Every year it hosts over 200 public events, 65 community arts groups, hundreds of artists and more than 10,000 audience members. FACT SHEET WHAT: ?Ragged Wing Ensemble presents TIME SENSITIVE written and directed by Amy Sass.

Cast: Simone Bloch, Rachel Brown, Keith Davis, Jordan Don, Perry Fenton, Akaina Ghosh, Mary Matabor, Alicia Piemme Nelson, Emmy Pierce, Kaylamay Suarez, Alex Trono, Joshua Waterstone

Creative Team: Keith Davis (assistant direction), Jean-François Revon (technical direction and scenic design), Jaren Feeley (song direction), Laura Inserra (music composition and sound design), Lauren Tannous (costume and properties design), William Campbell (lighting design), Carter Brooks (ice design), Edward Liptzin and Asha Sundararaman (stage management)

Tickets will go on sale on January 15, 2019, and may be purchased online via a direct link at raggedwing.org.

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