The Breadbox Presents World Premiere of Original Production MACBITCH

The Breadbox presents the World Premiere of MACBITCH, written and assembled by Oren Stevens and conceptualized by The Breadbox Artistic Director Ariel Craft. Ariel Craft (The Awakening, The Pillowman, Blood Wedding, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore) directs this wildly creative hybrid of new work, adaptation, and classical text, featuring an all female cast of 10. MACBITCH plays July 28 through August 19 (press opening: July 29) at EXIT Theatre (156 Eddy St.) in San Francisco. For tickets ($15-$20) and more information, visit breadboxtheatre.org.

Fluff up your shoulder pads and unsheathe your daggers: MACBITCH doth come. From the creative team behind last season's critically acclaimed, award winning hit production, The Awakening, comes a brand new Frankenplay sprung forth from Shakespeare's Macbeth. Using Macbeth as an entry-point MACBITCH collages source material from the Scottish play and other pieces of Shakespearean, classical, and canonical verse text alongside original, contemporary dialogue, drawing upon cult classics for aesthetic inspirations. Sporting hints of Golding's Lord of the Flies and totally sick aesthetics pillaged from favorite cult films about high school hierarchies, such as Heathers, MACBITCH examines the formation of female identity around ambition and a prevailing culture of woman-on-woman violence.

Set in a lawless high school, teenage girls, under the influence of a witchy trio-spirit of self-interest, ruthlessly ascend to social power (or die trying) only to emerge strangers to their former selves on the other end of the carnage. Harnessing clichés and subverting tropes, MACBITCH employs the stark juxtaposition of humor and horror to explore how modern female identity shapes itself around ambition and how women are conditioned to view other women as competition, rather than allies. MACBITCH clarifies the dangers of a culture where women are perpetually pitted against one another and how habituation to this dynamic keeps them isolated and complicit in a patriarchal society.

"I often joke (though it isn't really a joke) that I carry the deep fear that someone is going to All About Eve me," said creator and director Ariel Craft. "However ridiculous it may sound, I have an earnest fear that there is always another woman lying in wait - a woman that is smarter than me, more interesting than me, funnier than me, prettier than me, has more to offer than I do, who is better than me in every way - who is ready to take what I have away from me. This show is an investigation of that fear: where it comes from, why it is an experience so many young women share, how it manifests in our lives, and how damaging it can be to us as individuals and, more significantly, to one another, in the long term."

Continued Craft, "This project has been an opportunity to rigorously engage and collaborate with so many extraordinary women. It has become an opportunity to 'put up or shut up' and start building strong partnerships, woman-to-woman."

The Breadbox has assembled a talented ensemble for MACBITCH: Mikka Bonel, Lauren Hayes, Rebecca Hodges, María Ascensión Leigh, Carla Pauli, Amitis Rossoukh, Cassie Rosenbrock, Neiry Rojo, Roneet Aliza Rahamim, and Jessica Waldman. Lauren Hayes portrays Maxine (inspired by Macbeth) and María Ascensión Leigh, an Associate Artist at The Breadbox, previously seen in the company's World Premiere adaptation of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, portrays Ladybird (inspired by Lady Macbeth). Mikka Bonel, Carla Pauli, and Jessica Waldman portray the witch-inspired trio. Lauren Hayes, María Ascensión Leigh, and Neiry Rojo have been in development with MACBITCH since its inception. The production features scenic design by Randy Wong-Westbrooke, costume design by Brooke Jennings, lighting design by Amanda Ortmayer, sound design by Ryan Lee Short, properties design by Stephanie Dittbern, and effects design by Carlos Mendoza. The production also features choreography by Margery Fairchild and combat choreography by Jon Bailey.

Ariel Craft is a Bay Area director and the founding Artistic Director of The Breadbox. Recent Breadbox directing credits include The Awakening, named one of the San Francisco Chronicle's Top Ten of 2016, the company's award winning production of Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, a radical staging of Federico García Lorca's Blood Wedding, and a World Premiere adaptation of John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. Craft also serves as Associate Artistic Director at The Cutting Ball Theater where she recently directed a World Premiere translation of Jean Racine's Phèdre. Additional directing credits include productions with Impact Theatre, Custom Made Theatre Company, Wily West Productions, the San Francisco Olympians Festival, and the San Francisco Girls Chorus. She studied directing and multidisciplinary theater-making at New York University's Playwrights Horizons Theater School and was awarded an Artistic Fellowship at the American Conservatory Theater; she previously served as Assistant Artistic Director at Custom Made Theatre Company. Craft is a recipient of Theatre Bay Area's Titan Award.

Bay Area based playwright Oren Stevens is intensely focused on adaptations of material that is part of the academic or cultural canon, placing the assumption of their continuing relevance under a focused lens. He has worked with material as varied as Alice in Wonderland (in his play Phantomwise) and The Book of Job (in The Assessment). In addition to The Breadbox, which produced his adaptations of The Awakening and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Stevens' work has been produced and developed at Lincoln Center Theater, the New York International Fringe Festival, Yale Dramatic Association, ArtistsRepSF, and The Augmented Seventh Theater Program, among others. A graduate of Yale University, he also serves as The Breadbox's Associate Artistic Director.

The Breadbox has been generating rigorous and unusual theatrical experiences for Bay Area audiences since 2012. Dedicated to the emotional and intellectual exploration of humanity's forbidden instincts, The Breadbox strives to make art that challenges audiences to stretch their perceptions of what is possible and acceptable in both content and form. The company presents work in small spaces to achieve the most potent connection possible with its audiences and is a proud Company in Residence at EXIT Theatre in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco.

Photo credit: Rebecca Hodges Photography

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