The Marsh Berkeley to Present Lorri Holt's COLETTE UNCENSORED Next Month

The Marsh Berkeley has announced Colette Uncensored, the first solo show by acclaimed actress Lorri Holt, will return to the East Bay for the fall with a revised script. Colette Uncensored, which received its World Premiere in April 2016 at The Marsh San Francisco, tells the story of the famed and infamous French novelist's passionate quest as a writer, a woman, a pioneer for social change, and as a lover. Written by Zack Rogow and Lorri Holt, in collaboration with and directed by David Ford, Colette Uncensored enjoyed an extended run in San Francisco, and additional performances at The Marsh Berkeley in 2016. The hit solo show will play 8:00pm Fridays and 5:00pm Saturdays October 6-November 4, 2017 (press opening: October 7) at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. For tickets ($20-$35 sliding scale, $55-$100 reserved), the public may visit www.themarsh.org or call The Marsh box office at 415-282-3055 (open 1-4pm, Monday through Friday).

Colette Uncensored opened in April 2016 to critical acclaim from media including the San Francisco Chronicle, which called the show "Stunning. A passionate, fascinating and artful life brought full circle by a performer about whom you could say the same." The Daily Californian hailed it as "a production nothing short of spectacular. Holt's natural performance is decidedly fulfilling and much needed." Colette Uncensored was named a Theatre Bay Area (TBA) recommended production and received nominations from TBA for "Outstanding Production of a Solo Show," and from the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle for "Excellence in a Solo Performance." Since the 2016 run, the authors have included in the script more details on Colette's many relationships.

The show evolved from local bookstore readings of a newly published collection of Colette's writings, Shipwrecked on a Traffic Island and Other Previously Untranslated Gems, translated by Zack Rogow and Renée Morel. After receiving enthusiastic response, Holt and Rogow created a one-woman show based on Colette's life and work that was presented as a work-in-progress at the Kennedy Center during the pre-Broadway premiere of the newly revived musical Gigi.

Colette (Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette) is one of France's most famous writers, best known to millions for her 1945 novella Gigi. In 1951 it was adapted by Anita Loos into a stage show starring Audrey Hepburn (who was hand picked by Colette), and later a film with music by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe starring Leslie Caron, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Before Colette's exquisite writing was accepted as classic, the author was shunned by polite society for her scandalous life-her many affairs with women and men, her appearing on stage scantily clad during her years in vaudeville, and her refusal ever to compromise in the pursuit of personal freedom. Colette, who in a half century produced more than 50 works of beautifully crafted fiction, memoirs, plays, and articles, was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, and was elected a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor. Colette's life has resonated with audiences, who applaud her breaking new ground for women's empowerment, her respect for nature, and her forays into sexual liberation.

Lorri Holt (Actor, Playwright) has been a leading actress in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than three decades, working with Berkeley Rep, ACT, Aurora Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, SF Playhouse, and many more. She most recently starred in Aurora Theatre Company's Splendour as First Lady Micheleine. Other recent credits include Joyce Rumsfeld in Cutting Ball Theater's critically acclaimed production of Mount Misery, Masha in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at Berkeley Rep, and Ella in Curse of the Starving Class at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. For ten years she was a leading actress with San Francisco's acclaimed Eureka Theatre. She originated the role of Harper Pitt in Tony Kushner's Angels in America. Regional and international credits include work at Birmingham Rep in England, the Barbican Theatre in London, La Jolla Playhouse, and Actors Theatre of Louisville. She was featured in Josh Kornbluth's newest film, Love & Taxes. Holt has also written articles for American Theatre Magazine, and has received honors and awards for her short fiction.

Zack Rogow (Playwright) is the author, editor, or translator of twenty books or plays. His translations from French include the novel Green Wheat by Colette. His adaptation and translation of the play Marius by Marcel Pagnol was produced by the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley and by the Storm Theatre in New York. He is writing a series of plays that incorporate the works of authors into their life stories, including Things I Didn't Know I Loved, about the Turkish writer Nazim Hikmet, which had staged readings in Berkeley directed by Barbara Oliver; and at the annual AWP conference. Carleton College and University of Alaska have hosted staged readings of his play Tangled Love, about the Japanese poet Yosano Akiko. His play La Vie en Noir about Senegalese poet Léopold Sédar Senghor was performed as a staged reading by the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco.

David Ford (Director) has been collaborating on new and unusual theater for three decades and has been associated with The Marsh for most of that time. The San Francisco press has variously called him "the solo performer maven," "the monologue maestro," "the dean of solo performance," and "the solo performer's best friend." Collaborators include Geoff Hoyle, Echo Brown, Brian Copeland, Charlie Varon, Marilyn Pittman, Rebecca Fisher, Wayne Harris, and Marga Gomez. As a director, Mr. Ford has directed both solo and ensemble work regionally at The Public Theatre, Second Stage, St. Clement's, Dixon's Place, One Dream Theatre, and Theatre for the New City (NY), Highways (LA) and Woolly Mammoth (Washington, DC) as well as at theaters around the Bay Area including Magic Theatre and Marin Theatre Company. He is also a published playwright.

The Marsh is known as "a breeding ground for new performance." It was launched in 1989 by Founder and Artistic Director Stephanie Weisman, and now annually hosts more than 600 performances of 175 shows across the company's two venues in San Francisco and Berkeley. A leading outlet for solo performers, The Marsh's specialty has been hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as "solo performances that celebrate the power of storytelling at its simplest and purest." The East Bay Times named The Marsh one of Bay Area's best intimate theaters, calling it "one of the most thriving solo theaters in the nation. The live theatrical energy is simply irresistible."

Photo credit: David Allen

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