World Premiere of ONDINE Set for Cutting Ball Theater

Cutting Ball Theater continues its 17th season with the World Premiere of ONDINE by Katharine Sherman. Cutting Ball founding Artistic Director Rob Melrose helms this beautifully tragic dream, featuring Molly Benson, Marilet Martinez, Danielle O'Hare, Kenny Toll, and Jessica Waldman. ONDINE plays February 5 through March 6 (press opening: February 11) at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor (277 Taylor Street) in San Francisco. For tickets ($10-50) and more information, the public may visit cuttingball.com or call 415-525-1205.

Subtle, lyrical, and daring, ONDINE retells The Little Mermaid and Pelleas and Mellisande myths as a heartbreaking, haunting, and hypnotic transformational first-love story. A water sprite leaves the sea to join her lover, an alchemist-knight on a quest for the universal solvent. Desperate for him after he leaves her alone, she curses him: if he falls asleep, he will die. To her dismay, he returns moments later, and the two fight sleep together by telling each other their love story. The narrative they frame comes to life until layers of time and reality collapse in on one another. ONDINE was developed as part of the 2014 edition of RISK IS THIS... The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival.

"When I was writing ONDINE, I was very curious about form," said playwright Katharine Sherman. "I wanted to explore the fairy tale of a water spirit or mermaid becoming human, a character exploring material form through alchemy, and the formal trappings of a work of theater. While the Ondine myth and its variations go back for ages, this play is based in particular upon a novella from 1811 by Friedrich de la Motte-Fouqué wherein the water spirit marries a knight who is then unfaithful to her. As she finds him asleep in the arms of another woman, she curses him so that if he is to fall asleep, he will die."

Continued Sherman, "With that in mind, ONDINE takes place in between the curse and death. As the water spirit and the knight tell each other their story to stay awake, it comes to life onstage; the form of the play shifts and twists and warps in the same way that reality does when you've been awake for too long. I worked closely with director Rob Melrose developing ONDINE as part of Cutting Ball's 2014 new works festival, where we explored the power of voice and language to shape experience. I am thrilled that Rob will be directing this piece and I can't wait for Cutting Ball's audiences to see it fully-produced on the mainstage."

Rob Melrose is the Artistic Director and co-founder of the Cutting Ball Theater and works nationally as a freelance director. He has directed at the Guthrie Theater (Freud's Last Session, Happy Days, Pen, Julius Caesar - with the Acting Company); Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Troilus and Cressida - in association with the Public Theater); Magic Theatre (An Accident, World Premiere); PlayMakers Rep (Happy Days); California Shakespeare Theater (Villains, Fools, and Lovers); Black Box Theatre (The Creature, World Premiere); Actors' Collective (Hedda Gabler); The Gamm Theatre (Creditors); and Crowded Fire Theater (The Train Play), among others. Directing credits at Cutting Ball include the World Premieres of Communique´ N°10, Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night; Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep, Pelleas & Melisande, the Bay Area Premiere of Will Eno's Lady Grey (in ever lower light); The Tempest; The Bald Soprano; Victims of Duty; Bone to Pick and Diadem (World Premiere); Endgame; Krapp's Last Tape; The Taming of the Shrew; Macbeth; Hamletmachine; As You Like It; The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World; Mayakovsky: A Tragedy; My Head Was a Sledgehammer; Roberto Zucco; The Vomit Talk of Ghosts (World Premiere); The Sandalwood Box; Pickling; Ajax for Instance; Helen of Troy (World Premiere); and Drowning Room (World Premiere). He is a recipient of the NEA / TCG Career Development Program award for directors. Melrose has a B.A. in English and Theater from Princeton University and an M.F.A. in directing from the Yale School of Drama. He has taught at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, USF, the University of Rhode Island, and Marin Academy. Additionally, Melrose's translations include Communique´ N°10, No Exit, Woyzeck, Pelléas and Mélisande, The Bald Soprano, The Chairs and Ubu Roi.

Katharine Sherman is a Minneapolis-based writer of performance works and plays. In 2009 she co-founded Lunar Energy Productions, which produced her plays like the night and christopher marlowe's chloroform dreams. Her play all saints all souls was a part of the 2012 Orlando Fringe Festival. In addition to ONDINE, her play, nightcap, received development as part of the 2015 edition of RISK IS THIS... The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. Her work has been developed by WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory and has had readings with the Amoralists Theater Company, Plays and Players, and the Inkwell. Works have been produced by Full Moon Puppet Cabaret, Eclectic Company Theater, Sticky/Blue Box Productions, Isleford Theater Project, and the American Globe 15-minute play festival. Her short play grunge is dead is published in The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2011 (Smith & Kraus). She has been a finalist for the Jerome Fellowship, National Playwrights Conference, and the Heideman Award, and was the 2013-14 Core Apprentice at the Playwrights' Center. Sherman is a graduate of the Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa.

Cutting Ball Theater has assembled a talented ensemble for ONDINE. Molly Benson makes her debut at Cutting Ball with ONDINE. Credits include productions at TheatreWorks (Snow Falling on Cedars), Word for Word (Food Stories), Atmostheatre (Alice in Wonderland, A Midsummer Night's Dream), Shotgun Players, California Shakespeare Theater, PianoFight, Killing My Lobster, and the Grove Theatre Center in Los Angeles. She is a company member at PianoFight and an Associate Artist at Word for Word.

Cutting Ball Associate Artist Marilet Martinez was last seen in the company's productions of Ubu Roi, Tontlawald, and Mud. Additional credits include productions at Crowded Fire Theater, Impact Theatre, Woman's Will, Brava Theater, African-American Shakespeare Company, Teatrovision, San Francisco Mime Troupe, California Shakespeare Theater, SF Playwrights Center, Custom Made Theatre, Precarious Theatre, and Shadowlight Theatre, among others. She is a co-founder of the Bay Area Latino Theatre Artists Network.

Also returning is Cutting Ball Associate Artist Danielle O'Hare, who appeared in the company's Strindberg Cycle, Lady Grey (in even lower light) and other plays, No Exit, Helen of Troy, Fighter Airplanes, The Sandalwood Box, the evolutionists club, Mr. Fujiyama's Electric Beach, and The Hidden Classics Reading Series. Additional credits include productions with Shotgun Players, theatre Q, Unidentified Theatre Company, Minnesota Fringe Festival, and Theater in the Round.

Rounding out the cast and making their Cutting Ball debuts are Kenny Toll and Jessica Waldman. Toll's recent credits include Eurydice, Antigonick, The Coast of Utopia and Woyzeck with Shotgun Players, Bad Jews at Magic Theatre, Peter and the Starcatcher at TheatreWorks, and Dracula Inquest at Central Works. Waldman's recent roles include productions with Stanford Freeks, Stanford TAPS, Stanford Theatre Lab, and Stanford Repertory Theatre.

Following ONDINE, Cutting Ball Theater continues its 17th season, based on the theme of "Dreams" with this year's edition of RISK IS THIS...THE CUTTING BALL NEW EXPERIMENTAL PLAYS FESTIVAL in March with staged readings of new experimental works for the stage. Closing the season is A DREAMPLAY in May, directed by Rob Melrose, in a new translation by Paul Walsh.

Co-founded in 1999 by theater artists Rob Melrose and Paige Rogers, Cutting Ball Theater presents avant-garde works of the past, present, and future by re-envisioning classics, exploring seminal avant-garde texts, and developing new experimental plays. The company has commissioned, developed, and produced new experimental plays, and has partnered with Playwrights Foundation, and the Magic Theatre/Z Space New Plays Initiative to commission new experimental works. In addition to producing West Coast Premieres and re-imaging various classics, Cutting Ball Theater has produced nine World Premieres and seven World Premiere translations. Cutting Ball received the 2008 San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie award for outstanding talent in the performing arts, and was voted "Best Theater Company" in the 2010 San Francisco Bay Guardian Best of the Bay issue. The company also earned the Best of SF award in 2006 and "Best Experimental Theater Company" in 2012 from SF Weekly, and was selected by San Francisco magazine as Best Classic Theater in 2007. Cutting Ball Theater was featured in the February 2010, 2012, and December 2014 issues of American Theatre Magazine. In 2012, Cutting Ball was awarded a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund a three-year residency for resident playwright Andrew Saito. The American Theatre Wing, best known as the creator of the Antoinette Perry "Tony" Awards, awarded the company with a 2013 National Theatre Company grant. Cutting Ball was also featured in the February 2015 issue of American Theatre Magazine.

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