WHAT WE'RE UP AGAINST, OR & More Part Of Magic Theatre's 2010-2011 Season

Magic Theatre, San Francisco's home for new plays, announces its 2010-2011 Season: the west coast premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney's The Brothers Size, an unforgettable tale of brotherhood directed by Octavio Solis; the world premiere of Theresa Rebeck's What We're Up Against, a subversive comedy about men, women, and survival in the workplace directed by Loretta Greco; the west coast premiere of Liz Duffy Adams' Or, a cross-dressing contemporary restoration comedy directed by Loretta Greco; and the rolling world premiere of The Lily's Revenge, a fantastical 5-hour cornucopia of theatre, party, and circus, written by and starring playwright and burlesque performer Taylor Mac.

Details about the season will be shared in a Town Hall meeting on Tuesday, April 13th at 6:30pm at Magic Theatre. Artistic Director Loretta Greco and special guest artists will share behind-the-scenes information about Magic's exciting plans for next year. This event is free and open to the public. "I am delighted to unveil this remarkable season of work by emerging, mid-career and established playwrights - all at the top of their game," says Greco. "I'm thrilled to have Liz make her Magic debut and to have the great honor and joy of making something new with Theresa. I'm also especially proud and excited to bookend our season with two theatrically expansive projects that will resonate throughout the adventurous Bay Area community. The Brothers Size is a groundbreaking opportunity to celebrate the work of Tarell 's stunning trilogy between three important theatres. The 5-act, 5-hour Lily's Revenge," Greco continues, "will feature the work of directors, choreographers, filmmakers and over 40 local performing artists, and will roll out across the country to our friends in New Orleans and overseas to Scotland."

Magic launches in September by teaming up with two sister theatres, Marin Theatre Company and A.C.T., to produce a Bay Area wide explosion of work by one of the most original and extraordinary young playwrights in decades - Tarell Alvin McCraney. The Brothers Size probes the bonds of family, sexuality and coming of age. It is the second play in McCraney's trilogy that will span the three theatres this fall. Loretta Greco, Artistic Director, was drawn to the The Brothers Size because McCraney's "raw, poetic, and deeply funny 29 year-old lens reflects back to us our most ancient souls. Such work is one of the surest signs that theatre today can still be a vital act of communion." In response to McCraney's trilogy, Ben Brantley of The New York Times heralded, "It's what people must have felt during productions of the early works of Eugene O'Neill in the 1920's or Sam Shepard in the 1960's... It is said of one character in this gorgeous trilogy... that she "breathes like the wind." So do Mr. McCraney's plays, which are pumped full of a senses-heightening oxygen that leaves you tingling."

Next up is the ever buoyant Liz Duffy Adams' adventurous cross-dressing romp, Or, a contemporary restoration comedy featuring the first lady of the stage, Aphra Behn, as she tumbles fresh from the spy business into show business. Adams is no stranger to Bay Area audiences. In response to Adams' last production in the Bay Area, Robert Hurwitt of the San Francisco Chronicle reports "her verbal dexterity and dark humor pack a provocative and entertaining punch."

Just after the New Year master playwright and San Francisco favorite Theresa Rebeck returns to Magic after delighting audiences with the critically acclaimed and extended Mauritius, produced at Magic in 2009. Mauritius was named one of the Top 10 productions of 08-09 by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Best Show of 2009 by the San Francisco Bay Times, and nominated for 7 Critics Circle awards. Rebeck's world premiere comedy written especially for Magic Theatre, What We're Up Against, explores the pitfalls of the workplace, the teetering status quo, and the evolution of relations between men and women.

We conclude the season with theatrical wonder Taylor Mac's epic fantasia, The Lily's Revenge, a rolling world premiere with Magic Theatre, HERE Arts Center, New York, Southern Rep Theatre, New Orleans, and The National Theatre of Scotland. A playwright and burlesque performer extraordinaire, Mac and dozens of Bay Area performers take on the construct of love, marriage, and Prop 8 in an epic cornucopia of theatre, party, circus, and social experiment. According to Adam Feldman of Time Out NY, "In its bravery, scope, creativity, extremity, and sheer generosity of spirit, The Lily's Revenge, to my mind, surpasses any American theatre in New York this year... [Taylor Mac] is one of the most exciting theatre artists of our time."

Magic will also continue the development of new plays in the Martha Heasley Cox Virgin Play Series. These works-in-progress are presented as staged readings throughout theatres and cafes in San Francisco.

BIOGRAPHIES
Liz Duffy Adams (Playwright, Or,) is a New Dramatists alumna (2001-2008) and a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award, a Will Glickman Playwright Award, a Frederick Loewe Award in Music Theatre, a Weston Playhouse Music Theater Award, and a commission from Children's Theater Company, Minneapolis. Her work has been produced, or developed at the Humana Festival, The Women's Project, Portland Center Stage, Portland Stage Company, Syracuse Stage, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, New Georges, Shotgun Players, Moxie Theater, Clubbed Thumb, and Crowded Fire Theater. She has received residencies form MacDowell Colony, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and Millay Colony for the Arts. Publications include Poodle With Guitar And Dark Glasses in Applause's "Best American Short Plays 2000-2001," numerous short plays and monologues in anthologies from Heinemann and Smith & Kraus, and several plays published by Playscripts, Inc. Adams was profiled in American Theatre magazine's December 2004 issue. She holds a BFA from NYU's Experimental Theater Wing and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

Taylor Mac (Playwright and Actor, The Lily's Revenge) is a playwright, actor, singer-songwriter, sometime director and producer, and current member of New Dramatists. Mac's most recent play, The Lily's Revenge, was rated the best play in 2009 by TimeOutNY and Paper Magazine and was put on the top ten lists of many other publications including The New Yorker and The New York Post. Other recent plays he's written and performed in include The Younge Ladies of, Red Tide Blooming, and The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac. Mac has performed his worked in The Sydney Opera House, The San Francisco MOMA and Opera House, New York's Public Theater, Stockholm's Sodra Teatern, The Spoleto Festival, The Bumbershoot Festival, The Time Based Arts Festival, Dublin's Project Arts Center, London's Soho Theater, and hundreds of other theaters, museums, music halls, cabarets, and festivals around the globe. He has acted in many original plays (by others), dozens of revivals, and in featured roles on television with The BBC2, BBC4, MTV, and The Sci-Fi Channel. Vintage Press, Playscripts, New York Theatre Review, New York Theatre Experience have published his plays. Mac is the recipient of a Sundance Theater Lab Residency, a NYFA, a Rockefeller Map Grant, The Creative Capital Grant, The James Hammerstein Award for playwriting, The Edinburgh Festival's Herald Angel Award, a Jeff Award nomination, three GLAAD Media Award Nominations, three Brighton Best of Festival awards, PS 122's Ethyl Eichelberger award, a New York State Council of The Arts Grant, an Edward Albee Foundation Residency, The Franklin Furnace Grant, a Peter S. Reed Grant, The Ensemble Studio Theatre's New Voices Fellowship in playwriting, and was a HERE Arts Center resident artist. Mac's upcoming projects include the creation of a two-man theatrical concert with Mandy Patinkin, a collaboration with the Talking Band about his experiences on The Walk Across America For Mother Earth, and a festival of full-length plays (three tragedies and a comedy) inspired by four Greek plays (first up: The Bacchae).

Tarell Alvin McCraney's (Playwright, The Brothers Size) plays include Wig Out! (developed at The Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, produced in New York by Vineyard Theatre and in London by The Royal Court Theatre) and the trilogy entitled The Brother/Sister Plays, which includes: The Brothers Size (simultaneously premiered in New York at The Public Theater in association with The Foundry Theatre and in London at the Young Vic, where it was nominated for the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre); In the Red and Brown Water (winner of the ALLIANCE THEATRE's Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, produced at the ALLIANCE THEATRE and the Young Vic); and Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet. His other plays include Without/Sin and Run, Mourner, Run (adapted from Randall Kenan's short story), both of which premiered at the Yale Cabaret. In the summer of 2006, McCraney, Catherine Filloux, and Joe Sutton wrote The Breach, a play about Katrina, the Gulf, and our nation, commissioned by Southern Repertory Theater, where it premiered in August 2007 to mark the two-year anniversary of the tragedy in New Orleans. The Breach also played at Seattle Repertory Theatre in the winter of 2007. McCraney attended the New World School of the Arts High School in Miami, Florida, receiving the Exemplary Artist Award and the Dean's Award in Theater. He holds a B.F.A. in acting from DePaul University. McCraney is a May 2007 graduate of Yale School of Drama's playwriting program, where he received the Cole Porter Playwriting Award upon graduation. He is the Royal Shakespeare Company's international writer in residence, the 2009 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, and the recipient of Vineyard Theatre's 2007 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and a 2007 Whiting Writers' Award. He is currently under commission at Manhattan Theatre Club and Berkeley Repertory Theatre and is a member of New Dramatists and Teo Castellanos D-Projects in Miami. In 2008, McCraney was the recipient of London's Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright.

Theresa Rebeck (Playwright, What We're Up Against) made her Magic Theatre debut with the critically acclaimed 2009 production of Mauritius. She is the author of plays produced throughout the United States and abroad. Past New York productions of her work include Mauritius at the Biltmore Theatre in a Manhattan Theater Club Production; The Scene, The Water's Edge, Loose Knit, The Family of Mann and Spike Heels at Second Stage; Bad Dates, The Butterfly Collection and Our House at Playwrights Horizons; and View of the Dome at New York Theatre Workshop. Omnium Gatherum (co-written, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003) was featured at the Humana Festival, and had a commercial run at the Variety Arts Theatre. Her newest work, The Understudy, premiered at the 2008 Williamstown Theatre Festival and ran in New York at the Laura Pels Theater in a Roundabout Theatre Company production as part of their 2009 - 2010 season. All of Rebeck's past produced plays are published by Smith and Kraus as Theresa Rebeck: Complete Plays, Volumes I, II and III and in acting editions available from Samuel French or Playscripts. Rebeck's other publications are Free Fire Zone, a book of comedic essays about writing and show business. She has written for American Theatre Magazine and has had excerpts of her plays published in the Harvard Review. Rebeck's first novel, Three Girls and Their Brother, was published by Random House/Shaye Areheart Books in April 2008 and is available online and at booksellers everywhere. Her second novel, Twelve Rooms With A View, will be published by Random House/Shaye Areheart Books in May of this year. In television, Rebeck has written for Dream On, Brooklyn Bridge, L.A. Law, American Dreamer, Maximum Bob, First Wave, and Third Watch. She has been a writer/producer for Canterbury's Law, Smith, Law and Order:Criminal Intent and NYPD Blue. Her produced feature films include Harriet the Spy, Gossip, and the independent features Sunday on the Rocks and Seducing Charlie Barker, an adaptation of her play, The Scene. Awards include the Mystery Writer's of America's Edgar Award, the Writer's Guild of America award for Episodic Drama, the Hispanic Images Imagen Award, and the Peabody, all for her work on NYPD Blue. She won the National Theatre Conference Award (for The Family of Mann), and the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award in 2003 for The Bells. Mauritius was originally produced at Boston's Huntington Theatre, where it received the 2007 IRNE Award for Best New Play as well as the Eliot Norton Award. She is originally from Cincinnati and holds an MFA in Playwrighting and a Ph.D. in Victorian Melodrama, both from Brandeis University. She is a proud board member of the Dramatists Guild. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Jess Lynn and two children, Cooper and Cleo.

Loretta Greco (Director, Or, & What We're Up Against, Magic Artistic Director) is in her second season helming Magic Theatre where she most recently directed Luis Alfaro's Oedipus el Rey, John Kolvenbach's Goldfish, and Theresa Rebeck's Mauritius. Her Bay Area credits include the critically acclaimed revival of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow and the West Coast premiere of David Harrower's Blackbird for A.C.T. Greco's selected New York premieres include: Tracey Scott Wilson's The Story (Public Theater /Kesselring Prize/AUDELCO Nom); the Obie Award winning Lackawanna Blues by Ruben Santiago Hudson (Public Theater); Katherine Walat's Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen (Women's Project); Two Sisters and a Piano by Pulitzer Prize Winner Nilo Cruz (Public Theater/Kesselring Prize); Emily Mann's Meshugah (Naked Angels); Laura Cahill's Mercy (Vineyard); Karen Hartman's Gum (Women's Project); A Park in our House by Nilo Cruz (New York Theatre Workshop); and Toni Press Coffman's Touch (Women's Project). Greco directed the national tour of Emily Mann's Having Our Say as well as the play's international premiere at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa. Regional credits include: Romeo and Juliet and Stop Kiss (Oregon Shakespeare Festival) as well as productions at South Coast Repertory Theatre, LaJolla Playhouse, McCarter, Long Wharf, Intiman, Williamstown Theater Festival, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Repertory Theatre of St Louis, Coconut Grove Playhouse, Playmakers Repertory Company, and the Cleveland Play House. As a Producer, Greco has developed and produced the work of a variety of distinguished contemporary writers including Athol Fugard, Joyce Carol Oates, Emily Mann, Nilo Cruz, Lynn Nottage, Neena Beeber, Diane Paulus, Rinne Groff, and Lisa D'Amour. Greco received her MFA from Catholic University and is the recipient of two Drama League Fellowships and a Princess Grace Award.

Octavio Solis (Director, The Brothers Size) is a playwright and director living in San Francisco. His works Ghosts of the River, Quixote, Lydia, June in a Box, Lethe, Marfa Lights, Gibraltar, The Ballad of Pancho and Lucy, The 7 Visions of Encarnación, Bethlehem, Dreamlandia, El Otro, Man of the Flesh, Prospect, El Paso Blue, Santos & Santos, and La Posada Mágica have been mounted at the Mark Taper Forum, Yale Repertory Theatre, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the Dallas Theater Center, the Magic Theatre, Intersection for the Arts, South Coast Repertory Theatre, the San Diego Repertory Theatre, the San Jose Repertory Theatre, Shadowlight Productions, the Venture Theatre in Philadelphia, Latino Chicago Theatre Company, the New York Summer Play Festival, Teatro Vista in Chicago, El Teatro Campesino, the Undermain Theatre in Dallas, Thick Description, Campo Santo, the Imua Theatre Company in New York, and Cornerstone Theatre. His collaborative works include Burning Dreams, cowritten with Julie Hebert and Gina Leishman and Shiner, written with Erik Ehn. Solis has received an NEA 1995-97 Playwriting Fellowship, the Roger L. Stevens award from the Kennedy Center, the Will Glickman Playwright Award, a production grant from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, the 1998 TCG/NEA Theatre Artists in Residence Grant, the 1998 McKnight Fellowship grant from the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, and the National Latino Playwriting Award for 2003. He is the recipient of the 2000-2001 National Theatre Artists ResidenCy Grant from TCG and the Pew Charitable Trust for Gibraltar at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Solis is a Thornton Wilder Fellow of the MacDowell Colony, a New Dramatists alum and a member of the Dramatists Guild.

The Brothers Size (West Coast Premiere)
an unforgettable tale of brotherhood
written by Tarell Alvin McCraney
directed by Octavio Solis
Am I my brother's keeper? After a homecoming in the bayous of Louisiana, the Size brothers, Ogun and Oshoosi, try to start fresh. This haunting, funny, and heartbreaking tour-de-force by Tarell Alvin McCraney probes sexuality, coming of age, and the bonds of family. The Brothers Size marks the emergence of a major new voice in American theatre.

The Brothers Size is the second play of Tarell Alvin McCraney's The Brother/Sister Plays, a trilogy presented across the Bay Area by Magic Theatre, A.C.T., and Marin Theatre Company this fall. More info at www.brothersisterplays.org.
Dates:
September 9 - October 17
Previews: September 9th - 20th
Opening Night: Tuesday, September 21st @ 8pm
Performance Run: September 23rd - October 17th

Performance Times:
Tuesdays @ 7pm (with the exception of Opening Night 9/21 @ 8pm)
Wednesdays - Fridays @ 8pm
Saturdays @ 2:30 pm & 8pm (no 2:30 performance on 10/16)
Sundays @ 2:30pm
Additional preview performance Monday, September 20th @ 7pm

Or, (West Coast Premiere)
a cross-dressing contemporary restoration comedy
written by Liz Duffy Adams
directed by Loretta Greco
Aphra Behn is getting out of the spy game and into showbiz. If she can finish her play by morning, she'll become the first professional female playwright. All that's standing in her way are King Charles II, actress Nell Gwynne, and double agent William Scot, who may or may not be trying to murder the king. Double-crossing, cross-dressing, sex, art, and politics all come together in playwright Liz Duffy Adams' hilarious bodice-ripper that peers into the life and times of the literal first lady of the stage.

Dates: November 4 - December 5
Previews: November 4th - 9th
Opening Night: Wednesday, November 10th @ 8pm
Performance Run: November 11th - December 5th
Performance Times:
Tuesdays @ 7pm
Wednesdays - Fridays @ 8pm
Saturdays @ 2:30 pm & 8pm
Sundays @ 2:30pm

What We're Up Against (World Premiere)
a laugh-out-loud comedy
written by Theresa Rebeck
directed by Loretta Greco
In the world of architecture, there's a system. Stu and Ben get it; they've paid their dues. Webber gets it. Even Janice gets it. But Eliza, the new woman at the firm, just won't play by the rules. This is What We're Up Against. Theresa Rebeck, one of America's master playwrights, returns to Magic after her hit show Mauritius with this laugh-out-loud world premiere comedy about men, women, and survival in the workplace.
Dates: February 2nd - March 6th
Previews: February 2nd - 8th
Opening Night: Wednesday, February 9th @ 8pm
Performance Run: February 10th - March 6th
Performance Times:
Tuesdays @ 7pm
Wednesdays - Fridays @ 8pm
Saturdays @ 2:30 pm & 8pm
Sundays @ 2:30pm

The Lily's Revenge (Rolling World Premiere)
a flowery fantasia
written by and starring Taylor Mac
featuring dozens of Bay Area artists
When a flower falls in love with a blushing bride, can he complete a quest to become a man and win her love? Should he? Playwright and burlesque performer Taylor Mac, along with dozens of Bay Area artists, tackle love, marriage, and Prop 8- using vaudeville, haiku, drag queens, ukuleles, feminist theories, dream ballets, public dressing rooms, and everything else in Mr. Mac's theatrical arsenal. A fantastical cornucopia of theatre, party, circus, and social experiment, The Lily's Revenge cross examines with humor, heart, and irreverence one of our oldest institutions.

Dates: April 21st - May 22nd
Previews: April 21st - 26th
Opening Night: Wednesday, April 27th @ 7pm
Performance Run: April 28th - May 22nd
Performance Times:
Tuesdays - Saturdays @ 7pm
Sundays @ 2:30pm
*Note on Performance Time: The Lily's Revenge is a 5-act, 5-hour event including performances and intermissions with time to socialize and enjoy food and drink.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Magic Theatre
Building D, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA 94123
(parking lot entrance at Marina Blvd. and Buchanan St.)

Tickets:
415-441-8822 or www.magictheatre.org

Prices:
4 Play Subscriptions: $75 - $180 (available in Preview, Weekday, Weekend, and Student/Under 30 Packages.
Single Tickets:
Previews: $30
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays: $45 - $55
Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays: $50-$60
Student & Under 30: $20 tickets available to Students and people Under 30 years of age with valid ID, side sections only.
Discounts:
Senior & Educator Discount: $5 discount available to seniors (62 And Over) and educators with valid ID.
PWYC performances: Pay What You Can performances: At least two PWYC performances per show (dates to be announced). Door sales only while supplies last.
15/15 RUSH Tickets: $15 rush tickets available 15 minutes before curtain on Tuesday nights and Saturday matinees. Door sales only while supplies last.

NEW PLAY EVENTS
TalkBACKs after Friday performances.
Docent Discussions before every Thursday performance.

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