Woolly Mammoth Presents STUPID F**KING BIRD, 5/27-6/3

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company closes its dynamic 33rd season with playwright and director Aaron Posner's world premiere of Stupid f-ing Bird, loosely based on Chekhov's The Seagull. Woolly Artistic Director Howard Shalwitz directs this re-imagined version, May 27 through June 23, 2013.

An aspiring young theatre director named Conrad struggles to get out from under the shadow of his mother Emma, a famous actress. Meanwhile, his young muse Nina falls for Emma's lover Doyle, and everyone discovers just how disappointing love, art, and growing up can be. In this contemporary and irreverent riff on Chekhov's The Seagull, Aaron Posner skillfully remixes the renowned "subtext" of the classic play into exuberant scenes and songs.

"Stupid f-ing Bird, like The Seagull, is mostly about love, art, hope, and disappointment," said Aaron Posner. "It pits passionate dreams of ideal love and artistic success against the simple hard realities of quotidian life. It's been fascinating to explore The Seagull-a play I truly love and, in some odd ways, loathe-to find my own resonances and rebellions within it. What has emerged, I hope, in this rough-and-tumble, meta-theatrical mash-up, is a deliberately unfaithful re-imagining that I hope will challenge, amaze, engage, and delight."

"Aaron Posner and I have been friends for many years, so it's a thrill to finally collaborate together on a new work," said Woolly Artistic Director Howard Shalwitz. "Chekhov's The Seagull is a cornerstone of theatrical realism, but Aaron has written a very personal response that brings contemporary language and a breezy sense of experimentation to this iconic work. The extended exploratory process made possible by our "Free the Beast!" fundraising campaign has allowed our designers and actors to find their own responses, as well-both to Chekhov and to Posner! The results will be lively and quite layered, lending fresh relevance to Chekhov's themes about the inevitable compromises of adult life."

Stupid f-ing Bird is the second production to be supported by Woolly Mammoth's innovative fundraising effort, Free the Beast!, which was publicly launched last May. Free the Beast! is raising $4 million to support the production of 25 new plays over the next ten years. Some will be commissioned from scratch; others developed from early drafts. All will be given the time and tending they need by to reach maturity, drawing from a menu of support including commissioning, research enhancement, readings and workshops, larger casts, extra rehearsals,
and increased technical resources. Most importantly, each will receive full productions on Woolly Mammoth's stage.

Free the Beast! support for Stupid f-ing Bird included a completion commission for playwright Aaron Posner, funding for the composer of the original score, a one-week workshop at Lake George Theater Lab in upstate New York, and three readings at Woolly Mammoth.

Community engagement activities surrounding Stupid f-ing Bird are featured in Woolly's "House Lights Up!" programming profile below.

Woolly Mammoth's Season 33-themed My Roots, My Revolution-includes a group of unforgettable characters who choose whether to embrace their legacies, run from them, or invent a whole new future. Works include Kristoffer Diaz's The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (Sept 3-Oct 7), Mia Chung's You for Me for You (Nov 5-Dec 2), Danai Gurira's The Convert (Feb 13-Mar 10), Mike Daisey's American Utopias (Mar 25-Apr 21), Aaron Posner's Stupid f-ing Bird (May 27-June 23), and The Second City's America All Better!! (July 9-Aug 4). This holiday season featured Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez's The Pajama Men: In The Middle of No One (Dec 11-Jan 6).

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