Berkeley's acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company presents the second Aurora Script Club meeting of the season with playwright Bill Cain's (Equivocation, Nine Circles) Stand-Up Tragedy. Cain introduced Stand-Up Tragedy to the American stage 20 years ago, telling a story in music and dance through characters who feel like puppets gambling with their fate in an "ecology of evil." The Soldier's Tale, written in 1918 by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz and set to a masterful score by Igor Stravinsky, tells a similar tale of tinkering with devils and the future. Aurora Theatre Company Education Director Michael Mansfield hosts this moderated discussion series. The Aurora Script Club was conceived and developed by Aurora Theatre Company Artistic Director Tom Ross. In honor of Aurora Theatre Company's 20th anniversary, all of the Script Club selections for the season are plays that premiered 20 years ago during the 1991-92 national American theater season.
Aurora Theatre Company continues its 20th season with an enchanting, one-of-a-kind collaboration between Artistic Director
Tom Ross and former San Francisco Ballet principal dancer Muriel Maffre with a re-imagined version of
Igor Stravinsky's 1918 musical work, The Soldier's Tale. Maffre, who retried as a principal dancer from the San Francisco Ballet in 2007, makes her dancing debut on the Aurora stage, as well as acting as puppeteer and choreographer for The Soldier's Tale and as co-director along with
Tom Ross. The production also features a special musical collaboration with San Francisco's cutting edge chamber music collective Earplay, under the musical direction of Mary Chun. Bay Area stage luminaries L.
Peter Callender (
Permanent Collection) and
Joan Mankin (Bosoms and Neglect) return to Aurora to round out the extraordinary ensemble. The Soldier's Tale plays November 11 through December 18 at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley.
Monday, December 12, 2011, 7:30pm at Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA 94704. Aurora Script Club is free and open to the public; for more information about Script Club or The Soldier's Tale, the public can call (510) 843-4822 or visit
auroratheatre.org.
