Cornerstone Theater Company to Launch CALIFORNIA: THE TEMPEST Tour

Take the journey as Cornerstone Theater Company presents a world premiere adaption of Shakespeare's The Tempest with, CALIFORNIA: THE TEMPEST, written by Cornerstone Co-Founder Alison Carey and directed by its Artistic Director Michael John Garcés. CALIFORNIA: THE TEMPEST will travel to ten diverse California cities over the course of the year. Journey with Cornerstone from the downtown Los Angeles Arts District to Arvin, Lost Hills, Grayson & Westley, Pacoima, Fowler, East Salinas, Holtville, Eureka, San Francisco and then back to Downtown L.A. (where it all began) as each of these ten communities contributes to writing the play they inspire.

In CALIFORNIA: THE TEMPEST, "What's past is prologue," as playwright Alison Carey's adaptation of The Tempest meets California's challenges head-on in this traveling experience that conjures love, disaster, revenge, forgiveness & music (all that you would expect from Shakespeare!); mixed with earthquakes, drought, overdevelopment, food equity, state politics, fracking and immigration policy (all that you would expect from California!) as Prosper, her daughter Minerva, her servant Caliban and Californians from across the state yearn to find the commonality in our diversity and imagine a healthy and inclusive future for California!

Comments Cornerstone Theater Company's Artistic Director Michael John Garcés, "It is a monumental effort and collaboration on which we embark with this project, but playwright Alison Carey's themes are so vital and important to our work as a company; when are we individuals, and when are we part of communities? When are we residents of real California, and when are we aspirants to mythic California? What is hunger in this state that feeds so much of a country, and in how many ways are we hungry? These are the questions we hope to explore on this year-long quest across California."

CALIFORNIA: THE TEMPEST will embark on this journey with two staged readings at Grand Performances in the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles on August 22 and 23 at 8pm.

MICHAEL JOHN GARCÉS (Director, Artistic Director, Cornerstone Theater Company) has directed many plays for Cornerstone, including two summer residency projects, Plumas Negras by Juliette Carrillo in Salinas, and atTraction by Page Leong in the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District. For Cornerstone he has also written Consequence, which was presented in Arvin, a farming community in the Central Valley, and Los Illegals, created with day laborers and domestic workers in Los Angeles. His work has been produced in theaters across the country such as South Coast Repertory, The Wilma Theatre, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He is a company member at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C., serves on the executive board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and is a proud alumnus of New Dramatists.

ALISON CAREY (Playwright, Co-Founder, Cornerstone Theater Company) has written or co-written over 25 of Cornerstone's productions, and has been nominated for Emmy, GLAAD and Ovation awards. A member of the Dramatists Guild, she has served on advisory or peer panels for organizations such as The Ford Foundation, Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Foundation, the Mark Taper Forum's Other Voices Projects and Arts Midwest. She has guest lectured at universities and organizations around the country, including at Yale, Stanford and the BAM/CUNY Shakespeare Conference, and taught courses at the University of Southern California and CalState LA in playwriting and community-based theater.
The core cast of CALIFORNIA: THE TEMPEST will feature (in alphabetical order): Elzie Alexander, Karen Covarrubias, MC Earl, Gabriel Garcia, Iris Gonzalez, Chelsea Gregory, Brent Grihalva, Peter Howard, Joji Koyura, Page Leong, Francisco Martinez, Gema Sanchez, E'Vet Thompson and Bahni Turpin.

CALIFORNIA: THE TEMPEST features an award-winning design team. The Scenic Design is by Nephelie Andonyadis. The Costume Design is by Garry Lennon. The Lighting Design is by Geoff Korf. Sound Design is by Veronika Vorel. Original Music composed by Becky Dale. Puppet Design is by Lynn Jeffries.