Brava is proud to present Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! (B!D!F!W!) as its first main stage production of its 2008-2009 season. After touring 22 cities around the world, Brava is excited to bring this groundbreaking work to San Francisco audiences.
'In a town that is so progressive, I was surprised that this show still hadn't made it to San Francisco so when I was creating my first season as the Artistic Director at Brava, I made sure that it was scheduled in this season,' says Raelle Myrick-Hodges, the Artistic Director at Brava.
In 1990, during the Senator Helms' National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Censorship Crisis, performance artist Penny Arcade submitted her Sex and Censorship Show, B!D!F!W! as her NEA Fellowship audit. Although B!D!F!W!, which is a blend of political humanism and erotic dancing, was not awarded a fellowship, it did go on to play for an unprecedented year Off-Broadway in New York as an underground hit and then went on the road and became a commercial mainstream hit play in 22 cities around the world, turning the political correctness of the theatre world upside down, and heralding the zeitgeist as B!D!F!W! proved that content and sensationalism cannot co-exist. Irish grandmothers, to people of all ages, from all walks of life joined Penny Arcade and her cast of erotic dancers on stage for the audience dance break at the center of the performance.
B!D!F!W! went on to establish erotic dance as a feminist art form and the comedic cultural criticism broke down the separation and isolation between people of diverse racial, ethnic, sexual and economic groups and left an international Neo Burlesque Movement in its wake.
San Francisco's cutting-edge Cutting Ball Theater announces the extension of the company's current production of Mar?a Irene Forn?s's poetic and penetrating MUD. MUD will extend for an additional week of performance, playing now through February 15 at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street in San Francisco. For tickets ($15-30) and more information, the public may visit cuttingball.com or call 800-838-3006.
It is 1973 and Mae has just begun to learn how to read; things finally seem to be taking a turn for the better. As she tries to rise above her humble Midwestern origins, Mae must keep the two men in her life, foster brother and former lover Lloyd, and new boyfriend Henry, from dragging her back down. Little does Mae know that the first strong decision she's ever made about her life may be the last decision she will ever make.
'After spending two weeks at the Dialog Festival in Wroclaw, Poland last year, I came back to San Francisco with a new idea about what really good and interesting theater ought to be,' said MUD director Paige Rogers. 'The sense of humanness I experienced, where the audience breathes along with the performance, is such an elemental aspect of theater and something I feel Cutting Ball can give its audience in its new performance space. I am directing Fornes' MUD with this idea, that less is more, and I believe that each audience member will take away something personal and different that will stay with them for a long time.'
Berkeley's acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company announces the four plays chosen as winners for the Global Age Project (GAP), the company's new works initiative that promotes the creation of forward-looking theatre: The First Grade by Joel Drake Johnson; Birnham Woods by Wendy MacLeod; Right? by Dan Hoyle ; and and when we awoke there was light and light by Laura Jacqmin. The selected plays will be presented as staged readings in a four-week festival at the Aurora Theatre, Mondays, February 2-23, 7:30pm, coinciding with the company's fully-staged West Coast Premiere of George Packer's provocative Lucille Lortel-winning play Betrayed (January 23-March 1). Each GAP reading will be followed by an audience discussion of the contemporary issues raised in each work. Additionally, the company announces that it has received a $20,000 grant from the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation to support the Global Age Project. For information on GAP events (free and open to the public) an d Betrayed, the public may call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org.
Berkeley's acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company announces the four plays chosen as winners for the Global Age Project (GAP), the company's new works initiative that promotes the creation of forward-looking theatre: The First Grade by Joel Drake Johnson; Birnham Woods by Wendy MacLeod; Right? by Dan Hoyle; and and when we awoke there was light and light by Laura Jacqmin. The selected plays will be presented as staged readings in a four-week festival at the Aurora Theatre, Mondays, February 2-23, 7:30pm, coinciding with the company's fully-staged West Coast Premiere of George Packer's provocative Lucille Lortel-winning play Betrayed (January 23-March 1).
Now Playing at the Brava:
Friends
Written by Kobo Abe
Directed by Raelle Myrick-Hodges
November 5 - November 21
'Love flies out the window when Poverty comes through the door.'
A man sits at home perfectly happy. Suddenly there is a knock at his door. A family of eight - bright smiles, well groomed stand at the man's door. 'We are here to help', the family declares and thus begins the strange trek into Kobo Abe's 1964 Japanese take on contemporary society and gentrification.
Brava! for Women in the Arts celebrates the opening of their 2nd Stage with the Regional Production of Friends, written by Kobo Abe and directed by Brava's Artistic Director, Raelle Myrick-Hodges.
Magic Theatre continues its 40th Anniversary Season with HOT HOUSE 2007 featuring the best of 'three world premiere plays by playwrights from a new generation shaping the future of American Theatre.' In its fourth year, HOT HOUSE presents full productions of new plays in rotating repertory by Chantal Bilodeau, Kirsten Greenidge and C. Michele Kaplan.
The Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia boasts a current membership of more than 75 organizations and 180 individual artists. 35 theaters participated in this year's nominations for their outstanding work in acting, directing, sound, lighting, costumes, musical direction, choreography and overall outstanding performance.
