La Jolla Playhouse Announces 2011/12 Resident Theatre Company

La Jolla Playhouse is proud to announce its 2011/12 season resident theatre company: Eveoke Dance Theatre. This marks the fourth year of the Playhouse's landmark Resident Theatre Program and the first time a dance company has been chosen.

Spearheaded by Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley, the Resident Theatre Program aims to encourage the artistic development of up-and-coming performing arts organizations, while advancing and contributing to the San Diego theatre scene as a whole. The program is also designed to address San Diego's lack of available, affordable performance spaces by providing a temporary home each year to one of the many local troupes without a permanent venue.

"The Resident Theatre Program has become an integral part of the Playhouse's programming, and we are ecstatic about its success over the last three seasons," said Ashley. "We are especially excited to name Eveoke - our first dance organization - as the resident company this season, broadening the spectrum of artistic offerings at the Playhouse. This innovative troupe brings a fresh vision to each of their projects, with strong ties to the community through their numerous education and outreach programs."

"We are incredibly jazzed and grateful about the amazing opportunity we have to learn from the wisdom of the La Jolla Playhouse staff and organizational best practices," said Eveoke Artistic Director Erika Malone. "This is a rich opening for our organization to expand, stretch, and deepen the roots that will sustain us as a passionate and activist dance theatre company for years to come."

Eveoke will be in residence September 8 - 25, 2011 in the Playhouse's Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre with a production of Las Mariposas. On November 25, 1960, three sisters known as "the butterflies" were brutally murdered for their participation in the resistance movement against Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. A fourth sister survived and shared their story of courage, conviction, and compassion. Adapted from the Julia Alvarez novel In the Time of the Butterflies, Las Mariposas allows audiences to experience key moments in the sisters' lives and witness the circumstances and choices that led them to participate in their country's revolution. The company returns to the Playhouse May 31 - June 24, 2012 with REFUGE, in which emerging choreographers Becky Hurt and Myriam Lucas tackle issues of gender, sexuality, and cycles of violence through hip-hop dance and spoken word. REFUGE takes these themes and explores how we can empower ourselves to create new realities of relationships and healthy self expression in our culture.

The Resident Theatre Program is part of La Jolla Playhouse's overall commitment to fostering artist relationships and the development of new work. The Playhouse seeks to nurture both established and up-and-coming playwrights, directors, designers and performers who are impacted by, and who, in turn, impact our culture. By offering these artists resources and opportunities, such as residencies, commissions, readings, workshops, as well as our signature Page To Stage Play Development Program, we can ensure the Playhouse will be the place to look to see the future of American theatre.

Now entering its fourth year, the Resident Theatre Program is an annual appointment at La Jolla Playhouse. In addition to performance space, the Playhouse provides lighting and sound support and is available to offer marketing and development advice. Previous resident theatre appointees include Mo'olelo Performing Arts Company (2008), Moxie Theatre (2009) and the San Diego Asian American Repertory Theater (2010).

The San Diego Asian American Repertory Theater will conclude its residency this spring with a concert version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song: A Musical Revival in Concert, playing May 12 - June 12 in the Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre. Based on the legendary Rodgers and Hammerstein musical (1958), popular movie (1961) and modern revival (2002) featuring a new book by Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly), Flower Drum Song follows Mei-Li, who flees Communist China in the 1950s and struggles to balance tradition and assimilation while looking for love in San Francisco. The show also explores intergenerational conflict as Wang, the owner of an old-fashioned opera house, resists his son's desire to turn it into a nightclub, in pursuit of the American Dream.
The nationally acclaimed, Tony Award-winning La Jolla Playhouse is known for its tradition of creating the most exciting and adventurous new work in regional theatre. Founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, The Playhouse is considered one of the most well-respected not-for-profit theatres in the country. Numerous Playhouse productions have moved to Broadway, including Big River, The Who's Tommy, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, A Walk in the Woods, Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays, the Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife, Jersey Boys, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Farnsworth Invention, 33 Variations and the 2010 Tony Award-winning musical Memphis. Located on the UC San Diego campus, La Jolla Playhouse is made up of three primary performance spaces: the Mandell Weiss Theatre, the Mandell Weiss Forum Theatre, and the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Center for La Jolla Playhouse, a state-of-the-art theatre complex which features the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre. La Jolla Playhouse is led by Artistic Director Christopher Ashley and Managing Director Michael S. Rosenberg.

Biographies
Eveoke Dance Theatre (www.eveoke.org) cultivates compassionate social action through evocative performance, arts education and community building. To that end, they produce an annual season of original dance theatre works, operate an extensive arts education program aimed at long-term, quality interactions between students and teachers, and provide unique experiences that increase visibility for dance and benefit the diverse San Diego community. With core values of access, intention, and collaboration, Eveoke has produced more than 30 original, socially-conscious works throughout San Diego since it was founded in 1994.

Erika Malone, Eveoke Artistic Director, received her B.A. in Theatre and Dance from Sarah Lawrence College in NY and British American Drama Academy in London in 1998. She joined Eveoke's Concert Company and full-time staff in 2004. She became Eveoke's Artistic Director in April 2010. Professional productions with Eveoke founder and choreographer Gina Angelique include Women Rebels (2003), Mothers (2004), Funkalosophy (2004), Monstropoly (2004), Parting the Sea (2005), Hips (2006), Soul of a Young Girl: Dances of Anne Frank (2006), Hip Hop Is Everywhere (2006), Luna: Dances of Love (2007) and RISE - The California Earth Project (2007). Productions with Resident Choreographer Ericka Aisha Moore include Soulos Green (2008), Lyrics, Beats & Bricks (2008), Painless and Lesspain (2010), Lot's Daughters (2010) and Las Mariposas (2010). Ms. Malone served as a co-creator for Las Mariposas, which played for four weeks at the Tenth Avenue Theater to sold-out crowds. She also served as Eveoke's Programs Director for five years, overseeing and growing their many successful programs that provide dance education to more than 3,000 at-risk youth on a weekly basis in neighborhoods all over the city and 20,000 audience members annually.

Ericka Aisha Moore, Eveoke Resident Choreographer, believes in the impact of dance to empower individuals, which therefore empowers community. She has been a professional dancer for Eveoke Dance Theatre since 1997, performing in over 21 full-length shows as a principal dancer. She has also danced with the Colette Harding Contemporary Dance Company and with Peter Kalivas in The PGK Project. Currently, Ms. Moore is Master Teaching Artist, Director of the Apprentice Company and Resident Choreographer for Eveoke Dance Theatre. Her most recent full length choreography credits include Soulos Green, Lyrics, Beats & Bricks, Voices: Mapping the Hood, and Las Mariposas. She serves on the dance faculty at Palomar College and teaches at Canyon Crest Academy. She is also a seasoned sound designer and has worked with Eveoke Dance Theatre, Stone Soup and Sledgehammer Theatre. Funkalosophy, her second full-length show, created in 2002, reveals how the hip-hop subculture contributes to an activist dance theatre, while empowering youth and others with a voice concerning their political and social issues. Funkalosophy was reset in 2003 and 2004 and the 2004 staging was the longest running dance theatre production in San Diego, for nine weeks.

San Diego Asian American Repertory Theater (www.asianamericanrep.org) celebrates and gives voice to the Asian American experience. It has contributed to cultural diversity and education in San Diego for more than 15 years, producing 35 plays including five world premieres. SDAART recently won the prestigious Pon Award bestowed by the National Association of Ethnic Studies for its "wonderful history and collection of theater works that present Asian American culture with bounty and beauty." It gives local audiences a chance to see Asian Americans as simply Americans - beyond race, preconceptions and boundaries. SDAART strives to give expression to under-recognized Asian American plays and stage works by new and established artists to help bridge cross-generational and cross-cultural gaps.

 

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