UC San Diego Department Of Theatre And Dance Presents THE GRADIENT

The UC San Diego Department of Theatre and Dance presents The Gradient, written and directed by Steph Del Rosso, as part of the 2019 Wagner New Play Festival.

About the play: Tess just landed a job at sleek tech start-up The Gradient: a center where men accused of sexual misconduct are sent to be rehabilitated. The clients go in with a lifetime of toxic male conditioning and emerge as new men, sensitized, redeemed. It sounds too good to be true, and maybe it is. When Tess meets a client who says all the right things, she's forced to question her most basic assumptions about what is true and what is real. The Gradient asks what it means to say I'm sorry and whether it's possible for people to truly change.

The Gradient runs May 1 at 7 pm, May 8 and 13 at 7:30 pm, May 11 and 17 at 8 pm, and May 18 at 2 pm. Performances are at the Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre in the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Theatre District on UC San Diego's campus: 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla, CA. For information about parking, please see the website.

Tickets are $20 for regular performances. Subscriptions and group rates are available. Student tickets are $10 for regular performances. Faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens discounts available as well. Tickets can be purchased online or by calling the box office at (858) 534-4574.

The cast features Christine Penn (Tess), Garrett Schulte (Jackson), India Gurley (Natalya), Cornelius Franklin (Louis), and Ben Little (Clients 1-9).

The creative team includes Steph Del Rosso (Director/Playwright), Miranda Friel (Scenic Designer), Daniella Toscano (Costume Design), Mextly Almeda (Lighting Designer), Stephen Jensen (Sound Designer), Kristen Tregar (Dramaturg), Andrew Gutierrez (Production Stage Manager), Kiko Lu (Assistant Stage Manager), and Justin Livengood (Assistant Stage Manager).

The 2019 Wagner New Play Festival at UC San Diego features world premiere productions written by our talented MFA playwrights, and directed, acted, stage-managed and designed by our nationally-acclaimed MFA companies. The plays produced in the Wagner New Plays Festival represent some of the most original and groundbreaking new voices in American theatre. The plays in this year's festival are Monster by Ava Geyer, The Gradient by Steph Del Rosso, Shame Spiral by Ali Viterbi, a reading of Incendiary by Dave Harris, The Jefferson Middle School Monthly by Mara Nelson-Greenberg, and Duchess! Duchess! Duchess! by Vivian Barnes.

About the director/playwright: Steph Del Rosso is a third-year MFA playwright, television writer, and educator. Her play 53% Of is the second-place recipient of the Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting, presented by the Kennedy Center. Her play Fill Fill Fill Fill Fill Fill Fill received its world premiere at The Flea in 2018, and will be published by Dramatists Play Service Inc. Other plays include Machinalia (JACK), Are You There? (UCSD), Flee (Seven Devils Playwrights Conference), Mean Well, Sister Play, and You're Crazy (a play with karaoke). Her work has been developed at Soho Rep, Clubbed Thumb, New York Stage and Film, Colt Coeur, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Judson Memorial Church, Caldera Arts, Theater Masters, The Disquiet International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal, and others. She is an alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writers' Group.