Cutting Ball Theatre Presents LIFE IS A DREAM

Cutting Ball Theater opens its 17th season with LIFE IS A DREAM by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Following the sold-out success of last season's Antigone, Acting Artistic Director Paige Rogers (Tontlawald, Mud) helms this Calderón classic, in a new translation from resident playwright Andrew Saito, commissioned by Cutting Ball. Featuring David Sinaiko, Asher Sinaiko, Grace Ng, Sango Tajima, Matthew Hannon, Michael Wayne Turner III, Peter Warden, and Barry Despenza, LIFE IS A DREAM plays October 2 through November 1 (press opening: October 8) at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor (277 Taylor Street) in San Francisco. For tickets ($10-50) and more information, the public may visit cuttingball.com or call 415-525-1205.

First published in 1635, LIFE IS A DREAM is a philosophical allegory regarding the human situation and the mystery of life. Often described as the supreme example of Spanish Golden Age drama, it tells the story of Segismundo, a Prince of Poland, who has been imprisoned in a tower by his father following a prophecy that the prince would bring disaster to the country and death to the King. When the prince is briefly freed and goes on a rampage, he is put back in jail, and persuaded that his momentary freedom was all a dream. Wrestling with free will and fate, LIFE IS A DREAM remains one of Calderón's best-known and most studied works.

"I have loved Life is a Dream for over 20 years," said Paige Rogers, Cutting Ball Acting Artistic Director. "To me, it says something quite profound about the potential in underserved populations in any culture. I've seen productions of this piece at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, on the East Coast, in Poland, and at Cal Shakes, and there is one constant in each of these productions: Segismundo's ultimate transformation, where something quite crude and underdeveloped becomes something quite exquisite."

Continued Rogers, "Cutting Ball resident playwright Andrew Saito worked for six months on this new translation of the play. The words were archaic and their true meanings often wrapped and double wrapped in formal language and repetitions. Andrew's translation of this 15th century play feels fresh because it marries Calderón's vivid and often difficult language with some very modern and funny twists. I'm thrilled to work with a real father-son team on Life is a Dream, Cutting Ball Associate Artist David Sinaiko, and his son with director Annie Elias (Tenderloin, The Chairs), Asher. Their respective roles as father and son call upon them to really trust one another as actors, to be comfortable with the animosity between their characters, yet also have an unspoken, deep love for one another. I am excited by the prospect of what we will find on this journey, and I know our audiences won't be able to help but applaud the beautiful and the ugly existential grappling they discover in Life is a Dream."

Paige Rogers is an actress, director, Acting Artistic Director and co-founder of the Cutting Ball Theater. In addition to LIFE IS A DREAM, her directing credits at Cutting Ball include Antigone, Tontlawald, Mud, The Hidden Classics Reading Series, Suzan-Lori Parks' 365 Plays/365 Days, and RISK IS THIS...The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. Additionally, Rogers has appeared in Cutting Ball's productions of Eugenie Chan's plays Bone to Pick and Diadem; in the company's hit production of The Bald Soprano; My Head Was a Sledgehammer; As You Like It; The Vomit Talk of Ghosts; Macbeth; Accents in Alsace; and The Taming of the Shrew for which she won the SF Weekly annual poll for Best Actress in San Francisco. She has been seen locally with Berkeley Opera, Lamplighters, Sonoma County Repertory Theater, and on tour with California Shakespeare Theater. National credits include performances at The Kennedy Center, McCarter Theater, Trinity Repertory Company, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

In addition to LIFE IS A DREAM, Andrew Saito's plays include Mount Misery; A Comedy of Enhanced Interrogations, which was developed at Cutting Ball Theater's 2014 RISK IS THIS...Festival and received its World Premiere as part of the company's 2015 main stage season; Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night, which was developed at Cutting Ball Theater's 2011 RISK IS THIS...Festival and received its World Premiere as part of the company's 2013 main stage season; The Patron Saint of Monsters, and La Lechera, El Río, a finalist for the Princess Grace Award. Awarded an Iowa Arts Fellowship at the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Saito has taught playwriting and poetry to immigrant and underserved youth in San Francisco with WritersCorps and Performing Arts Workshop, in rural Mayan villages in Guatemala, and at Kearny Street Workshop's Intergenerational Writers Lab. A Resident Playwright at the Playwrights Foundation and a Core Apprentice at the Playwrights Center of Minneapolis, Saito's work has been developed at Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the Asian American Theater Company, Mixed Phoenix Theatre in New York, and presented by Intersection for the Arts, Magic Theatre, Montalvo Arts Center, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and Brava Theater, among others. He was a finalist for New Dramatists and a Jerome Fellowship, and was awarded a 2012 Fulbright Fellowship to continue his writing about and research of marginalized communities in Papua New Guinea.

Cutting Ball Theater has assembled a talented ensemble for LIFE IS A DREAM. Cutting Ball Associate Artist David Sinaiko returns to the company as Basilio in LIFE IS A DREAM. He most recently appeared in the company's productions of Mount Misery; A Comedy of Enhanced Interrogations, Ubu Roi, Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night, The Chairs, Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep, Tenderloin, Lady Grey (in ever lower light), The Tempest, Krapp's Last Tape, ...and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, The Bald Soprano, Victims of Duty, and Endgame. Other Cutting Ball credits include The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, The Sandalwood Box, Ajax for Instance, Macbeth, 365 Plays/365 Days, Woyzeck, Chain Reactions, and RISK IS THIS...The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. Additional credits include productions at Shotgun Players, Golden Thread Productions, Crowded Fire Theater, and San Francisco Playhouse; Sinaiko has been seen at the Goodman Theatre, The Actor's Gang, and in the popular Bay Area one-man production of David Sedaris' SantaLand Diaries. He was a founding member of Chicago's New Crime Productions.

Asher Sinaiko makes his professional theater debut as Segismundo in LIFE IS A DREAM. A junior at Marin Academy in San Rafael, he is an aspiring filmmaker and pitcher for the varsity baseball team. He has appeared in productions of The Miser, Hamlet, Sherlock Holmes, and Oliver! Also making her Cutting Ball Theater debut is Sango Tajima as Rosaura. Tajima is co-founder of the producing ensemble Dirty Hands, a member of political theater collective The Bonfire Makers, and an Associate Artist with Ragged Wing Ensemble. Bay Area credits include productions with Campo Santo (Holy Crime), Impact Theatre (Year of the Rooster), Bay Area Children's Theatre, and New Conservatory Theatre Center, among others. Additionally, she served as an Artistic Direction Apprentice at Magic Theater.

Michael Wayne Turner III makes his Cutting Ball debut as Clarín in LIFE IS A DREAM. An actor and poet with a background in modern contemporary dance, Bay Area credits include roles at Intersection for the Arts (Chinaka Hodge's Chasing Mehserle), African American Shakespeare Company, and the Bay Area Playwrights Foundation; additional credits include A.C.T. and Campo Santo. Grace Ng makes her Cutting Ball debut as Estrella. Credits include productions with Berkeley Playhouse (Fiddler on the Roof), foolsFURY (The Seeing Place), the One-Minute Play Festival at Playwright's Foundation, and Bay Area Children's Theatre (Where the Mountain Meets the Moon), among others.

Rounding out the cast and making their Cutting Ball debuts are Peter Warden as Clotaldo (The Pillowman at The Breadbox), Matthew Hannon as Astolfo, and Barry Despenza as the percussion lead.

Following LIFE IS A DREAM, Cutting Ball Theater continues its 17th season, based on the theme of "Dreams" with the World Premiere of Katharine Sherman's ONDINE in February, directed by Rob Melrose. RISK IS THIS...THE CUTTING BALL NEW EXPERIMENTAL PLAYS FESTIVAL returns in March with staged readings of new experimental works for the stage, followed by A DREAMPLAY in May, directed by Rob Melrose, in a new translation by Paul Walsh.

Co-founded in 1999 by theater artists Rob Melrose and Paige Rogers, Cutting Ball Theater presents avant-garde works of the past, present, and future by re-envisioning classics, exploring seminal avant-garde texts, and developing new experimental plays. The company has commissioned, developed, and produced new experimental plays, and has partnered with Playwrights Foundation, and the Magic Theatre/Z Space New Plays Initiative to commission new experimental works. In addition to producing West Coast Premieres and re-imaging various classics, Cutting Ball Theater has produced nine World Premieres and seven World Premiere translations. Cutting Ball received the 2008 San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie award for outstanding talent in the performing arts, and was voted "Best Theater Company" in the 2010 San Francisco Bay Guardian Best of the Bay issue. The company also earned the Best of SF award in 2006 and "Best Experimental Theater Company" in 2012 from SF Weekly, and was selected by San Francisco magazine as Best Classic Theater in 2007. In 2012, Cutting Ball was awarded a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund a three-year residency for resident playwright Andrew Saito. The American Theatre Wing, best known as the creator of the Antoinette Perry "Tony" Awards, awarded the company with a 2013 National Theatre Company grant. Cutting Ball Theater was featured in the February 2010, 2012, December 2014, and February 2015 issues of American Theatre Magazine.