Dark Porch Theatre Stages THE APE WOMAN: A ROCK OPERA at Exit, Now thru 6/29

San Francisco's Dark Porch Theatre, recent perpetrators of striking original dramas like Cockroach, Eleanor, and The Tutor, reaches out to the East Coast for another bizarre theatrical tale. The Ape Woman is a rock opera written and composed by May van Oskan. It chronicles the bizarre and haunted journey of Victorian circus phenomenon Julia Pastrana.

The work features fourteen original songs performed by a seven-piece band, threaded together by the larger-than-life recollections of four narrators. The madcap ensemble of storytellers and musicians invites the audience into their late-night sideshow tent, full to claustrophobia, and with the trappings of the most decadent and exploitative age.

The Cast for the San Francisco production includes May van Oskan, Michele Jones, Nina Violet, Marciana Jones, Adam Lipsky, Ashley Skye Clayton, Christopher P. Kelly, Justin Taylor, Leonardo Suarez-Peringer, Adam Petkus and Bernard Vash*

*Courtesy of The Actor's Equity Association

The show will run at EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy Street, San Francisco, Calif.