Elaine Magree's OTHER to Play at The Marsh Berkeley This Month

The Marsh Berkeley will present Elaine Magree’s Other, a profound and entertaining journey of personal and genealogical discovery, directed by Kenny Yun and developed by Rebecca Fisher and David Ford. Filled with irony, irreverence, and forgiveness, this compelling solo show shines a light on a dark corner of U.S. history through the lens of Magree's absorbing personal family story. Audiences follow Magree on a difficult and unexpectedly funny road trip to the reservation she visited as a child, as she seeks the proper resting place for her mother's ashes. In this humorous and insightful work, Other weaves together flashbacks from Magree’s troubled childhood and her larger ancestral past, as she untangles the secrets of her mixed heritage, examining complex questions of identity that are often reduced to simple checkboxes.
 
Under its original title Pilgrimage: Why I’m Not an Indian, this work was performed at fringe festivals including Winnipeg and Minneapolis and made its mainstage premiere in 2013 at the EXIT Theatre Studio in San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle called the solo show “a fascinating tale to tell,” noting “it's about as all-American a story as there is, a deep dive into the complicated and under-acknowledged human legacy of our celebrated melting-pot society.” 
 

ABOUT THE CAST AND CREATIVES 

Elaine Magree’s (Performer) work has been seen at Magic Theatre, Theatre Artaud, California Shakespeare Festival, SOMAR, Venue 9, Working Women’s Theatre Festival, National Women’s Theatre Festival, Berkeley Piano Club, Solo Z, the Maritime Museum, BRAVA, Peoples Theatre Festival, and 54th St. Theatre in New York, as well as other West Coast venues from Santa Cruz to Seattle. She was a director of the Artists in Residence Project and co-director of the New Music Theatre Project at The Z Space Studio. She has taught theater at Solano College, San Francisco City College, East Bay Center for the Performing Arts and in jails, homeless shelters, and recovery houses. Her solos shows, Holding the Edge and PussyGrabbingRevenge, were nominated as Best Solo Performance by Theatre Bay Area.  
 
Kenny Yun (Director) is a solo show performer, director, and teacher. His first work, Lettuce Town Lies about growing up in Salinas, California, was seen at The Marsh. His dark dada comedy The Kim Jong-IL Experience, was also workshopped at The Marsh. He holds an English Literature degree from U.C. Berkeley and has performed standup comedy and performed in classic and modern plays. Yun studied acting and directing at A.C.T. and Berkeley Repertory Theatre and has taught solo theater with Charlie Varon for over a decade.  
 
Rebecca Fisher (Developer) is the creator of The Marsh's Writing Cabaret and the co-producer of the long-running Marsh series Tell It on Tuesday. Her solo performance work has been called "smart, challenging, and unmistakably affecting" by the San Francisco Chronicle and has been awarded a San Francisco Best of Fringe Award. She has directed solo shows in national fringe festivals, as well as Mark Kenward's Nantucket and Diane Barnes's My Stroke of Luck, both presented at The Marsh. Fisher was a teaching artist with the Lincoln Center affiliated arts education program in Bay Area schools and has directed theater camps with the Berkeley Playhouse/Julia Morgan Center for the Arts and The Marsh. 
 
David Ford (Developer) has been collaborating on new and unusual theater for three decades and has been associated with The Marsh for most of that time. The San Francisco press has variously called him “the solo performer maven,” “the monologue maestro,” “the dean of solo performance,” and “the solo performer’s best friend.” A week rarely goes by when residents of the Bay Area cannot enjoy one of his productions. Collaborators include Geoff Hoyle, Brian Copeland, Charlie Varon, Echo Brown, Marilyn Pittman, Rebecca Fisher, Wayne Harris, Jill Vice, and Marga Gomez. Ford’s work has been seen regionally at The Public Theater, Second Stage Theater, Theatre at St. Clement’s, Dixon Place, Theatre for the New City (New York), Highways Performance Space (Los Angeles), and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co. (Washington, D.C.). His work has also been featured in most of the fringe festivals in North America, and at theaters around the Bay Area including Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Magic Theatre, and Marin Theatre Company. Ford’s directing has garnered several “Best of Fringe” Awards and a Goldie Award.  

Other will play Saturdays at 5:00pm, April 13-May 4, 2024, at The Marsh Berkeley. For information or to order tickets ($20-$35 adult general admission sliding scale; $50-$100 reserved), the public may visit themarsh.org.  

Photo credit: Michael Rauner

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