FACT/SF Marks 10th Anniversary with World Premiere of DEATH

On the occasion of its 10th anniversary, FACT/SF is proud to announce the world premiere of death, an immersive performance about the experience of losing a loved one. Co-presented by CounterPulse, death runs Thursdays through Saturdays, September 27 - October 13, 2018. Tickets are $15 - $35, and may be purchased online at counterpulse.org.

Limited to audiences of 40 individuals each evening, death aims to be "part intimate celebration, part conjuring and part collective mourning for performers and audiences alike," said FACT/SF Founder and Artistic Director Charles Slender-White. "This work runs the gamut from the extremely delicate to the wildly unhinged."

Death explores the public-private interplay of responses to loss, "both the outward, culturally sanctioned rituals of mourning and the often lonely, very personal work of grieving," added Slender-White. "To that end, the event offers the experience of communal participation and individual, one-on-one moments with the performers offstage."

Following Remains (2017), Life (2018) and most recently Memoria (2018), death culminates two years of research and performance on the topic of grief and loss. And much like FACT/SF's (dis)integration in 2016, a work about the Roma diaspora which inaugurated the opening of CounterPulse's new home on Turk Street, death is a mobile performance occupying two entire floors of the theater. Audience members should be prepared to move around. A nightly post-show conversation concludes each evening.

Audiences are also invited to contribute an item to an altar honoring the deceased. The altar is designed to grow throughout death's three-week run, though individuals are welcome to retrieve their offerings at any time.

Together with Slender-White, the performers in death are Michaela Burns, Kegan Marling, Morganne Mazeika, Catherine Newman, LizAnne Roman Roberts, Isabel Rosenstock and Amanda Whitehead. Additional collaborators include Seth Eisen as dramaturge, and Del Medoff and Darl Andrew Packard as lighting designers. Newman and Slender-White serve also as scenic designers.

Death is made possible by generous support from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, CounterPulse and FACT/SF's individual donors.