Oakland Tech Offers Free Community Event for HAMLET: BLOOD IN THE BRAIN, 3/1

When California Shakespeare Theater embarked on its New Works/New Communities initiative back in 2004, no One Dreamed that the project's first new play, Hamlet: Blood in the Brain-having culminated in Oakland following a sold-out run by Campo Santo at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco-would someday play on an international stage.

But five years later, the Advanced Drama Department at Oakland Technical High School chose Naomi Iizuka's gritty, poetic reimagining of Shakespeare's Hamlet to the drug-ravaged streets of 1980s Oakland as their entry in the American High School Theatre Festival, under the direction of Jessa Berkner. Not only did they win the Festival, but they also earned the right to perform their production at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2010.

Now, to deepen the experience of Oakland Tech's student actors and their community as they prepare a series of performances around the Bay Area in advance of their overseas trip, Cal Shakes is working with Oakland Tech on a free community event on Monday, March 1, 6:30-8pm at Oakland Tech Auditorium. The event will include Blood in the Brain excerpts performed by the students and a panel discussion and Q&A featuring actors from both the original Cal Shakes/Intersection co-production of Blood in the Brain and the recent Oakland Tech performances, moderated by Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone. An informal reception will follow.

"I am so happy that Jessa and her students at Oakland Tech are bringing Naomi's brilliant play to life for new audiences throughout Oakland, the Bay Area, and abroad," says Jonathan Moscone "This piece perfectly embodies the goal of our New Works/New Communities program as it connects Shakespeare to the lives of a Bay Area community in palpable, lasting ways, reflecting their stories in a classic and a classic in their stories."

"Hamlet: Blood in the Brain was the first play I took my students to see when I came to Oakland Tech to build the Performing Arts program three-and-a-half years ago," says Oakland Tech drama teacher and Hamlet: Blood in the Brain director Jessa Berkner. "It was the perfect introduction to theater for students who mostly had never seen a play before ... academic and relevant, universal and personal, classic and modern, poetic and familiar. It is fitting that we have come full circle, having grown the theater program from 15 students to 150, taking the play we first experienced forward, as performers now, to the Edinburgh Fringe."

The partnership between Cal Shakes and Oakland Tech will continue beyond Hamlet: Blood in the Brain, beginning with a first-ever classroom residency that will feature a Twelfth Night curriculum with Berkner's advanced drama students. A second spring residency is in the works, too, wherein a ninth-grade English class will study John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven, by Octavio Solis-yet another New Works/New Communities project, and the first world premiere commission for the Cal Shakes' Main Stage (opening June 2010).

"I am so grateful that an organization such as Cal Shakes had the foresight and funding to engage the community-based process of development with the gifted Naomi Iizuka and Campo Santo," Berkner says. "This work proves the long-lasting impact of multilayered artistic collaborations."

For more information about Hamlet: Blood in the Brain at Oakland Technical High School, contact Cal Shakes Artistic Learning Program Manager Emily Morrison at 510.548.3422 x127 or emorrison@calshakes.org.

 

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