Ray of Light Theatre to Present TRIASSIC PARQ & YEAST NATION in 2014

Ray of Light Theatre, San Francisco's non-profit musical theatre company, announced its 2014 season, a lineup of fresh new musicals that explore the distant past.

Slated for June, Triassic Parq follows a pack of sexually evolving dinosaurs in a certain prehistoric, Spielberg-inspired amusement park as they struggle with love, faith and science. Triassic Parq, written by Marshall Pailet, Bryce Norbitz and Steve Wargo, won Best Musical at both Los Angeles' Ovation Awards 2013 and the New York Fringe Festival 2010. Yeast Nation (the triumph of life) follows in October and imagines the hopes, hardships and political turmoil of the world's first life forms: salt-easting yeasts. Writers Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis, whose smash-hit Urinetown set ticket sales records at American Conservatory Theatre in 2003, will work in-residence with Ray of Light to further develop this story of One Dreamer's curiosity and its colossal impact on the yeasts--and our history.

"Producing cutting-edge musical theater has always been part of our company's DNA, so we're delighted to produce two local premieres this season," said Jason Hoover, artistic director of Ray of Light. "While Triassic Parq and Yeast Nation use stories and characters from ages past, the themes they present are still applicable to our modern lives. These shows are bold and exciting, and we can't wait for Bay Area audiences to experience them, likely for the first time ever."

"Ray of Light is exactly the kind of dynamic, imaginative, passionate, and fearless company needed to make Yeast Nation work," said Greg Kotis, writer and lyricist for Yeast Nation. "It'll be great to have the show on its feet in San Francisco."

Season subscriptions will go on sale in December at www.rayoflighttheatre.com. Single tickets will be available in March.

Triassic Parq
Bay Area Premiere
June 2014 at the Eureka Theatre, San Francisco
Music by Marshall Pailet; Book by Marshall Pailet, Bryce Norbitz and Steve Wargo

Dinosaurs, showtunes and sex changes come together in this inventive new musical that will leave you laughing and crying all the way back to the prehistoric era. When one female T-Rex suddenly turns male, the entire pack must question their identity, gender, and what is possible. Winner of Best Musical at LA's 2013 Ovation Awards and NY Fringe Festival 2010, Triassic Parq examines love, faith and science through a hilarious lens. And singing. Singing dinosaurs.

Yeast Nation (the triumph of life)
West Coast Premiere
October 2014 at the Victoria Theatre
Music and lyrics by Mark Hollmann; Book and lyrics by Greg Kotis

Ray of Light teams up with Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann, the brains behind the smash-hit Urinetown, to develop the West Coast premiere of this bizarrely hilarious rock musical. In the year 3,000,458,000 B.C., the salt-eating yeasts are the only living creatures on earth, and they're up against a food shortage, a strange new emotion called "love" and the oppression of a tyrannical king. When the king's dreamer of a son ventures out of the known yeastiverse, the yeasts' story-and ours-is changed forever.

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