Woolly Mammouth Theatre Company to Present Steinberg Winner BOOM

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company continues its 2008-09 Season with Boom by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, author of Hunter Gatherers, winner of the 2007 Steinberg New Play Award. Directed by Woolly Mammoth veteran John Vreeke, a Helen Hayes Award nominee for Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis, the cast features Woolly acting company members Kimberly Gilbert and Sarah Marshall with Aubrey Deeker.  Woolly Mammoth’s production of Boom features an updated script by the playwright and is the first production since its premiere at Ars Nova in New York last spring.  The production also features a set designed by local architect Tom Kamm.**

Performances for Boom are November 3 to 30, 2008, beginning with two Pay-What-You-Can performances on November 3 and 4 at 8pm. Official opening is SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9 AT 7PM. Woolly Mammoth is located at 641 D Street, NW (7th & D).

“What a fun, stimulating show this is.  What begins as a simple romantic-comedy transforms itself into a full-blown sci-fi fantasy,” states Howard Shalwitz.  “Peter’s unexpected vision of the future of life on planet Earth combines braininess, zaniness, and quite a bit of compassion.  He asks us to think about the precarious nature of our existence, while at the same time celebrating the resilience of life, both great and small.  We’re thrilled to introduce playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb to Washington with Boom, and to welcome a collection of our favorite eccentrics – Vreeke, Marshall, Gilbert, and Deeker – back to the Woolly stage.”

SYNOPSIS

Can the apocalypse be the ultimate aphrodisiac?  It certainly ups the ante when Jules, a marine biology grad student (Aubrey Deeker), attempts a random hook up through a personal ad that reads “Sex to change the course of the world…”  When he gets a response from a randy journalism major named Jo (Kimberly Gilbert), they meet at the subterranean lab where Jules studies fish sleep cycles for signs of impending global doom.  This simple online connection quickly moves far beyond casual sex into the realms of ontogeny, phylogeny, evolution and extinction – all overseen by an odd docent-like woman named Barbara (Sarah Marshall).  In this provocative sci-fi fantasy, the future of humanity hangs in the balance as irreverent young playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb asks: do we control our own fate or is someone else pulling the levers?

PLAYWRIGHT

Peter Sinn Nachtrieb is a San Francisco-based playwright whose works include Boom, Hunter Gatherers, Colorado, Meaningless, and The Amorphous Blob.  Hunter Gatherers received the 2007 American Theatre Critics Association/Steinberg New Play Award for best new play to premiere outside of New York and the 2007 Will Glickman Prize for best new play in the Bay Area. His work has been seen (or will be seen in 2008) off Broadway and across the country at Ars Nova, SPF, Seattle Rep, Cleveland Public Theatre, Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep, the Bailiwick Theatre, Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theatre, Dad’s Garage, and the Magic Theatre, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Killing My Lobster, Playground, and Impact Theatre in the Bay Area.  He is currently under commission from Encore Theatre Company (SF) and South Coast Rep and is a 2008 Resident Playwright at the Playwrights Foundation, San Francisco.  Peter holds a degree in Theater and Biology from Brown and an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.

CAST

Woolly Mammoth acting company members Kimberly Gilbert and Sarah Marshall with Aubrey Deeker.

Kimberly Gilbert (Jo) returns to the Woolly stage where she has performed in The K of D, Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis (Helen Hayes Award nomination), Big Death & Little Death, and Cooking with Elvis. A company member since 2006, she returns to Woolly at the end of this season in the world premiere of Sheila Callaghan’s Fever/Dream.  Her other DC credits include the all-female Romeo & Juliet, Bootleg Henry VIII, Bootleg Cymbeline, Let X, And Then it Faster Rock'd, and Cardenio Found (Taffety Punk Theatre Company, where she is also a company member), Redshirts (Round House Theatre), A Light in the Storm (The Kennedy Center), Othello (Folger Theatre), By Tooth or By Tongue (Source Theatre), and Antony and Cleopatra (Washington Shakespeare Company).  Sarah Marshall (Barbara) has last seen at Woolly in Maria/Stuart, and has also appeared in Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Martha, Josie & the Chinese Elvis, The Clean House, The Mineola Twins, The Dead Monkey, Wanted and In the Blood.  Sarah has performed at Round House Theatre (The Book Club Play; also at Berkshire Theatre Festival), Folger Theatre (Twelfth Night), Arena Stage (How I Learned to Drive) and numerous productions at Studio Theatre. Aubrey Deeker (Jules) returns to Woolly where he appeared in Homebody/Kabul co-production, Theater J), directed by John Vreeke.  His local credits include Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Edward II, The Taming of the Shrew, Richard III, Love's Labor's Lost, and Lorenzaccio at the Shakespeare Theatre Company; Crime and Punishment, Camille, and Tabletop at Round House; The Cripple of Inishmaan at Studio Theatre; Blue/Orange, Mary's Wedding, Slaughter City, and Tales from Ovid at Theatre Alliance; and other productions with Folger Theatre, Ford's Theatre, Rep Stage, Everyman Theatre, and Potomac Theatre Project.  He appeared as Terry Hanning on season five of HBO's The Wire.  He will next perform in Ion at the Shakespeare Theatre Company.

DIRECTOR

John Vreeke most recently directed the critically-acclaimed The Last Days of Judas Iscariot for Forum Theater, The K of D for Woolly Mammoth, and received positive critical notice for his re-invention of Fiddler on the Roof for Olney Theater Center.  He directed Karen Zacarias’ new children’s play Chasing George Washington at the Kennedy Center.  Also for Woolly Mammoth, John directed Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis (four Helen Hayes Award nominations, including direction and production), Homebody/Kabul (co-production with Theater J), and Our Lady of 121st Street.  He has received Helen Hayes nominations for his adaptation and direction of Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Washington Shakespeare Company) and direction of Ari Roth’s Born Guilty (Theater J).  During his time in DC, he has also directed Tiny Alice and Death and the Kings Horseman (WSC), Death and the Maiden, the world premieres of The Tattooed Girl and Bal Masque (Theater J), Opus and Red Herring (Everyman Theatre),  One Good Marriage and For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again (MetroStage), and The Monument (Theater Alliance).  John directed the season opener for Charter Theatre, a co-production with the Source Festival of Chris Stezin’s This Perfect World. This season, he will direct the remount of Forum’s Judas Iscariot, a new adaptation of the Seagull, Seagull on 16th Street, for Theater J, and Tom Stoppard’s Heroes for MetroStage.

DESIGN

The design team for Boom includes Tom Kamm** (Set Design), Ivania Stack (Costume Design), Colin K. Bills (Lighting Design), Neil McFadden (Sound Design) and Jennifer Sheetz (Properties).

Tom Kamm is the founder of DC-based firm Tom Kamm Architects, providing design for architecture, interiors, and the stage.  The firm’s work was recently featured in Live Design Magazine and included in the U.S. entry to the Prague Quadrennial International Design Exhibition.  Tom began his design career in the theater, where his first professional work was at Arena Stage.  He has designed over 50 projects for the theater, opera, dance, and television.  His award-winning work includes seven groundbreaking projects for the visionary theater director Robert Wilson, including The Civil Wars, and the set design for the premiere production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America at San Francisco’s Eureka Theatre.  After working in New York for many years, and designed projects internationally and around the country, Tom returns to the DC theater scene with Boom.

SCHEDULE/TICKETS

Boom performs November 3 to 30, 2008 at 641 D Street, NW (7th & D).  Schedule: Wednesday through Saturday at 8pm, Sunday at 2pm and 7pm (no 2pm performance November 9).  Tickets range from $26-60 (Previews, 1st week: Wednesday and Thursday evenings - $36 & $26; Saturday evening - $55 & $45; Regular price: Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings - $48 & $38; Friday evenings and Sunday matinees - $55 & $45; Saturday evenings - $60 & $50).  Tickets can be purchased at 202-393-3939 or online at www.woollymammoth.net.

      • Woolly's "25 AND UNDER" program offers $15 tickets to all performances for patrons 25.  ID required; tickets can be purchased in advance or at the door one hour prior to show time.

      • PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN (PWYC) The first two previews of all main stage productions. PWYC for Boom is Monday, November 3 and Tuesday, November 4 at 8pm. Tickets are sold beginning at 6:30pm each evening; lines begin forming at 6pm. There is a two ticket per person limit and tickets are cash or check ONLY.  For further information on Pay-What-You-Can: 202-393-3939 or www.woollymammoth.net.

      • STAMPEDE SEATS, Woolly's rush-seat program, offers a limited number of side balcony tickets at $15. All performances, seats sold beginning 2 hours prior to show-time, in-person only.

      •     MEET THE ARTISTS Post-Show Discussions on Wed., November 12 (after 8pm show); Sun., November 16 (after 2pm show); Thurs., November 20 (after 8pm show).

      •     CLUB WOOLLY Night is a subscription series (the second Friday of each main stage production) that includes a post-show reception with the cast. Club Woolly Night for Boom is Fri., November 14 (8pm); individual tickets are $45 or $55 plus a $15 fee for the reception.

Now in its 29th Season, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company continues to hold its place at theatre’s leading edge. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Howard Shalwitz and Managing Director Jeffrey Herrmann, Woolly Mammoth is acknowledged as “Washington’s most daring theatre company” (The New York Times), as a regional and national leader in the development of new plays, and as one of the best known and most influential small theatres in America.  Woolly Mammoth has gained this reputation by holding fast to its unique mission: …to ignite an explosive engagement between theatre artists and the community by developing, producing and promoting new plays that explore the edges of theatrical style and human experience, and by implementing new ways to use the artistry of theatre to serve the people of Greater Washington, DC.  

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is a member of the National New Play Network, Theatre Communications Group, The League of Washington Theatres and The Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington.  The Theatre’s programs are supported in part by The National Endowment for the Arts, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs Program/United States Commission of Fine Arts.

Photo courtesy of Woolly Mammouth Theatre Company

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