Berkeley Rep Blog
Category archive: At the theatre
Tony Taccone talks shop with Butler and Moscone
posted by Chad Jones on Tue, Aug 31, 2010
in At the theatre , Backstage buzz
Though he's off in London directing the Tricycle Theatre's re-mount of Tiny Kushner opening Sept. 1, Artistic Director Tony Taccone's words are echoing through the Bay Area.
Tony sat down with a round-table discussion with fellow East Bay artistic directors Michael Butler of Center Repertory Company and Jonathan Moscone of California Shakespeare Theater, and their thoughts were recorded by writer Robert Taylor for the September issue of Diablo magazine.
Among the myriad topics covered by the ADs is what excites them in their upcoming seasons. Here's Tony's response:
We’re part of a tour of this piece called The Great Game, a 12-play cycle about Afghanistan. It’s a marathon day: You start at 11 o’clock in the morning and end at about 10 o’clock at night. Basically, Nicolas Kent of the Tricycle Theatre was watching television one night and he was sick of talking heads talking about Afghanistan. He thought, What would it be like if my friends responded to Afghanistan in an artistic way? Because it’s the major issue of our time. Then, we’re going to do The Composer Is Dead, a Lemony Snicket project. It’s got a puppet theater about 35 feet wide and a movie we’ve filmed backstage with Geoff Hoyle.
Above photo of Tony Taccone by Mike Thompson for Diablo magazine.
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Mandy Patinkin on West Coast Live Saturday
posted by Chad Jones on Fri, Aug 27, 2010
in At the theatre
Tony and Emmy award-winning actor Mandy Patinkin will take a break from Compulsion rehearsals this weekend to make an appearance on West Coast Live.
The show will be broadcasting live from Freight & Salvage Coffee House, right across the street from Berkeley Rep. The show airs from 10am to noon Saturday morning and is broadcast on KALW 91.7 FM. You can also catch up with the show online.
Other guests slated for Saturday's broadcast include authors Neal Pollock and Joyce Maynard and Bay Area actress Margo Hall, who is making her Aurora Theatre Company debut in Trouble in Mind, the just-opened drama by Alice Childress.
When we announced that Mandy would be making his Berkeley Rep debut, we asked our blog friends to share their favorite Mandy performances. We got some nice responses. Some were just bursts of enthusiasm from fans, but we love those, too!
Below you'll find what some of our blog readers had to say.
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The curtain rises on 2010/11: what will you see?
posted by Chad Jones on Thu, Aug 26, 2010
in At the theatre
Single tickets for Berkeley Rep's 2010/11 season are available now, online only, to friends of Berkeley Rep — and you're reading the blog, so that makes you a friend. Check out the extraordinary shows of the new season, which kicks off in only two weeks with Mandy Patinkin starring in Rinne Groff's Compulsion! Then visit our new-and-improved online box office to order your tickets. This Sunday, August 29, tickets go on sale to everyone, so seize the moment to secure the best seats at the best prices.
You should also check out this video and see what makes a Berkeley Rep season so special.
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Meet Compulsion puppeteer Emily DeCola
posted by Chad Jones on Tue, Aug 24, 2010
in At the theatre
From our offices we can look down into the rehearsal hall, where actors Mandy Patinkin, Hannah Cabell, and Matte Osian, along with director Oskar Eustis and puppeteers Emily DeCola, Daniel Fay, and Eric Wright are working their way through Rinne Groff's Compulsion, our season opener.
Perhaps more than with other plays that have rehearsed below us, we keep getting distracted by the Compulsion rehearsals because the puppeteers are performing atop a scaffolding that makes them eye level with our desks. And also there's the simple fact that puppets &8212; marionettes in this case &8212; are absolutely fascinating to watch.
Why look at a computer screen when you can see puppet representations of Anne Frank and Otto Frank being put through their motions. Talk about compulsive observation!
The American Theatre Wing, the people who, among other things, bring us the Tony Awards, also features theatre artists on its website in a feature called "In the Wings." And it just so happens that earlier this month, they focused their cameras on Emily DeCola, one of our very own puppeteers.
Emily, along with fellow Compulsion puppeteer Eric Wright, is a founder of The Puppet Kitchen, a full-service puppet studio on New York's East Village. She is charming and talented, as you'll see in this video.
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Whetting your appetite for the 2010/11 season
posted by Chad Jones on Fri, Aug 13, 2010
in At the theatre , Our shows
Rehearsals have begun for Compulsion, our season-opening show, which means the new season is officially under way.
There's buzz on an international scale for the shows of our 2010/11 season, so here's a little peek into what you can expect in the coming months.
You may remember playwright David Edgar for his work on the momentous two-play cycle known as Continental Divide, a co-production of Berkeley Rep and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival from 2003 or from his extraordinary adaptation of Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby (seen a few season ago at the California Shakespeare Theater). Well David will be back at Berkeley Rep as one of 12 playwrights addressing the complex history of Afghanistan in The Great Game: Afghanistan.
David recently wrote a fascinating piece about the play for The Guardian in London. He describes The Great Game as a "mosaic of fiction and faction," which is to say imagination and fact. He continues:
"The Great Game is thoroughly contemporary: a hybrid of hybrids. Nonetheless, unlike much postmodern drama, it retains a central, coherent theme: that western interventions in Afghanistan have almost always produced the opposite effect from that which was intended."
You can read David's essay in its entirety here (and also watch a very cool video about the show).
Above photo: (l to r) Jemma Redgrave, Tom McKay, and Nabil Elouahabi star in The Great Game: Afghanistan, an epic production from London receiving its West Coast premiere at Berkeley Rep. Photographer: John Haynes
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Arabian Nights returns for the holidays
posted by Chad Jones on Wed, Aug 11, 2010
in At the theatre , News
Get ready for another magic carpet ride.
Two seasons ago, The Arabian Nights inspired nightly standing ovations and whoops and hollers from Berkeley Rep audience members. Now the show returns for a special, ultra-limited holiday engagement December 11-30.
Director Mary Zimmerman, the remarkable Tony Award-winning creator of Argonautika and Metamorphoses, once again breathes new life into the legend of the 1,001 nights. To save her life, a beautiful bride must spin hypnotic tales of genies, jesters, thieves, and kings - winning her freedom by eventually winning her husband's heart. He falls under Scheherazade's spell, and Zimmerman enchants the audience as well with her signature style that transforms simplicity into the sublime. Amid a thousand tales of honor, revenge, and humor, only love emerges victorious.
Calling The Arabian Nights one of 2008's best shows, Robert Hurwitt raved in the San Francisco Chronicle, " Zimmerman and her cast transport the audience through hilarious and poignant tales of greed, sex and revenge, each tale opening into another and another, to a lingering, redemptive and provocative end."
Tickets for this non-subscription event are on sale now only by phone – and only to Berkeley Rep subscribers. Not a subscriber yet? Call the box office at 510 647-2949 between noon and 7pm Tuesday through Sunday and reserve your seats for any three or more subscription plays. Then you too can reserve your seats for The Arabian Nights. The show goes on sale to everyone else this fall. Be sure to sign up for email to guarantee that you are notified when they do.
Above photo: Mary Zimmerman's The Arabian Nights returns for special, ultra-limited holiday run. Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com
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Mandy Patinkin to make Berkeley Rep debut
posted by Chad Jones on Mon, Aug 9, 2010
in At the theatre , Backstage buzz , News
Let's start off the new season with some exciting news. Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor Mandy Patinkin (pictured above) will star in Rinne Groff's Compulsion, the first show of the 2010/11 season.
Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of The Public Theater, directs this co-production of Berkeley Rep, The Public, and Yale Repertory Theatre, where Compulsion debuted in January (also starring Mandy Patinkin).
Of course we love Mandy for his incredible body of stage, film, and TV work, not to mention his extraordinary albums and concerts. But he lives in cinema history forever with one of the most memorable lines of all time. You know the movie and the line I'm talking about.
The movie is The Princess Bride, a treasure from 1987. And the line, "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die," ranked 88 out of 100 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 years of great movie lines.
For this and for so many other reasons, we're thrilled that Mandy Patinkin will be making his Berkeley Rep debut alongside cast members Hannah Cabell, last seen here in Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), and Matte Osian, last seen at Berkeley Rep in Mad Forest.
Compulsion begins previews September 13 and opens September 16 on the Thrust Stage. The show continues through October 31.
What is your favorite Mandy Patinkin role? Leave your answer in the comments section.
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Feed Edward!
posted by Megan Wygant on Thu, Jul 1, 2010
in At the theatre
I don't usually wish I worked at a movie theatre, but right now, at this moment, I do — because then, I'd have a kicky tie-in between what you're seeing on screen right now, and what we're planning behind-the-scenes.
Here's the thing: next Tuesday — July 6 — from 11am to 4pm, Berkeley Rep is joining with the American Red Cross to hold a blood drive at the Roda Theatre. If I worked at a movie theatre, this would have a very obvious tie-in. But, I don't. And you know what? I don't think I need to tie this to the current Fireworks festival to make it relevant. Here's why a blood drive is more than relevant. Necessary even:
- Every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood.
- A single blood donation — your donation — can help up to three people.
- The blood used in an emergency is already on the shelves before the event occurs — maintaining a good blood supply is an important part of our local ongoing emergency preparedness.
- A single car accident victim can require as many as 100 pints of blood. And yet, violent injuries are not the only situations requiring a blood transfusion. Patients who have sickle-cell anemia, are undergoing chemotherapy, or suffering from other chronic conditions often receive blood transfusions as an ongoing part of their treatment.
During the summer, while people are traveling or otherwise taking a break from their regular work-a-day lives, the blood supply traditionally drops. But the need for blood never slows down. If you're able and willing, please come down to Berkeley Rep on Tuesday, July 6 and help us maintain this vital resource for East Bay Area residents.
You can make a donation appointment online at http://www.redcrossblood.org/make-donation. Find us by typing in the sponsor code "REP."
Edward or no Edward, we hope to see you here.
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Digging Scoop and his Crazy Wisdom
posted by Chad Jones on Wed, Jun 30, 2010
in At the theatre , Backstage buzz
Wes “Scoop” Nisker is known for his decades of work as a Bay Area radio news anchor and commentator as well as for his teachings in Buddhist meditation and philosophy. But he has a secret: there’s theatre in his past.
Back in the day, he dabbled in stage work with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and in the late ‘70s, he was part of a performance work called The Empire Strikes Out, which ran at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco and at the Julia Morgan Theater in Berkeley.
As his journey took him into the Buddhist community, Scoop performed some short pieces during workshops and at conferences until people encouraged him to go public. That’s when he started performing different versions of Crazy Wisdom Saves the World Again at venues such as The Marsh and Freight & Salvage.
For the last few months, Scoop has been working on Crazy Wisdom with Mina Morita, Berkeley Rep’s Bret C. Harte Directing Fellow, along with Literary/Dramaturgy Fellow Rachel Viola, to transform Crazy Wisdom from a lecture piece to something more theatrical. This revamped, more theatrical version will have two performances as part of Berkeley Rep’s Fireworks festival July 2 and 3.
“It used to be very casual,” Scoop recalls. “It was me getting up and making observations, musing on life and the universe. Now the show is being given thematic and dramatic arcs than it never had, which is interesting and exciting. It’s also hard work!”
According to Scoop, the underlying theme of the show hasn’t changed, which is essentially him musing on stuff. “The new structure gives me freedom to get into the character that is me, to let the character come into it and let it be full-blown exposition,” Scoop says. “My main objective is to share my own wonder, my own excitement about the things that I am taken with – science, the universe, existence, what it’s all about. In the show I describe myself as kind of a cosmic journalist and a comic philosopher.”
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Leaving us In the Wake
posted by Chad Jones on Fri, Jun 25, 2010
in At the theatre , Backstage buzz , Our shows
As we head into closing weekend for Lisa Kron's In the Wake, we'd like to leave you with a few parting thoughts courtesy of the Los Angeles Times.
Charles McNulty, in his essay "The Kushner effect, an Angel in American playwriting," celebrates the lasting legacy of Tony Kushner's epic Angels in America, a play that has inspired a generation of writers to bring national scope and creative imagination to the stage. He writes:
Three plays in recent months have pressed an awareness of the continuing artistic impact of Angels: Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Julia Cho's The Language Archive and Lisa's Kron's In the Wake...
