Berkeley Rep Blog

Tiny is huge in London

posted by Terence Keane on Fri, Sep 10, 2010
in News , Shows on tour

TK3_lr We're quite chuffed to tell you that Tiny Kushner met Big Ben this week, and the British press is buzzing about Berkeley Rep. It's the second time that Tony Taccone has taken one of our shows to London, and we're bloody proud.

A co-production between Berkeley Rep and the Guthrie Theatre, Tiny Kushner began a limited run at London's Tricycle Theatre on September 1 with its original cast and creative team intact. The Tricycle is the renowned theatre that is bringing us The Great Game: Afghanistan next month. For more information about this terrific transatlantic exchange, read our press release on crossing the pond.

Or check out what they're saying about us:

"A fireworks display of invention and erudition... Real-life characters and events receive typically surreal, freewheeling treatment from the playwright best known for his gay fantasia Angels in America. And Tony Taccone's Guthrie/Berkeley Repertory Theatre production zips along... The result is a quirky combination of biography and political and social history, in which the most colourful details often turn out to be true." – Time Out London

"Small but perfectly performed... If you've a taste for left politics, trippy fantasy, intellectual exhibitionism and kvetching New York-Jewish comedy, this is your night... This sporty premiere, directed by Tony Taccone, brings over from the US five mini-plays in one evening. The performers are beautifully balanced: Valeri Mudek in innocent blonde parts, Kate Eifrig edgy and alarming, Jim Lichtscheidl doing narratives and uncanny imitations of teenage girls, and JC Cutler in wilder character parts. They all play in perfectionist, passionate accord with Kushner’s intense style and wild imagination." – London Times

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I ♥ Berkeley Rep

posted by Chad Jones on Tue, Sep 7, 2010
in Backstage buzz

Girlfriend

A little more than a year ago, I jumped the fence. I went from being a reporter and critic to being a marketing guy. More specifically, I went from the Oakland Tribune (and its associated newspapers), where I had been reporting on and reviewing Berkeley Rep for more than 10 years, to being the Theatre’s communications manager.

Among other duties, I have been running this blog, and I’ve loved it. I’ve loved the entire Berkeley Rep experience, and the admiration and respect I had for the Theatre has only increased as I’ve seen firsthand how incredibly dedicated the staff is in the creation of an extraordinary theatre experience. There simply are no better theatre artists anywhere.

Now I’m moving on and jumping the fence again – more like hop-scotching it. I’m going to work for the San Francisco Arts Education Project, but I’ll also be resuming my freelance writing duties for local newspapers and reviewing and interviewing on my TheaterDogs blog.

Won’t it be weird to go back to writing objectively about a theatre I’ve now worked for? I don’t think so. I respect Berkeley Rep far too much not to write about them with the same level of professionalism I would bring to any subject I’m covering. I’m as eager to share what’s great about Berkeley Rep as I am all of the other wonderful aspects of Bay Area theatre. And there’s always a lot of fantastic work being done here – that’s one of the reasons I’m so excited about writing again. I get to be an ardent public supporter of Bay Area theatre artists and events. I’m not objective about Bay Area theatre and the people who make it – I’m a big fan and have been for 20 years now. Do I have opinions about productions, performances, scripts, and the like? Of course, and I’ll share them when and where it’s appropriate.

But I won’t lie. Berkeley Rep has always been special and will continue to be. That’s based as much on the work the company does as it is on the people who work here. I have had an incredible amount of fun in the last year getting to know the Berkeley Rep community and working on shows like American Idiot, Tiny Kushner, Aurélia’s Oratorio, and Girlfriend. I feel like I gained invaluable insight into the creation of great theatre, and I hope that insight can make me a more informed and more sensitive writer on the subject.

After a turbulent few years in journalism, I was lucky to land in the creative safe haven of Berkeley Rep. I’m going to miss it terribly, but happily for me, I’ll never be too far away.

Above photo: One of my all-time favorite theatre experiences anywhere was Girlfriend at Berkeley Rep. It was a genius script, genius score, genius cast, genius band, genius director, and genius creative team. That's me at right with actor Ryder Bach and musical director Julie Wolf. Photo by Cheshire Isaacs.

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Compulsion and the doodling puppeteer

posted by Chad Jones on Fri, Sep 3, 2010
in At the theatre

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Eric Wright (at right), one of the fabulous puppeteers working on Rinne Groff's Compulsion, is a man of many talents. He has worked with Mabou Mines and the Metropolitan Opera, among many other collaborators, and he co-founded, along with Emily DeCola (also a puppeteer in Compulsion) and Michael Schupbach, The Puppet Kitchen, a puppet studio in New York's East Village.

Some scenes in Compulsion do not require the marionettes, so the puppeteers can take a short breather. But Eric is the kind of artist whose hands are always busy. He tends to doodle -- sometimes about what's happening on stage, sometimes about what's happening in his imagination.

Eric graciously allowed us to share some of his rehearsal hall creations.

This is Mandy Patinkin as writer Sid Silver pounding out a letter to Walter Winchell.

CO - dearwalterwinchell

Click below to see more drawings.

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New American Idiot cast videos now online

posted by Chad Jones on Wed, Sep 1, 2010
in Our shows

AI logo

The cast of Broadway's American Idiot headed over to AOL's Sessions recently to perform a bunch of songs from the show, all of which were captured on video and are now streaming here.

Happily, we can share a few of those videos with you. Here's "Letterbomb."

And here's "Whatsername":

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Tony Taccone talks shop with Butler and Moscone

posted by Chad Jones on Tue, Aug 31, 2010
in At the theatre , Backstage buzz

Tony Taccone Diablo

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.

Read the entire article here.

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.

Mandy Patinkin

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

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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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2010/11 sneak peek: The Composer Is Dead and Ruined

posted by Chad Jones on Thu, Aug 19, 2010
in Backstage buzz , Our shows

Delving into the riches of the 2010/11 Berkeley Rep season, we've already talked about the season opener, Compulsion, starring Mandy Patinkin, and the epic play cycle The Great Game: Afghanistan and Mike Daisey's The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs and The Last Cargo Cult.

Now it's time to explore Lemony Snicket's The Composer Is Dead and Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning Ruined.

Lemony Snicket's The Composer Is Dead

Check out the pedigree on this world premiere. It is written by Lemony Snicket (the bestselling author also known as San Francisco writer Daniel Handler, pictured at right in a photo by Meredith Heuer) with music by Nathaniel Stookey. Based on the children's book, it was originally conceived for the stage by Lemony Snicket and Phantom Limb Company, the amazing puppet troupe under the artistic leadership of Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko. The show was developed with Tony Taccone, who also directs, and Geoff Hoyle, who also stars.

That's a lot of genius piled into a show that will have audiences of all ages giddy with delight.

Earlier this summer, Mr. Snicket/Handler spoke to the Los Angeles Times about his work and mentioned that Lemony Snicket is writing a new four-book series. But he didn't want to say too much about it.

"It's in its first trimester, so you don't want to poke at it too much. It's early, so I don't want to go around bragging about it. That's actually a Jewish tradition, not to set up the baby's room while you're pregnant or even say the baby's name out loud. It's bad luck."

Read the article here.

Daniel also talked about his San Francisco neighborhood in this charming New York Times article.

Nathaniel Stookey, the composer of Composer (who happens to be very much alive, thank you very much), has had a busy summer, including a stop in Sun Valley, Idaho, where he conducted The Composer Is Dead with the Sun Valley Summer Symphony. Read about the event here.

And finally, meet Jessica and Erik of Phantom Limb. This video is from late last year when they were working on a show called The Devil You Know with Ping Chong & Co.

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Carrie Fisher feels the force, films for HBO

posted by Chad Jones on Mon, Aug 16, 2010
in Backstage buzz , News , Our shows

We haven't reported on Carrie Fisher in a while, and there's a lot going on, so let's get up to (light) speed.

Carrie Fisher straitjacket
First of all, at the end of June, Carrie filmed several performances of Wishful Drinking, which, as you'll remember, had two runs here at Berkeley Rep. The live footage shot at the South Orange (New Jersey) Performing Arts Center will be combined with interview footage of Carrie and the people in her life — of course her mother, Debbie Reynolds, will feature prominently.

The Wishful Drinking documentary will air in December on HBO. Carrie talked to the Huffington Post about the movie. Read the interview.

On her ever-eccentric Twitter feed, Carrie announced that her sixth book is in the pipeline. It was also on Twitter that she posted the photo at right, undoubtedly a humorous plug for her recent keynote speech at the American Pyschiatric Association in New Orleans.

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