Berkeley Rep Blog
Chinglish begins rehearsals
posted by Karen McKevitt on Thu, Aug 9, 2012
in Backstage buzz , Our shows
Life is imitating art when it comes to David Henry Hwang's Chinglish (which begins performances at Berkeley Rep in about two weeks!). In the play, an American businessman goes to China to score a business deal for his firm, only to collide with a Communist minister and a sexy bureaucrat.
Hmm, sounds a little bit like the current scandel involving former Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai and his wife Gu Kailai, who's now being tried for allegedly murdering British businessman Neil Heywood. Though the American businessman in David Henry Hwang's play doesn't meet exactly the same fate, the playwright had been told early on that some of the scenarios in his play wouldn't actually happen in China. But it seems they do happen, in this case with tragic results.
As the murder case was unfolding, Chinglish began rehearsals at our Harriosn Street campus in West Berkeley. Here's a glimpse of them:
Playwright David Henry Hwang with director Leigh Silverman.
From left: actors Brian Nishii and Alex Moggridge with David Henry Hwang and Leigh Silverman.
In the foreground: Brian Nishii and Alex Moggridge.
All photos by Cheshire Isaacs.
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RIP Martin Pakledinaz
posted by Karen McKevitt on Tue, Jul 10, 2012
in News
All of us here at Berkeley Rep were saddened to learn of the passing of Martin Pakledinaz, an extraordinary two-time Tony Award-winning costume designer.
In addition to his vast repertoire of Broadway and ballet designs (including work at San Francisco Ballet and Sutton Foster’s iconic yellow dress in Thoroughly Modern Millie), Marty also designed two productions at Berkeley Rep: The Triumph of Love in 1994 and Changes of Heart in 1996, both Marivaux works translated and directed by Stephen Wadsworth. We have many fond memories of working with him, and we’re honored to be included in his prestigious resume.
Yesterday, the New York Times published Marty’s obituary, including a number of photos of his work, so we won’t repeat it here. But we do invite anyone who has memories of working with him at Berkeley Rep to share them -- or a note of appreciation -- in our comments section.
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Emotional Creature inspires action
posted by Karen McKevitt on Mon, Jul 9, 2012
in Our shows
Yesterday's matinee performance of Emotional Creature inspired many audience members to take action in their community. At the post-show talkback, one woman offered to teach a free writing class for high-school students, while another made a commitment to volunteer at a local organization, and a teen wanted to start an organization at her high school.
What about you? Has Emotional Creature inpsired you to take action? Or what community activities are you already involved with?
Learn about how you can get involved and become an activist on our website and at V-Girls.org.
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Handmade bracelets by an Emotional Creature cast member
posted by Karen McKevitt on Thu, Jun 28, 2012
in At the theatre , Our shows
Meet Emotional Creature ensemble member Olivia Oguma:
(Photo by kevinberne.com)
Olivia loves to make bracelets. And we love Olivia's beautiful and versatile bracelets so much that we're selling them in our Roger & Silvija Hoag Theatre Store for a mere $25.
(Photo by Mary Kay Hickox)
Aren't they awesome? It's a good thing Olivia brought her craft supplies with her to Berkeley, because we already sold out of her first batch of braceletes. Don't worry, we have more in stock now. So come by the store before or after the show, try them on, and support our guest actor and artisan!
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Stamping out Chinglish
posted by Mary Kay Hickox on Thu, Jun 28, 2012
in Our shows
This week, Cheshire (Berkeley Rep’s art director) and I put up the exterior sign for the first show of our 2012–13 season, David Henry Hwang’s comedy Chinglish. This was a wonderful play to read, and I was very excited to be able to create artwork for this production. Inspired by Chinese woodblock seals, I created a few rough variations on the idea (shown below), and settled with the two stamps in the final version. I separated the flags into two to create flexibility when the artwork has to be used in small formats (such as the ads in the weekly newspapers or web ads) or in larger formats.
To create the stamps, I made two basic shapes in Adobe Illustrator — the U.S. flag with the Chinese stars, and the Chinese flag with the U.S. stars. At this point they were looking very Saul Bass, and we needed to make it look more stamplike. There are a lot of ways to grunge up an image digitally, but you can always tell when something has been treated with a computer. The best tools for achieving this look? Your hands, printer paper, and an X-acto knife. I printed out a large version of each of the flags, and crumpled them. Then I flattened them out, and then crumbled them again. When the ink on the paper began to loosen up, I began scratching off the toner at certain spots with the knife. This process took a few iterations just to perfect the look.
The crumpled mess of a paper then goes into the scanner and Photoshop. I moved around the scratches and blobs, as it began to look like torn holes in the artwork. The final stop for the flags in the Adobe Creative Suite is with InDesign, where I laid out the images with the show title, information, and other logos onto the poster. Cheshire thought of the tagline. Unless you can read it, I won’t explain what it says — you’ll just have to come by Berkeley Rep in August to find out for yourself!
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Emotional Creature heads off Broadway
posted by Karen McKevitt on Wed, Jun 27, 2012
in News , Our shows
The cast of Emotional Creature. Photo by kevinberne.com
Emotional Creature is headed off Broadway (after it finishes its run at Berkeley Rep on July 15, that is)!
It'll begin previews at the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre on October 26, with an official opening set for November 12.
In the last 25 years, 25 shows developed at Berkeley Rep have moved to New York. In the last six years alone, Berkeley Rep has helped send six shows to Broadway, eight to off Broadway, and one to London, while two turned into films and others toured the nation. Over the years, these plays have earned five Tony Awards, seven Obie Awards, nine Drama Desk Awards, four Lucille Lortel Awards, five Outer Critics Circle Awards, and a Grammy Award.
Now Emotional Creature is the 26th play to follow that trail from Berkeley to New York. Congratulations to the cast and creative team!
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Sade's Emotional Creature blog: A picture's worth a thousand words
posted by Karen McKevitt on Wed, Jun 27, 2012
in
Taken and posted to V-Girls before last Friday's opening night performance of Emotional Creature:
Turned out boots… Diet coke… Water bottle… A picture is worth a thousand words! Less than 24 hours til opening night…
xo
Sade
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We are emotional creatures
posted by School of Theatre on Mon, Jun 25, 2012
in School of Theatre , Teen Council
By Negi Esfandiari,Teen Council member
“I won’t keep you waiting,” I said with a grin, “here she is: Eve Ensler!” She thanked me and gave me a kiss on the cheek and a hug. I was overjoyed -- was this really happening? It blew my mind that I was sitting in the same room as this incredible and inspiring woman listening to her wisdom and connecting with other teens from all over the Bay Area.
I had the honor of introducing the incredible Eve Ensler for a special Emotional Creature workshop just before our Teen Night. After sharing the genesis of this play, Eve asked us to form groups and create our own emotional creature. The outcomes were surprising. One group created a creature called Septipus, a seven-person wheel formation with each person portraying a different emotion. In contrast, my group had a more abstract creature that was vaguely based on a dragon that roared and also made gorilla sounds. After the exercise, Eve talked a lot about how girls all over the world feel pressured to please.
As we wrapped up, at Eve’s direction we paired with one new person in the room. Together we shared something we did only to please other people and vowed to stop doing that thing. This stranger then became the keeper of our promise to stop the cycle of pleasing. To conclude the workshop, Eve started a fabulous dance party, which resulted in the discovery of many talented on-the-spot choreographers.
When seeing the play, I reflected on the journey Eve had experienced with its development. It reminded me of Eve’s work on the City of Joy in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is a special facility for survivors of sexual violence. In her own article Women Left for Dead—and the Man Who’s Saving Them, Eve describes how the women of the City of Joy used dance to help with their trauma, and portrays how beautiful it is to watch women who have gone through such atrocities dance up mountains.
The show closed with a musical rendition of the monologue Emotional Creature, and an awesome bow involving a dance circle. The joyful bow definitely encapsulated that strength of girls and left each of us with a beautiful sentiment to hold in our hearts. I left the theatre feeling the energy of the whole group rising. It was a feeling of empowerment!
Thank you, Eve.
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Carry some of our art
posted by Karen McKevitt on Fri, Jun 15, 2012
in Costume shop , Our shows
Reuse, recycle, upcycle. If you've been to Berkeley Rep, you've noticed our recycling and compost bins -- and those are only the beginning of our green ways.
We're even recycling and upcycling our set, costume, and prop pieces. Our fabulous costume shop created these incredibly detailed tote bags out of the leftover canvases from this season's production of Red:
You can see they're super-sturdy, absolutely one-of-a-kind, and now available in our Roger & Silvija Hoag Theatre Store!
(These photos were taken at a staff-only craft fair we held last week.)
The Berkeley Rep staff loved these totes so much that we almost bought them all out before they even made it to the store. But then we thought, we want to share the totes with you. So come visit us soon and check them out!
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Emotional Creature cast shares their fav songs
posted by Karen McKevitt on Wed, Jun 13, 2012
in Our shows
We asked the super-fun gals in the Emotional Creature cast to share their favorite songs with us. Their playlists were so cool that we created a playlist of over 90 minutes of awesome on Spotify. From Beyonce to Lana Del Rey and Melissa Etheridge, there's something for everyone. They even threw in a little Green Day.
So, check their tunes out -- and share them too! And, be sure to catch these gals onstage in Emotional Creature. First performance is tomorrow!