Berkeley Rep Blog
Category archive: At the theatre
A curious dispatch from Lemony Snicket
posted by Pauline Luppert on Thu, Nov 18, 2010
in At the theatre , General theatre talk , Our shows
With the world premiere of Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead mere days away, Lemony Snicket himself has taken the time to send you a curious dispatch in which he shares with you why theatre is important – and how you may find a more or less everlasting joy and peace.
Is theatre important to you? Make a gift to Berkeley Rep today.
Click www.berkeleyrep.org/give
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A taste of the good life
posted by Cari Turley on Fri, Oct 15, 2010
in At the theatre , Events
This week, Berkeley's own Tres Agaves Tequila gave away hundreds of free drinks in the courtyard before Compulsion and An Evening with Robin Williams. Did you get a taste? If you missed it, don't worry—we do this all the time! You can sample wine, beer, chocolate, champagne, vodka, organic produce, or other delights before most Friday 8pm, Saturday 8pm, and Sunday 7pm performances. New tasting events are being added all the time, so be sure to check our website often!
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Guess who's gonna be on our stage next week!
posted by Pauline Luppert on Thu, Oct 7, 2010
in At the theatre , Backstage buzz , Our shows , Shows on tour
We've had some pretty stellar people on our stages in the two years I've been working at Berkeley Rep. Tony and Emmy Award—winning actor Mandy Patinkin will be on the Thrust stage this very evening. We've had a lot of performances sell-out of tickets. American Idiot sold so well we had to extend it before it even opened. An Evening with David Sedaris was sold out for months in advance of his appearance during our Fireworks Festival this past summer.
We've just announced a special event in The Roda. It will take place for only three nights—Sunday October 10, Tuesday October 12, and Wednesday October 13. It appears the event may set some new ticket sales records for us—and we haven't really done much marketing yet.
Have you heard about it yet? Here's a clue:
Robin Williams "Cyber Witches Coven" from Robin Williams on Vimeo.
Yup! Robin Williams will be here. Get a ticket while you can.
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Berkeley Rep gets yarnbombed
posted by Terence Keane on Tue, Oct 5, 2010
in At the theatre
If you've come to the Theatre lately -- or just walked down Addison Street -- you may have noticed the cute little cozies that someone knitted for the street signs.
To keep the poles from getting cold? Your guess is as good as ours...
Now someone sheds some light on this mystery. According to a story in the Monterery Herald, the cozies are the work of "a woman who calls herself Streetcolor to avoid attention from the authorities. And she's not selling a thing. She's 'yarnbombing,' spending at least 12 hours a day spinning yarn and knitting pole cozies. So far she has placed nearly 50 around the California towns of Berkeley, Oakland and Kensington."
"It's only going to be up for a while, and I think it enhances the area," she says. "It's just this momentary experience of it being more fun to be there."
Curious? Read all about it.
There's a debate about whether this is art or graffiti. What do you think?
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Sneak preview of Compulsion
posted by Pauline Luppert on Mon, Sep 27, 2010
in At the theatre , Our shows
Performances of Compulsion are selling out. Critics are raving. See for yourself:
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Compulsion and the doodling puppeteer
posted by Chad Jones on Fri, Sep 3, 2010
in At the theatre
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.
Click below to see more drawings.
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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
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.