Press Release: 2008 Season Announcement

January 22, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                  
Contact: Dana Werdmuller: (831) 459-3160
[email protected]

SANTA CRUZ, CA – Shakespeare Santa Cruz Artistic Director Marco Barricelli announces his inaugural season with a slate of four plays for the 2008 Summer Season. Mr. Barricelli continues the time-honored SSC tradition of inventive interpretations of Shakespearean plays while enhancing the SSC repertory with a new emphasis on contemporary plays by American playwrights. In the selection of his inaugural season, Mr. Barricelli (at right) gives a nod to previous SSC Artistic Director Paul Whitworth’s tenure, saying, “That we can explore new and exciting directions theatrically is a direct result of the strong artistic foundation Paul has brought to SSC during his leadership. As Artistic Director, I am in the enviable position of being able to invite our audience to think, feel and argue about the work we are creating, because Paul’s work has created an audience that welcomes that dialogue and is eager for more.”

Among the towering redwoods of the outdoor Festival Glen, SSC will present two contrasting plays about love, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and All’s Well That Ends Well. The indoor Theatre Arts Mainstage will be the setting for two contemporary American plays, Burn This by Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Lanford Wilson, and Bach at Leipzig by the critically-acclaimed young playwright Itamar Moses. All four plays will be performed in repertory from July 15 through August 31, 2008.

Director Kim Rubinstein (Much Ado About Nothing, 2007) returns to SSC to direct Romeo and Juliet, considering it the play she was born to direct, saying “This play is the greatest love story ever written. Soul mates coming together and releasing great passions, these characters just have that deep love and just go there. That purity of response is so rare and so powerful.” One of the most beloved of Shakespeare’s plays, Romeo and Juliet, and its story of “star crossed lovers” betrayed by an adult world, has found myriad interpretations in performances from international ballet and opera to local high school drama clubs. It also remains highly relevant today. As Ms. Rubinstein observes, “At the heart of the play, the ultimate tragedy occurs because the adults didn’t listen or listened too late. It is in the small moments of our everyday lives, moments where we don’t treat each other with kindness and compassion and listening, that is where the seeds of violence begin.” Director Kim Rubinstein, former Associate Artistic Director of Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT, serves on the faculty of the Theatre & Dance Department at UC San Diego where she currently heads the Undergraduate Acting Program. Scenic Design by Erhard Rom; Costume Design by Olivera Gajic; Sound Design and Original Music composed by Andre Pluess (Much Ado About Nothing, 2007). Lighting Design by Peter West.

All’s Well That Ends Well is a play considered by noted scholar Harold Bloom to be Shakespeare’s “most undervalued comedy” and one that has only graced the stages of SSC once before, in 1993. SSC veteran Tim Ocel (The Winter’s Tale, 2005; The Taming of the Shrew, 2004; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2001; Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1999; As You Like It, 1997; Twelfth Night, 1996) returns to direct and says “This play is on a very human scale, there are no heroics and it is brutally honest.” In stark contrast to R&J’s impetuous young lovers, All’s Well is the story of Helena, a woman whose love for Bertram is unflappable but goes unrequited until her dogged persistence and clever wit finally allow her to emerge victorious. The play also, according to Mr. Ocel “explores the question of nobility – are you born with it or do you achieve it through your actions?” Director Tim Ocel, based in St. Louis, MO, is a director of theatre and opera. He is an Artistic Associate at Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, NY, and is currently finishing his fourth and final year as Associate Professor of Opera at the University of Kansas-Lawrence. Scenic Design by Erhard Rom; Costume Design by B Modern  (Much Ado About Nothing, The Playboy of the Western World, 2007); Original Music composed by John Zeretzke (The Tempest, 2007). Lighting Design by Peter West.

“Make it as personal as you can…make it personal, tell the truth, and then write ‘Burn this’ on it.” 

  – Burton, Burn This, Act II

In selecting the season’s two contemporary plays, Mr. Barricelli looked for works with “a muscularity of language and/or theme” that sit well alongside the two Shakespeare plays. Burn This is set in a spare lower-Manhattan loft where Anna, a dancer and budding choreographer, her screenwriter boyfriend Burton, and her gay roommate Larry, a droll advertising executive, are recovering from the tragic death of Anna and Larry’s roommate Robbie, a talented young dancer. Enter Pale, Robbie’s charismatic and slyly subverting older brother, and the measured balance of their lives and ambitions is irrevocably disrupted and challenged. Director Michael Barakiva acknowledges, “As an artist in my early 30s, I am painfully aware of what these characters are experiencing: the process of coming to terms with the repercussions of the life-decisions you made in your 20s without realizing you'd made them. At some point you stop and look at the life you've made for yourself, in all its glory and inadequacies, and wonder how you got there. And, more importantly, how you're going to get past it.” A dryly funny and painfully human collision of a story by playwright Lanford Wilson (1937 -), Burn This engages mature audiences with its wit and its unavoidable, recognizable humanity. Burn This premiered in New York in 1987 with Joan Allen and John Malkovich in the lead roles, with Ms. Allen winning a Tony Award for her performance. Director Michael Barakiva has worked with the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and New Dramatists, among others. A winner of the David Merrick Prize in Drama, Mr. Barakiva is based in New York City and makes his SSC directorial debut. Scenic Design by John Iacovelli; Costume Design by Olivera Gajic. Lighting Design by David Lee Cuthbert; Sound Design by Tom Cavnar.

– Georg Friedrich Kaufmann, Bach at Leipzig, Act II

Director Art Manke describes Bach playwright Itamar Moses as “the kind of guy that did the New York Times crossword puzzle – in ink – before he learned to walk.” Considered one of the leading new voices in American theatre, the 30-year-old Moses, whose work has been compared to Tom Stoppard, made his mark with this brilliantly written, farcical tale of  “a bunch of average guys trying to get ahead in their chosen profession.” Those “guys,” each of whom are named either Johann or Georg, are organists faced with the biggest job interview of their careers, each vying for the position of organ master at the esteemed Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Germany in 1722. And each man is determined to win the prized position by any means necessary. Director Art Manke directed the acclaimed 2006 production of Bach at Leipzig at South Coast Repertory where he won the prestigious Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Direction. Mr. Manke is a co-founder of A Noise Within, L.A.’s acclaimed classical theatre company, where he served as Artistic Director for the first ten seasons (1991-2001) and is a frequent guest lecturer at universities and conservatories throughout the country. This is Mr. Manke’s SSC directorial debut. Scenic Design by John Iacovelli; Costume Design by B Modern. Lighting Design by David Lee Cuthbert.Sound Design by Tom Cavnar.

Subscriptions for the 2008 season of Shakespeare Santa Cruz go on sale in mid-April; single tickets will be available in May. Both the Festival Glen and the Theatre Arts Mainstage are located on the campus of the University of California, Santa Cruz.  For more season and ticket information, please visit the SSC web site at www.shakespearesantacruz.org or call the UCSC Ticket Office at (831) 459-2159.