New Conservatory News Release Theatre Center
Press Contact, Ben Randle 415.694.6156 ~ [email protected] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW CONSERVATORY THEATRE CENTER ANNOUNCES 2014-15 SEASON
FEATURES WEST COAST PREMIERE OF “THE TERRIFIC COMEDY WITH AN UNPRINTABLE NAME”, COCK THE BAY AREA PREMIERE OF CHARLES BUSCH’S DIE MOMMIE DIE! A POWERFUL, ALL-NEW PRODUCTION OF ONE OF NCTC’S BIGGEST HITS, SHAKESPEARE’S R&J THE RETURN OF NCTC’S MOST POPULAR PUPPET MUSICAL, AVENUE Q TWO WEST COAST PREMIERES OF ACCLAIMED NEW DRAMATIC COMEDIES, HARBOR AND FROM WHITE PLAINS JON ROBIN BAITZ’S PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST, OTHER DESERT CITIES THE LUSH HISTORICAL COMIC DRAMA, COMPLEAT FEMALE STAGE BEAUTY
San Francisco, CA (March 25, 2014) — Last night, at a special Season Announcement P arty for subscribers, donors, artists and press, New Conservatory Theatre Center Founding Artistic Director Ed Decker announced the 2014-15 Season. Regarded nationally and internationally as San Francisco’s Premier LGBQI and Allied Theatre Company, NCTC will continue the company’s commitment to brave, dynamic, and sophisticated programming that speaks to the humanity in all of us.
“This season features another fantastic year of premieres, revivals and our best-selling musical of all time,” says Decker. “And the intimate setting at NCTC puts you so close to the action that you catch every glance, whisper, and soaring moment.”
NCTC’s 2014-15 Season opens with the West Coast Premiere of a “terrific new comedy with an unprintable name,” according to Ben Brantley in The New York Times. Cock by Michael Bartlett caused a critical sensation when it premiered at London’s Royal Court in 2009, going on to win a Laurence Oliver Award, and equal praise upon its New York premiere in 2012. As the New York Post declared, “Never mind its provocative title: Cock is wonderful!” When John and his boyfriend take a break, the last thing he expects is to meet the woman of his dreams. This “exhilarating … robust and rollicking” new play (The New Yorker) takes a playful, candid look at sexuality, identity, and our obsession with certainty. Adds Variety, “With the exception of Oscar Wilde, quarreling lovers are never as articulate and entertaining as they are in Cock, Mike Bartlett’s Battle Royal of wit and persuasion.”
In October, NCTC welcomes back the Hollywood kitsch and camp hilarity of Charles Busch with the Bay Area Premiere of Die! Mommie, Die!. After the great success of Charles Busch’s The Divine Sister at NCTC in 2013, NCTC presents the play L.A. Times calls “very nearly illegally entertaining.” The time is the 1960’s and fallen pop singer Angela Arden is trapped in a corrosive marriage with her film producer husband. Desperate to find happiness with her young lover, Angela murders her husband, leaving their two children to avenge his death. Part Greek tragedy, part Hollywood kitsch - this is Charles Busch at his best! Die,
Ed Decker Barbara Hodgen ARTISTIC DIRECTOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Mommie, Die! premiered in Los Angeles in 1999, was adapted into a film in 2004 and later premiered in New York at New World Stages in 2007.
In November, a reimagined classic is reimagined once more, as NCTC revives a powerful, all-new production of one of its biggest hits, Shakespeare’s R&J by Joe Calarco. We raise the stakes on this “electrifying” (Entertainment Weekly) and “vibrant, hot-blooded adaptation” (The New York Times), as it returns to our stage set in a small classroom of a repressive developing nation, where revealing who you are is still a crime. Shakespeare comes alive when four adolescent school boys break the rules and secretly reenact Romeo and Juliet - the timeless story of dangerous forbidden love. Shakespeare’s R&J won enthusiastic acclaim upon its New York premiere in 1998, repeating its tremendous success with celebrated runs in London’s West End, Australia, Tokyo, and cities all over the U.S. NCTC previously produced R&J in a hit production staged in 2002. This new production continues NCTC’s commitment to plays that champion social justice and a shared humanity. As hailed by Variety, R&J is “inspired in its exploration of passion and repression in both Shakespeare’s time and our own.”
This holiday season, get ready for more outrageously delightful songs and charmingly naughty puppets, as NCTC presents the return of its sold-out, record-breaking hit Avenue Q. This “fresh and delightful” production (SF Examiner) won over critics and audience alike, with Talkin Broadway declaring after seeing the NCTC production, “I have fallen in love with Avenue Q all over again!” Avenue Q is the laugh-out-loud, Tony Award-winning musical that tells the timeless story of a recent college grad named Princeton who moves into a shabby New York apartment all the way out on Avenue Q. Once there, he meets Kate (the girl next door), Rod (the Republican), Trekkie (the internet sexpert), Lucy the Slut (need we say more?), and other colorful types who help Princeton finally discover his purpose in life. The Bay Area Reporter exclaims, “A big smiley face quickly throw its net over NCTC’s Decker Theatre and keeps the audience happily entrapped” – and just in time for the holidays!
In January, NCTC presents the West Coast Premiere of the incisive and intelligent new play, Harbor by Chad Beguelin. All hell breaks loose when fifteen-year-old Lottie and her ne'er-do-well mother drop in unannounced on the beautiful Sag Harbor home of Kevin and his young new husband, Ted. The bonds between kith and kin are tested in this alternating biting and touching comedy about the constant shifting meaning of family. Chad Beguelin is the Tony-nominated lyricist/librettist of Broadway’s The Wedding Singer, lyricist for the hit musical adaptation of Elf, as well lyricist/librettist for Disney’s new Broadway production of Aladdin. Harbor premiered at Westport Playhouse, followed by a New York production at Primary Stages. Variety raves Harbor is “witty and tender” and adds, “The characters in Chad Beguelin’s comedy-drama are hopelessly – and sometimes hysterically – adrift as they seek safe havens in relationships, family, and career. But the harbors here are built on shifting sands in this wickedly funny play.”
After the success of its San Francisco Premiere of The Paris Letter by Jon Robin Baitz, NCTC brings Baitz’ Putlizer Prize Finalist and Broadway blockbuster, Other Desert Cities, to the intimacy of NCTC’s Decker Theatre. Greeted with unanimous praise on its premiere at Lincoln Center Theatre in 2009, Other Desert Cities has gone on to garner raves in productions across the country, being hailed as “funny, fierce, and immensely entertaining” by New York Daily News, "a witty, deeply enjoyable family drama” by The New York Times, and praised by Newsday as “the play we have been waiting for Baitz to write!” In the play, Brooke announces to her prominent Republican parents she is about to publish a memoir on an explosive chapter in the family’s history, drawing a line in the Palm Springs sand and daring them all to cross it. As
Ed Decker Barbara Hodgen ARTISTIC DIRECTOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Baitz brings dysfunctional family drama to blazingly witty and gripping new heights, NCTC’s intimate Decker Theatre brings the passion, drama, and superbly crafted blow darts of wit closer to the audience than ever.
Next, NCTC presents the West Coast premiere of the piercing and profound new drama From White Plains – “a poignant and balanced look at the psychic bruises of teenage cruelty" (Time Out New York.) Michael Perlman wrote From White Plains in collaboration with the original cast: Craig Wesley Divino, Karl Gregory, Jimmy King and Aaron Rossini. Proclaimed a “gripping and full-blooded drama” by NYTheatre.com when it premiered at Pershing Square Signature Center in New York, From White Plains explores the limits of our ability to forgive. When a young director receives international recognition for a film based on his experience of bullying in high school, he names the real life bully in his acceptance speech. The two lives that once intersected in high school, are now publicly tangled together by social media. The New York Times declares From White Plains “bristles with suspense. There are lives hanging in the balance here, playing out in arenas both painfully intimate and glaringly public.”
From White Plains will also tour Northern and Central California as part of NCTC’s Pride On Tour, playing Modesto, Fresno, Grass Valley, and expanding to a new, fourth city to be announced.
NCTC wraps up its 2014-15 Season with the battle of the sexes taking center stage in the San Francisco Premiere of the sumptuous and wildly theatrical comedic drama Compleat Female Stage Beauty by Jeffrey Hatcher. In 1661, London’s most renowned leading lady is a man named Edward Kynaston. He's the toast of the town until one night, when an unknown woman illegally takes the stage. Instead of stopping the show, King Charles II changes the law and allows women to act. By the stroke of a pen, Kynaston discovers his world is turned upside-down. Compleat Female Stage Beauty was the basis for the 2004 film Stage Beauty, directed by Richard Eyre, and has been hailed as a “world class, clever” comedy by Variety and an “intimate psycho-sexual backstage historical comedy. Splendidly theatrical, it's a witty allusive game with some feeling payoff, to boot" by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
NCTC’s 2014/2015 Season is supported in part by Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, James Irvine Foundation, Fresno Regional Foundation, The Bob A. Ross Foundation, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, NCTC Producer’s Club and our individual donors.
Subscribers get the best seats at the best prices for every show in the season. Eight-show full-season subscriptions are available now, as well as a seven-show package, without Avenue Q, and a 4-show Sampler, with a choice of any 4 shows in the season. Subscribers have first access to Avenue Q tickets, and save up to 25% off single tickets, have access to the best seats, receive hassle-free ticket exchanges, and save 50% on guest tickets. Subscriptions can be purchased at nctcsf.org/subscribe or by calling the Box Office at 415.861.8972.
Singles tickets for the 2014-15 Season will go on sale to the general public June 1st, 2014. Fulfilling its vision of theatre as a community event, NCTC will expand community accessibility by offering a limited number of Pay-What-You-Wish tickets for every preview performance in the new season.
New Conservatory Theatre Center is San Francisco’s premier LGBTQI and allied performing arts institution and progressive arts education conservatory since 1981. NCTC is renowned for its diverse range of
Ed Decker Barbara Hodgen ARTISTIC DIRECTOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
innovative, high quality productions, touring productions and shows for young audiences; its foundational anti-bullying work with youth and educators through YouthAware; and its commitment to nurturing emerging artists and playwrights to expand the canon of queer and allied dramatic work. ###
Cock West Coast Premiere Walker Theatre By Michael Bartlett September 5 – October 12, 2014 Opening Night: September 13, 2014
Die! Mommie, Die! Bay Area Premiere Decker Theatre By Charles Busch October 3 – November 2, 2014 Opening Night: October 11, 2014
Shakespeare’s R&J Walker Theatre By Joe Calarco November 7 – December 14, 2014 Opening Night: November 15, 2014
Avenue Q Decker Theatre Music and Lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, Book by Jeff Whitty Based on a concept by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx December 5, 2014 – January 18, 2015 Opening Night: December 13, 2014
Harbor West Coast Premiere Walker Theatre By Chad Beguelin January 23 – March 1, 2015 Opening Night: January 31, 2015
Other Desert Cities San Francisco Premiere Decker Theatre By Jon Robin Baitz March 6 – April 5, 2015 Opening Night: March 14, 2015
Ed Decker Barbara Hodgen ARTISTIC DIRECTOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
From White Plains West Coast Premiere Walker Theatre By Michael Pearlman In Collaboration with Craig Wesley Divino, Karl Gregory, Jimmy King and Aaron Rossini March 20 – April 26, 2015 Opening Night: March 28, 2015
Compleat Female Stage Beauty San Francisco Premiere Decker Theatre By Jeffrey Hatcher May 15 – June 14, 2015 Opening Night: May 23, 2015
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Ed Decker Barbara Hodgen ARTISTIC DIRECTOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR