Rob Melrose, Artistic Director Paige Rogers, Associate Artistic Director Suzanne Appel, Managing Director Amy Clare Tasker, General Manager

Pelleas & Melisande by Maurice Maeterlinck

translated and directed by Rob Melrose

music composition by Cliff Caruthers

featuring Derek Fischer, Bennett Fisher, Paul Gerrior, Caitlyn Louchard, Brittany Kilcoyne McGregor, Carla Pauli, Gwyneth Richards, Jessica Jade Rudholm, Joshua Schell

Set Designer Choreographer Costume Designer Michael Locher Laura Arrington Raquel Barreto

Lighting Designer Stage Manager Video & Projection Designer York Kennedy Jocelyn A. Thompson Wesley Cabral

www.cuttingball.com FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” - André Gide During his lifetime, Maurice Maeterlinck said many things and people did listen. He won the Nobel Prize for literature, was compared to Shakespeare after writing his first play, and influenced theater greats like Chekhov, Strindberg, Ibsen, Beckett and Stanislavski. He was one of the most respected writers of his time. But we, for the most part, have forgotten Maeterlinck and his legacy mainly comes from his influence on the music world, notably the pieces inspired by Pelleas and Melisande composed by Debussy, Fauré, Schoenberg, and Sibelius. Maeterlinck’s dream-like symbolist theater gave way to realism and now with film and television, realism has declared total victory and the mystical world of Maeterlinck has faded into the mist. At the same time, a visit back to Maeterlinck’s world gives great rewards. There is something about his worldview that is truly unique. It is at once modern and medieval. It is the world we imagine when we come across the ruins of a castle. It is a world of kings and princesses. It is a fairy tale world for adults. The characters of his plays aren’t historical, they are the characters of our dreams. Their concerns aren’t political, they are of love, happiness and eternal truths. It is a world of essences that is concerned with the soul and what is eternal. In our busy modern lives, there is something very refreshing and eye-opening about spending some time in this world. How to depict this world on stage has been a challenge to theater artists ever since Maeterlinck’s plays were first written. The great Russian directors Stanislavski and Meyerhold struggled with the best style for Maeterlinck’s writing throughout their careers. I have been dreaming about how to direct Pelleas & Melisande since I first read it twenty years ago. How do we open this world up to a contemporary audience? I’ve been influenced by the video installations of Bill Viola, the architecture of Tadao Ando, and the music of Steve Reich. I’m excited to have brought together a team of some of Cutting Ball’s best designers and actors to grapple with how to make Maeterlinck’s world manifest on stage. As a result, we’ve configured the theater in a way we never have before, using technology in ways that are new to us as well. What is exciting to me is that this one-hundred-eighteen-year-old play is still pushing us to imagine new ways of creating theater. That speaks to the power Maeterlinck’s wonderful imagination. I hope you enjoy entering his world with us!

Sincerely,

Rob Melrose Artistic Director Pelleas & Melisande by Maurice Maeterlinck

CAST in order of appearance

Servants...... Brittany Kilcoyne McGregor ...... Carla Pauli, Jessica Jade Rudholm Porter...... Paul Gerrior Melisande...... Caitlyn Louchard Golaud...... Derek Fischer Genevieve...... Gwyneth Richards Arkel...... Paul Gerrior Pelleas...... Joshua Schell Yniold...... Jessica Jade Rudholm Old Servant...... Gwyneth Richards Doctor...... Bennett Fisher Pelleas & Melisande runs approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes with no intermission

PRODUCTION

Rob Melrose...... Director and Translator Cliff Caruthers...... Composer Laura Arrington...... Choreographer Michael Locher...... Set Designer Wesley Cabral...... Video & Projection Designer York Kennedy...... Lighting Designer Raquel Barreto...... Costume Designer Jocelyn A. Thompson...... Stage Manager Bennett Fisher...... Dramaturg Gwyneth Richards...... Voice & Text Coach

Jason Nall...... Production Manager Technical Director...... Frederic O. Boulay of Oaktown Productions Annie Paladino...... Assistant Director Bessie Delucchi...... Associate Costume Designer Simone Hamilton...... Assistant Stage Manager Dave Robertson...... Master Electrician Glenn Davy...... Electrics Assistant & Board Operator

The Cutting Ball Theater’s 2011 - 2012 Season is made possible in part by: Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Mental Insight Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation and by our individual donors. FROM THE DRAMATURG An Overlooked Revolutionary

In his lifetime, Maurice Maeterlinck was widely acknowledged as a modern master. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911 after years of critical and commercial success as a playwright, poet, and essayist, but, one hundred years later, his name is largely unknown to American audiences. Nevertheless, Maeterlinck’s footprints can be found throughout the artistic world. His writing had a major impact on J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan; Constantin Stanislavski’s production of his 1908 play The Blue Bird can still be seen at the Moscow Art Theatre; and Pelleas and Melisande inspired Claude Debussy’s landmark opera (to say nothing of the work of composers Gabriel Fauré, Arnold Schoenberg, and Jean Sibelius). He is, quite possibly, the most famous and influential writer you’ve never heard of.

It became clear early on in the course of my research that Maeterlinck’s interests as a writer were very much in keeping with the Cutting Ball spirit of celebrating the often- unrecognized gems in classic literature while simultaneously exploring the new and the experimental. In Pelleas and Melisande, Maeterlinck reaches back to French Medieval ideas of chivalry and courtly love, Pythagorean metaphysics, Belgian folklore, Arthurian legend, and Schopenhauer’s philosophy, but he cultivates these seeds into something rich and revolutionary.

While Maeterlinck’s Pelleas and Melisande is singular, the conflicts at the core of the play are very familiar. We know each element of the story, both the childlike: the fairy tale kingdom; the delicate princess; the melancholy youth; the sage king; and the mature: the jealous husband; the unspoken passion; the stifling quality of an inactive life. What makes the play fascinating is that Maeterlinck keeps changing the landscape, merging these narratives and our associations until the product is somehow, paradoxically utterly recognizable and delightfully unfamiliar.

Maeterlinck and Symbolism

Maeterlinck is perhaps the most famous playwright of the Symbolist school, a literary movement that began in the mid 19th century with the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, Paul Varlaine, and Stéphane Mallarmé. In 1886 – four years before the publication of Pelleas and Melisande – poet and essayist Jean Moréas published Le Symbolisme, a manifesto that rejected the tenants of Naturalism and praised the qualities of the emerging style:

The Idea, in its turn, should not be allowed to be seen deprived of the sumptuous lounge robes of extraneous analogies; because the essential character of symbolic art consists in never approaching the concentrated kernel of the Idea in itself.

The Symbolist perspective is comparable to the analogy of the cave from Plato’s Republic. According to Plato, men are like prisoners chained to the wall of a cave with light shining behind them. They can perceive the shadows of the cave, and misinterpret it as the totality of life, but what is truly essential cannot be seen. So too, Symbolist philosophy and art are marked by a focus on the metaphysical, with particular interest paid to the ideas of fate and pre-destination. The mundane, natural world is just the outer layer, and the individual must strive to look beyond those signifiers to hidden meaning.

Maeterlinck helped shaped the Symbolist aesthetic through his theory of “Symbolist Drama” – a term he coined several years after the publication of Pelleas and Melisande, but which can be readily applied to the play. Rather than focusing on conventional dramatic action, it seeks to examine quieter, subtler, but perhaps more significant moments when the soul seems attuned to something greater. Maeterlinck elaborates on this idea in his essay “The Treasure of the Humble:”

It is not in the actions but in the words that are found the beauty and greatness of tragedies that are truly beautiful and great; and this not solely in the words that accompany and explain the action, for there must perforce be another dialogue besides the one which is superficially necessary. And indeed the only words that count in the play are those that at first seemed useless, for it is therein that the essence lies. Side by side with the necessary dialogue will you almost always find another dialogue that seems superfluous; but examine it carefully, and it will be borne home to you that this is the only one that the soul can listen to profoundly, for here alone is it the soul that is being addressed.

In Pelleas and Melisande, the attention paid to this seemingly benign but laden language gives the play a certain stillness that amplifies the slightest action. A glistening object, an acrid smell, a sudden silence, and a moment of touch all carry tremendous significance that would be lost in a more frenetic tragedy. More than half a century before Absurdists like Samuel Beckett Paul Steck's "Drowning Ophelia" (1895) is a internalized this same stripping away of superfluous masterpiece of Symbolist visual art. Steck, like other Symbolists, celebrates moments of noise to get at the simple core of human existence, unexpected beauty in the midst of tragedy. Maeterlinck does away with the hyperbolic to preserve In the painting, Ophelia is depicted in the po- the fundamental. sition of prayer, completely serene in death.

Modernizing Maeterlinck

With water onstage, video installation, dance-inspired movement incorporated into the action, newly composed musique concrète (music that uses found sounds or sounds that may not necessarily be classified as “musical”), our production ofPelleas and Melisande looks very different from its premiere over a century ago. In an early rehearsal, Rob commented that if Debussy had the technology to make musique concrète , his work might have sounded very different. In a similar vein, if Maeterlinck had video projections or electronic speakers, if he had read Beckett or seen modern dance, he likely would have continued to explore the fringes of dramatic possibility. Rob Melrose’s staging and Laura Arrington’s choreography, where the portrayal of an action is sometimes dictated by its figurative importance instead of being represented realistically, are wonderfully effective in making Maeterlinck’s theatrical philosophy visceral onstage. Cliff Caruthers’ music, Michael Locher’s set, York Kennedy’s lighting, Wesley Cabral’s video, and Raquel Barreto’s costumes allow us to inhabit a world that is both magical and modern. While it is imperative that any production stay true to the soul of the piece, perhaps the best way to honor a revolutionary writer is with revolutionary staging. One hundred years after Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize for his contribution as a literary pioneer, I like to think that the elements of this production – the direction, the choreography, the music, the design, and our performances – both look back with reverence and push forward with boldness. I hope you think so too. - BENNETT FISHER ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES of Troilus & Cressida. In 2012, he will be directing Troilus & Cressida at Rob Melrose the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in (translator & director) Association with the Public Theater and is the Artistic Director the Acting Company’s production of and co-founder of The Julius Caesar at the Guthrie Theater. Cutting Ball Theater where he has directed Maurice Maeterlinck (playwright) The Tempest, Lady Born in Belgium in 1862, Maurice Grey, The Bald Soprano, Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck Victims of Duty, Bone to Pick & Diadem was a leading figure in the Symbolist (world premiere), Endgame, Krapp’s movement and winner of the 1911 Last Tape, The Taming of the Shrew, Nobel Prize for Literature. Maeterlinck Macbeth, As You Like It, The Death of first came to prominence with his play the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire Princess Maleine in 1889. Pelleas and World, and Roberto Zucco among Melisande followed a year later with others and has translated No Exit, the other symbolist dramas Intruder Woyzeck, Pelleas & Melisande, The Bald and The Blind. Maeterlinck’s other Soprano, and Ubu Roi. He has directed writing include the plays The Death of at The Guthrie Theater: Happy Days, the Tintagiles, The Blue Bird, and Mary Pen; Magic Theatre: An Accident (world Magdalene, the book of poetry Twelve premiere); PlayMakers Rep: Happy Days; Songs, as well as the essays “The Black Box Theater: The Creature (world Treasure of the Humble,” “Wisdom and premiere – BATCC Award for direction); Destiny,” and “The Life of the Bee.” Actors’ Collective: Hedda Gabler; Alias Maeterlinck’s writing concerns itself Stage: Creditors; Crowded Fire: The with exploring the metaphysical forces Train Play; C.A.F.E.: Chain Reactions; that compel people to act. His writing Perishable Theatre: All Spoken by a had a profound influence on leading Shining Creature (world premiere). Rob figures in modern theatrical history, has an M.F.A. in directing from the Yale most notably the Russian directors School of Drama and a B.A. in English Constantin Stanislavski and Vsevolod and Theater from Princeton University Meyerhold. Pelleas and Melisande and is a recipient of the NEA / TCG has inspired celebrated work by the Career Development Program award composers Claude Debussy, Gabriel for directors. In 2010, he was the Public Faure, and Jean Sibelius. Maeterlinck Theater’s artist-in-residence at Stanford died in 1949. University, and directed a production SPECIAL EVENTS FOR PELLEAS & MELISANDE Thursdays: pre-show dramaturgy 101 and happy hour Join dramaturg Bennett Fisher at 6PM at 50 Mason Social House. Fridays: post-show drinks with the cast Saturdays: pre-matinee lectures “Music Inspired by Pelleas & Melisande” November 5 & 19 at 1PM “Maeterlinck and Symbolism” November 12 at 1PM for complete details Sundays: post-show talkback with the artists visit www.cuttingball.com visit www.cuttingball.com Derek Fischer Paul Gerrior (Arkel (Golaud) is proud to & Porter) is a Cutting be returning to Cutting Ball Associate Artist Ball after appearing and has appeared in last season’s The in Krapp’s Last Tape, Bald Soprano. He was Endgame, Robert most recently seen in Zucco, and As You Like The Insect Play as part It, as well as Trevor of the Hidden Classics Reading Series. Allen’s Chain Reactions for RISK IS Derek has worked with numerous THIS…, Medea and The Magnetism companies throughout the Bay Area of the Heart for the Hidden Classics including: Berkeley Rep, Cal Shakes, Reading Series, and the Open Process Pianofight, and the Bay One Acts workshop of Pelleas & Melisande. Other Festival. Favorite productions include: credits include Othello with Guerilla Of Mice and Men, The White Plague, Shakes and Chain Reactions with Who’s Happy Now, The Bald Soprano, C.A.F.E. His film credits includeThe and The Pond. Seagull Project and Saloon Song.

Bennett Fisher Caitlyn Louchard (Doctor & Dramaturg) (Melisande) is proud previously to be a Cutting Ball dramaturged Cutting Associate Artist, Ball’s production having appeared in of The Tempest, The Tempest and has directed and The Bald Soprano performed in several (BATCC nomination). plays of the Hidden Classics Reading Other credits include Cymbeline (San Series, and serves as Cutting Ball’s Francisco Shakespeare Festival,) Tell It Literary Manager. He has performed Slant (BootStrap Theater Foundation,) with the Adirondack Shakespeare A View From the Bridge (Actors Company, Marin Shakespeare Theatre,) and Measure for Measure Company, AtmosTheatre, and others. (Shady Shakespeare.) Next Spring she His original plays, Hermes, Exchange, will appear in The Coast of Utopia Part Chronos, Query, and Devil of a Time have One: Voyage with The Shotgun Players. been performed in San Francisco, New Caitlyn holds a BFA in theatre from York, Chicago, and New London. More NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts / Altantic at bennettfisher.wordpress.com. Theater Company Acting School.

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WWW.CUTTINGBALL.COM Brittany Kilcoyne Gwyneth Richards McGregor (Servant) (Genevieve & Old is proud to be joining Servant) was most Cutting Ball Theater recently seen at for the first time. Her Cutting Ball in Lady recent stage credits Grey and Other Plays, include A Picasso as well as The Taming with Expression of the Shrew, and Productions, Red Light Winter with staged readings of Trojan Barbie, Custom Made Theatre, and The Afterlife and Snakewoman. Bay Area credits of the Mind with Virago Theatre. She include The Train Play, Ruth and the has had many films screened at local Sea and The Widow West, The Cocktail festivals and recently finished shooting Hour, The Belle of Amherst, The Lion a Paul Thomas Anderson film coming in Winter, All’s Well that Ends Well, out in late 2012. Brittany graduated Quartermaine’s Terms (for which she from San Francisco State University received a BATTC award) and in her with BAs in Theatre and Humanities. own one-woman show, Born Again through Shakespeare. Gwyneth teaches Carla Pauli (Servant) popular Acting Shakespeare classes is thrilled to be a.k.a. “Shakespeare without Tears.” making her Cutting Ball debut with Pelleas Jessica Jade Rudholm & Melisande. Other (Servant & Yniold) is recent credits include excited to be joining Farragut North and Cutting Ball again for Fishing with Open Pelleas & Melisande, Tab Productions, The Merry Wives of having taken part in Windsor with Curtain Theatre and CBT’s Hidden Classics Electricidad with Pacifica Spindrift Reading Series. She Players. She is currently working on a has most recently been seen in Twelfth feature film,White Rabbit, with Boxcar Night with Atmos Theatre/Theatre in Pictures. Carla has worked with local the Woods, where she is an associate companies including Woman’s Will, artist. She is company member of Golden Thread Productions, Brava, Custom Made Theatre and a graduate NCTC’s YouthAware, Magic Theatre of CSU Monterey Bay. Favorite among others. productions include The Love Song of J Robert Oppenheimer and Giant Bones. THE HIDDEN CLASSICS READING SERIES Play Strindberg by Friedrich Dürrenmatt directed by Annie Paladino Sunday, November 6 at 1pm

Adapted from August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death, this tight, gripping three-person play is a searing portrait of marriage. A man and a woman cannot live without each other, but without the help of their mutual friend, they might wind up killing each other. Joshua Schell (Pelleas) Raquel Barreto (Costume Designer) is is thrilled to return a Cutting Ball Associate Artist, where to Cutting Ball after she has designed Woyzeck, Macbeth, appearing in Andrew AvantGardARAMA, The Vomit Talk of Saito’s Krispy Kritters Ghosts, As You Like It, Roberto Zucco, in the Scarlett Night for and Drowning Room. In the Bay Area, RISK IS THIS… Some she has designed for the California local credits include In Shakespeare Festival, The Magic, the Red and Brown Water with Marin Campo Santo, San Francisco Lyric Theatre Company, Songs of the Dragons Opera, and Encore Theater, among Flying to Heaven with Crowded Fire others. She lives and works in Los & Asian American Theater Company Angeles, where she has designed at and The Nature Line with Sleepwalkers The Black Dahlia, the Latino Theater Theatre. Los Angeles credits include Company, the Lewis Family Playhouse, True West & Fool for Love with the and the Getty Villa Theater Lab. She Casitas Group and a staged reading of holds an M.F.A from UC San Diego and The Comedy of Errors featuring Tom a B.A. from UC Berkeley, and is on the Hanks and Kelsey Grammer at the design faculty at UCLA. Geffen Playhouse. BFA, University of Southern California. Wesley Cabral (Video & Projection Designer) is excited to be joining CBT Laura Arrington (Choreographer) for Pelleas & Melisande. Other credits choreographed Bone to Pick & Diadem include, Happy Now? at Marin Theater, last season at Cutting Ball and is Iph— a co-production between African- collaborating on Tontlawald (2012 American Shakespeare Company and world premeire). She was an artist in Brava, The Laramie Project: Ten Years residence at Marin Headlands Center Later and The Lily’s Revenge at The for the Arts and CounterPULSE. Her Magic, Exit, Pursued by a Bear with work has also been seen at Z Space, Crowded Fire, Current Nobody with Just Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Theater and super:anti:reluctant with Lab, ODC, The Garage, Cell Space, Mugwumpin. He is a graduate of the Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, and Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design Supperclub. She created and curated and holds a BFA in Drawing. Wesley the performance event SQUART, a edited an award-winning feature show that gathers artists to create documentary, The Bellman Equation, spontaneous performance works. which is screening at festivals around www.lauraarringtondance.com. the country. www.goatvideo.com THE HIDDEN CLASSICS READING SERIES Camino Real by Tennessee Williams directed by M. Graham Smith Sunday, December 4 at 1pm

Peopled with characters from literature and pop culture, Camino Real is one of William’s most imaginitive and touching plays. Borrowing heavily from Strindberg’s A Dream Play and The Great Highway, Williams conjures a bizarre afterworld where the royal road of the unconscious empties out onto a real road littered with life’s misfits. Cliff Caruthers (Composer) has created and Romeo and Juliet California soundscapes and music for more Shakespeare Theatre. Bessie received than 200 productions, including ...and a BA in Communications from Syracuse Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, The University and a Fashion Design degree Tempest and Bone to Pick & Diadem from FIDM in San Francisco. for The Cutting Ball Theater (among many others), Caucasian Chalk Circle, Simone Hamilton (Assistant Stage The Homecoming, November and Manager) is a recent graduate of San Brainpeople for A.C.T., Happy Days for Jose State, where she received a BA in Guthrie Theater, Crime and Punishment Theater with a focus in Performance and TRAGEDY: a tragedy for Berkeley and Production, Design and Technology Repertory Theatre. He is cocurator of In the Bay Area, Simone has worked the San Francisco Tape Music Festival with Dragon Theater, Sleepwalkers, and has performed his compositions at and Brava! Theater. the Prague Quadrennial, 964 Natoma, Deep Wireless, Noise Pancakes, the York Kennedy (Lighting Designer) is SF Electronic Music Festival, and the making his Cutting Ball Theater debut Society for Electroacoustic Music in the with Pelleas & Melisande. His designs United States. Future projects include have been seen in theatres across Race for A.C.T., Troilus & Cressida for America and in Europe including Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Julius Arena Stage, The Old Globe, Berkeley Caesar at Guthrie Theater. Rep, Seattle Repertory, American Conservatory Theatre, Sacramento Bessie Delucchi (Associate Costume Opera, The Alley Theatre, Dallas Designer) has costumed The Tempest, Theatre Center, Yale Rep, Brooklyn Mud, Victims of Duty and The Bald Academy of Music, Goodspeed Soprano for Cutting Ball. She has Musicals and the Denver Center. designed throughout the Bay Area, Awards for theatrical lighting include including Scrooge (Shellie Nominated), the Dramalogue, San Diego Drama The Odd Couple (Shellie Nominated), Critics Circle, Back Stage West Garland, and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde at Lafayette Arizoni Theatre Award and the Bay Town Hall; Private Lives at Douglas Area Theatre Critics Circle Award. In Morrisson Theater; Avenue Q and the dance world he has designed for Six Women with Brain Death at The Malashock Dance, Brian Webb and Willows; 42nd Street at the South Tracey Rhodes. He is a graduate of the Bay Musical Theatre, and was the California Institute for the Arts and the assistant designer for Twelfth Night Yale School of Drama.

COMING UP NEXT

Tontlawald World Premiere, Cutting Ball Commission February 17 – March 11, 2012 Text by Eugenie Chan Directed by Paige Rogers and Annie Paladino Choreography by Laura Arrington This original ensemble-based piece weaves evocative a capella harmonies and visceral movement into a multidisciplinary retelling of an ancient Estonian tale. Rogers, Chan, Paladino and Arrington create a world premiere performance that stretches our definitions of theater, dance, and choral music. Michael Locher (Set Designer) Luis Obispo and Boxcar Theatre. He is is a longtime Cutting Ball Associate also an AEA stage manager, working Artist; previous designs for Cutting for San Francisco Opera’s Merola Ball include The Tempest, The Bald Opera program, The Magic Theatre, Soprano, ...and Jesus Moonwalks the Berkeley Playhouse, Kansas City Lyric Mississippi, Victims of Duty, Bone to Opera, and Cybil Shepherd’s one- Pick & Diadem, Macbeth, Roberto woman show, Curvy Widow. Originally Zucco, and The Vomit Talk of Ghosts. from Claremont, CA, he has a BA in Elsewhere, credits include Happy Days Criminology from UC Irvine. (Guthrie, Playmakers Rep), Troilus & Cressida (Oregon Shakespeare Annie Paladino (Assistant Director) Festival), Or, Goldfish, Mrs. Whitney, is a stage manager, actor, producer, Jesus in India (Magic), Trouble in Mind and director. She is an Associate (Yale Rep), The Taming of the Shrew Artist at Cutting Ball, where she (Great Lakes Theater Festival, Idaho has stage managed The Tempest, Shakes) Seven Guitars, The Piano Lesson, Krapp’s Last Tape, and Bone to Pick & Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Lorraine Hansberry Diadem; Annie is co-directing (with Theater), Richard III, Venus (Yale School Paige Rogers) Cutting Ball’s winter of Drama), La Finta Pazza (Yale Baroque production, Tontlawald. Other stage Opera), The Train Play (Crowded Fire), management credits include Satellites and The Creature (Black Box). Off (Inkblot Ensemble) and (R)evolution Broadway: Dramatis Personae, Sin, X (FoolsFURY Ensemble) in the 2011 Crane Story. Broadway: Guys & Dolls FURYFactory Festival. Annie’s original (asst. designer). Michael is a founding solo performance, DREAMA, premiered member of Tilted Field Productions. at the 2010 SF Fringe Festival. Annie Education: University of California, San received her B.A. in Theater and Diego; Yale School of Drama. Psychology from Wesleyan University.

Jason Nall (Production Manager) is Jocelyn A. Thompson (Stage Manager) joining CBT for his first season. He is thrilled to be returning to Cutting is also the production manager for Ball this fall with Pelleas & Melisande, Crowded Fire Theater Company, having stage managed ...and Jesus overseeing shows such as Forever Moonwalks the Mississippi in 2010. She Never Comes, The Secretaries, and Songs is originally from the East Coast and of the Dragon Flying to Heaven. He holds a B.F.A. in Theatre Education with has served in the same capacity with a specialization in Theatre Technology Lamplighters Music Theatre, Opera San from Howard University. Since moving LATER THIS SEASON

Tenderloin World Premiere, Cutting Ball Commission April 27 – May 27, 2012 Written and Directed by Annie Elias with the cast Annie Elias brings a decade of experience in documentary theater to Cutting Ball with the World Premiere of Tenderloin, an unforgettable piece about the people and places in Cutting Ball Theater’s neighborhood. Using transcripts of interviews conducted by seven San Francisco actors, Tenderloin takes the- ater out into the neighborhood and brings the neighborhood into the theater. From these living sketches, a portrait of the Tenderloin itself emerges. to CA, she has worked as the sound Yale Repertory Theatre where she fellow and an outreach coordinator for presented No Boundaries: A Series of Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Currently Global Performances in association with she is serving as the production the World Performance Project at Yale. manager for Brava Theater Center. Past She also managed Yale Rep’s touring stage productions include The Oldest production of Dostoevsky’s Notes from Profession, Oedipus Rex, #5 Angry Red Underground in a new translation by Drum, Iph--, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Bill Camp and Robert Woodruff. Before and A Raisin in the Sun. attending Yale, she was the Director of Individual Giving at Dance Theater Paige Rogers (Associate Artistic Workshop and the Assistant Director of Director) is a co-founder of The Cutting the Wesleyan University Annual Fund. Ball Theater where she has appeared in My Head Was a Sledgehammer, As Amy Clare Tasker (General Manager) You Like It, The Vomit Talk of Ghosts, is a director and plawright as well as Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, Cutting Ball’s General Manager. For Bone to Pick & Diadem and The Bald CBT, she has directed three readings in Soprano as well as many readings and The Hidden Classics Reading Series, and workshops. She has worked locally assistant-directed Eugenie Chan’s Bone with Berkeley Opera, Lamplighters, to Pick & Diadem (dir. Rob Melrose) Sonoma Rep and on tour with Cal and Will Eno’s Thom Pain (based on Shakes. Nationally, she has been seen nothing) (dir. Marissa Wolf). As a at The Kennedy Center, McCarter founding member of Inkblot Ensemble, Theatre, Trinity Rep and the Oregon Amy has developed and directed All’s Shakespeare Festival. Her directing Fair and Satellites, new plays inspired credits at Cutting Ball include by ancient mythology. She holds a Lighthouse, Mud and this season’s B.A in Drama from U.C. Irvine and has Tontlawald. studied playwriting and directing at the University of Manchester/Royal Suzanne Appel (Managing Director) Exchange Theatre. amyclaretasker.com joined The Cutting Ball Theater as its www.inkblotensemble.com first Managing Director in June 2011, having recently completed her dual Cutting Ball Theater would like to thank: MBA / MFA in theater management Sam Gibbs, Glenn Davy, Barry Eitel, Megan Lush, from Yale’s schools of Management Tirzah Tyler, Eileen Tull, City Lights Bookstore, and Drama. At Yale she served as Wine & Spirits Magazine, San Francisco Friends of the Public Library Associate Managing Director of EXPLORE THE EDGE IN CUTTING BALL’S 2011 - 2012 SEASON Season memberships are still available

The season membership card gives you complete flexibility to see ALL of our 2011 - 2012 pro- ductions any time you want* and as many times as you want! Membership benefits include reserved seating, phone orders, free ticket exchange, and savings over single ticket prices.

Ask at the box office about applying tonight’s ticket price to your season membership! THE CUTTING BALL THEATER HISTORY The Cutting Ball Theater was founded in 1999 by theater artists Rob Melrose and Paige Rogers. After their training at the Yale School of Drama and Trinity Rep Conservatory respectively, Melrose and Rogers spent a year in Europe on a Fox Foundation Grant to observe master directors in France, Germany, Italy, and Austria. Upon returning to the United States, the couple debated about where to found a theater company with the goal of creating work of the same daring, rigor, arresting design and production values as the plays they had seen in Europe. They narrowed it down to New York, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Providence and ultimately chose San Francisco for its rich history of experimental art and commitment to the arts. The theater was founded with a mission is to develop productions of experimental new plays and re-visioned classics, with an emphasis on language and images. Following its beginnings at the San Francisco Fringe Festival, Cutting Ball has produced over twenty productions. Since 2008 Cutting Ball has been the resident theater company at the EXIT on Taylor. Our programming focuses on the development and production of new experimental plays, new translations, and bold interpretations of classic plays. We produce a full season of new work and original interpretations of classics; Avant GardARAMA!, which features short experimental plays; The Hidden Classics Reading Series on select Sunday afternoons; and RISK IS THIS… The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. One of the only festivals in North America calling exclusively for experimental work, RISK IS THIS…features five plays workshopped for a week and culminating in a staged reading before an audience. In the twelve years since its founding, The Cutting Ball Theater has gained important recognition for its contributions to theater in the Bay Area and beyond. Artistic Director Rob Melrose was one of seven directors in the country to be awarded a 2007 NEA / TCG Career Development Program grant. Under his leadership, productions of plays by Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Heiner Müller, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Bernard-Marie Koltès, Richard Foreman, Suzan-Lori Parks, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Genet, Mac Wellman, Marcus Gardley, Will Eno, and world premieres by Eugenie Chan and Kevin Oakes have earned Cutting Ball a 2010 “Best of the Bay” award from the SF Bay Guardian,” a “Best of the Bay 2007” from San Francisco Magazine, “Best of SF 2006” from SF Weekly, and a 2008 “Goldie Award.” Cutting Ball has been nominated for 12 BATCC awards, and won four including “Best Production” for our 2010 production of …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi and 2008 production of Victims of Duty. Honorary Board Katrina Bushnell, Box Office Manager Oskar Eustis, Suzan-Lori Parks, Walter Erica Lewis-Finein, Publicist Wilkie, Robert Woodruff Molly Morris, Graphic Designer Ryan Durham, Web Designer Board of Directors Kim Bender (President), Mary Anne Cook Associate Artists (Vice President), Erik Blachford, Marsha Adriana Baer, Heather Basarab, Felicia Cohen, Marty Krasney, Ken Melrose, Rob Benefield, Cliff Caruthers, Eugenie Chan, Melrose, Paige Rogers, Sharon Trahan Myers Clark, Chad Deverman, Paul Gerrior, Ponder Goddard, Donell Hill, Michael Staff Locher, Caitlyn Louchard, Cat Lum, Avery Rob Melrose, Artistic Director Monsen, Ryan Oden, Danielle O’Hare, Annie Paige Rogers, Associate Artistic Director Paladino, David Sinaiko, Debra Singer, David Suzanne Appel, Managing Director Westley Skillman, Anjali Vashi, Jason Wong Amy Clare Tasker, General Manager Jason Nall, Production Manager Interns Benett Fisher, Literary Manager Sam Gibbs, Ponder Goddard, Eileen Tull WHAT’S A CUTTING BALL? Cutting Ball’s name reflects the paradoxes and ambiguities that our theater embraces. It’s an oxymo- ron – a ball that cuts. We are a cutting-edge theater that has a sense of humor about itself. We do not find ourselves gliding on the cutting edge, but rather bouncing on the cutting ball. There are a few good stories about the origin of the name Cutting Ball, which you can find on our web- site at www.cuttingball.com/about WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR DONORS FOR THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT

THIS LIST REPRESENTS GIFTS TO THE ANNUAL FUND BETWEEN AUGUST 1, 2010 AND OCTOBER 1, 2011 Sophocles’ Sages ($25,000 and above) Pamela & Marty Krasney York Kennedy Lighting Design Christopher Leville Patrick Mason The William & Flora Velia E. Melrose & Rebecca Kurland Hewlett Foundation Tony Politopoulos Meg O’Connor The Barbro Osher Henry & Charlotte Rogers K.J. & Thomas Page Pro Suecia Foundation Anjali Vashi Beth Rubenstein Kendrick B. Melrose & Daniel Sherman & Evan Markiewicz (in honor of Sharon Trahan) The Phyllis C. Wattis The Van Wing Family Foundation (in memory of Sophie Van Bourg) Patrick J. Vaz Gretchen vonDuering The Zellerbach Family Shakespeare’s Saints Foundation Meredith Watts ($10,000 - $24,999) Dave & Kathryn Yrueta Heiner Müller’s Anonymous Drinking Buddies Eugène Ionesco’s Amis The Gambs Family ($500 - $999) ($100 - $249)

Grants for the Arts/ The Bender Family Anonymous SF Hotel Tax Fund Teresa Darragh (in memory of The Kenneth Rainin Foundation & Parker Monroe Helen Grossman NYC) Vicki & John Kryzanowski Michael Barrows Velia R. Melrose Daniel Lockwood Vance Carl Bjorn The Mental Insight Foundation & Caitlin Pardo de Zela The Boodrookas Family The Lum Family The National Endowment Elaine Chan for the Arts Rob Melrose (in Honor of Eugenie Chan) & Paige Rogers San Francisco Nancy Cooper Frank Arts Commission Greg & Sarah Sands & Richard N. Frank Michael Tasker Arianne Z. Dar Close Personal Friends Sharon Trahan Liz Diamond of Samuel Beckett Andi C. Trindle Carol & Steven Dimmick ($5,000 - $9,999) Jo Anne & Joel Elias The Compton Foundation Gertrude Stein’s Mary W. Foose Dining Companions Arlene M. Getz Jean Genet’s ($250 - $499) Michele Gibson Circle of Thieves Anne Hallinan ($1000 - $4999) Daniel R. Bedford Vivian and Michael Brown Randall Heath Erik Blachford Paul Heller & Maryam Mohit Ann & George Crowe Long X. Do Ken Hempel Fund for the Arts Gretchen Brosius Robert Guter Laurie Jacobs Robert Chlebowski Burr Heneman Ericka Jennings Marsha N. Cohen & Janet Visick Jonathan & Jillian Khuner & Robert P. Feyer Virginia Hubbell Kathy Long Rob & Mary Anne Cook & Adriana Baer Barbara Steinberg Lisa Fischer Jeffrey Hungerford & Frank Lossy, MD Robert & Linda Holub Laura & George Irvin Anastasia Mandeville Hannah Marks Ponder Goddard Jane Weidman Dorothy Lawrence Mott S. Horowitz (in honor of Eugenie Chan) Cindy Ostroff Jean Johnson Nancy Wilkinson & Raoul Stepakoff Harold & Lisa Kahn Elisa Williams David Phillips Heather M. Kitchen Josh & Diane Wirtschafter Brian M. Rosen Julie Kurtz John Simpson & Suzanne Cross Suzanne McMillan Suzan-Lori’s Top Dogs Stephen Skartvedt Toni Mester ($5 - $24) Sam Smith William Monsen & Gail Rubin Tony Frankel Toby Symington MRW & Associates, LLC Anne Galjour Craig & Marie Vought Gary & Leena Osteraas Garret Groenveld Paul Walsh & Elizabeth Mead Irene Ostroff Joan Intrator The Wheatman Family Thomas Peck Margot Melcon Linda Woo & Amir Najmi Nancy E. Quinn Hal & Patti Moore Greg & Sonjia Redmond David Wynne Randy & Cristy Pollak John Rengstorff (in honor of Dana Pollak) Vladimir Mayakovsky’s Andrew Saito Marissa Skudlarek Comrades (in honor of Eugene Ionesco) Nicole Stanton ($25 - $99) William Selig Beverly Wand Anonymous (in honor of Mark Bishop E. M. Alvarado & Patricia Witt) OUR WISHLIST Chas Belov Mark Shepherd (in honor of Eugenie Chan) Marianne Shine 10 identical black chairs for our Ralph Beren David Sinaiko & Anne Elias Hidden Classics Reading Series Oscar Bermeo Regina Sneed 80 new audience chairs Carrie Bolster Elissa Stebbins Software (for Mac) Larkin Brown Charles R. Stott James Bundy & Elaine M. Michaud New or used Mac laptops Ken & Kathryn Cale Sarah Cameron Sunde Jose Casas David J. Thomas Professional Services Elise Clowes Katherine & David Thomas please call (in memory of Terry Leo Thomas) Judith Cohen & Malcolm Gissen (415) 292-4700 or email Maureen Coyne Stephanie Tucker [email protected] Habitat 2 Media Stephen & Sharon Van Meter to discuss your Sam Gibbs Joe Weatherby tax-deductible in-kind donation Erin Gilley & George Pfirrman Thank you for considering a tax-deductible donation to The Cutting Ball Theater! Financial support by those who believe in our work is an essential part of creating great theater. There are many ways to support Cutting Ball: use the envelope in your program to make a donation tonight; visit www.cuttingball.com to give online; or drop a few dollars in the glass jars in the lobby.

Donor Benefits $100 - $249 Reserved Seating $250 - $999 Reserved Seating and 2 ticket vouchers to any of our productions $1000 - $2,499 All of the above plus invitations to private donor events $2,500 and up Become an Associate Producer and join us at the first rehearsal! Please contact Suzanne if you are considering a major gift. [email protected] (415) 292-4700. This fall, Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose’s Woyzeck, Pelleas & Melisande, and Ubu Roi: new translations from The Cutting Ball Theater will be published by EXIT Press. With a forward by Oskar Eustis and introduction by Paul Walsh, the book of translations will be available for pur- chase and Kindle download on amazon.com for more details, visit www.theexit.org/exitpress

AROUND THE CUTTING BALL THEATER an elegant dinner after the show 1. Fish & Farm 11. *Ahn Sushi and Soju 2. The Grand Cafe 12. 50 Mason Social House 3. Cafe Mason 13. *farmerbrown 4. First Crush Restaurant & Bar 14. *Jasper’s 5. Passion Cafe 15. The Owl Tree 16. *Puccini & Pinetti a casual dinner 17. *Hana Zen 6. Old Siam Thai 18. *Johnny Foley’s Irish House 7. Punjab Kabab House 19. *Osha Thai Cafe 8. Little Delhi Indian Restaurant 20. Cafe Royale 9. Show Dogs 10. Pearl’s Deluxe Burgers * also great for dinner

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The Cutting Ball Theater is in residence at EXIT on Taylor: 277 Taylor Street, San Francisco, between Eddy and Ellis.