Bapf2016 Program.Pdf
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1 Welcome to the 39th Annual BAY AREA PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL A Window to the Soul: Getting Intimate with the Global in an Election Year At Georgetown University in 2009, then-Secretary Clinton was asked by an undergraduate playwright how she viewed the role of artists in helping to promote human rights and amplify policy. Her answer? “I think artists are one of our most effective tools in reaching beyond and through repressive regimes, in giving hope to people…I think that artists both individually and through their works can illustrate better than any speech I can give or any government policy we can promulgate that the spirit that lives within each of us, the right to think and dream and expand our boundaries, is not confined, no matter how hard they try, by any regime anywhere in the world. There is no way that you can deprive people from feeling those stirrings inside their soul.” To us, it was no coincidence that the question was posed by a fierce and passionate young playwright. Live story-making – playwriting - is a powerful and immediate artistic tool that reaches inside the intimacy of the human psyche to evoke insight, perspective, emotional connection and, ultimately, change. And that is why, at Playwrights Foundation, we remain deeply dedicated to advancing and amplifying diverse emerging voices. Each of the six plays of the #BAPF2016 festival reveal the many dangers that individuals and members of targeted groups face in their struggle to expand beyond boundaries imposed on them, and so doing tap our hearts and create a “window into the soul.” From many dots across the globe – and from points inside our imagination – Korea, Peru, Japan, an urban future, and a suburban Middle America, to the fantastical world of gaming, and the hedonistic world of Las Vegas, these six writers “illustrate the spirit that lives within each of us,…to think and dream and expand our boundaries.” At this #BAPF2016 – six vital plays will take shape, and those of you who have made the choice to be here are in for a meaningful and delightful ride. This year’s crop topples convention, defies definition, and most importantly, will find their way to our theaters and to the lives of thousands of audiences. You are a critical part of their journey to completion. So many of our past BAPF plays and playwrights have landed full productions all over the U.S. and the globe, in no small part due to the work we are doing here together: rebuilding and revolutionizing our theater, telling our stories, and revealing our very lives to us. Naturally, the festival would not be complete without some brainy fun. We invite you to all the festival has to offer: discussions on alternate theater forms, topical experts, parties, panels and catered lunches! We are so thrilled to share these six visionary works with you. –Amy Mueller, Artistic Director 1 FESTIVAL CALENDAR WEEKEND ONE WEEKEND TWO Friday, July 15 Friday, July 22 6:00pm Opening Night 6:30pm Cocktail Mixer – Reception Women in the Gaming Community 8:00pm Wild Goose Dreams 8:00pm Non-Player Character Saturday, July 16 Saturday, July 23 12:00pm whisper fish 10:30am Pre-play Brunch with 2:30pm Lunch & Panel Playwright Sarah Sander Discussion – – Midwesterners and Playing with Form: their friends! Re-Envisioning the Theater Experience 12:00pm Sycamore 4:00pm Non-Player Character 2:00pm Lunch and Lecture – The Defectors’ 6:30pm Theater Professionals Dilemma: Minority Life Cocktail Party in South Korea 8:00pm Before Evening Comes 4:00pm Wild Goose Dreams 8:00pm Good, Better, Best, Bested Sunday, July 17 11:00am Theater Professionals Brunch & Panel Sunday, July 24 Conversation – Adventurous Season 2:00pm Before Evening Comes Planning 6:00pm whisper fish 2:00pm Good, Better, Best, Bested 8:30pm Closing Night Reception 6:00pm Sycamore 2 EVENT DETAILS Lunch and Discussion/Demonstration – Playing with Form: Re-Envisioning the Theater Experience Saturday, July 16 at 2:30PM – Downstairs at the Shelton Theatre With Jon Bernson, E. Hunter Spreen, Sango Tajima, and others TBA Playwrights are thinking differently about how to design the theatrical experience, and are making work that pushes the boundaries of its traditional definitions. Join us for this conversation and showcase on the new frontiers of theater. A boxed lunch may be purchased for $10.00 a la carte (options by email on event registration). Cocktail Social Hour Saturday, July 16 at 6:30PM – Hotel Rex on Sutter Street Join the festival community for drinks, nosh and talk – wind down, network and continue the conversation over a drink (no-host bar) and hors d’oeuvres. There’s a lot to discuss and to celebrate at this year’s Festival! Theater Professionals Brunch and Panel Conversation – Adventurous Season Planning Sunday, July 17 at 11:00AM – Downstairs at the Shelton Theatre With Mina Morita, Jon Tracy, others TBA Even when we have the desire to produce artistically adventurous work, we often have to win over our organization’s decisionmakers. Join us in discussing some positive strategies for pitching projects and ideas that move the sector forward, over a light brunch and coffee prior to the day’s readings. Cocktail Mixer Meetup – Women in the Gaming Community Friday, July 22 at 6:30PM – Hotel Rex on Sutter Street No-host bar social mixer for anyone interested in tech culture, geeks, coders, gamers, and friends, immediately prior to the reading of Non-Player Character. Pre-play Brunch with Playwright Sarah Sander – Midwesterners and their friends! Saturday, July 23 at 10:30AM – Unscripted Theatre (across the hall from Custom Made Theatre) Please join us before the reading of Sycamore for brunch and informal conversation. What kind of hurdles exist in living a progressive lifestyle (and expressing that through your artistry) in a sometimes hostile environment? And how do we overcome them? Lunch and Lecture – The Defectors’ Dilemma: Minority Life in South Korea Saturday, July 23 at 2:00PM – Unscripted Theatre (across the hall from Custom Made Theatre) A conversation with Hannah B. Michell, internationally acclaimed scholar and novelist, and UC Berkeley lecturer on Korean Pop Culture and Asian American Cinema In this contextual special event prior to Wild Goose Dreams, Ms. Michell will be presenting her wide ranging research on contemporary South Korean family life and structure in relationship to its minorities: defectors, mixed-race individuals and those separated by war. In a culture which idealized the multi-generational family unit, where do those fragmented families belong? Box lunches provided by the internationally known Oakland Korean fusion restaurant FuseBOX. (Lunch is $10.00 and must be ordered in advance - options by email on event registration). Event Sponsor: Center for the Art of Translation Closing Night Reception Sunday July 24 at 8:30pm Join us for an evening of food, drink and good cheer as we celebrate the closing of the Festival. 3 Wild Goose Dreams By Hansol Jung Composer: Paul Castles Director: Christine Young Music Director: Jesse Sanchez Dramaturg: Andrew Kopke Producing Sponsor: Friday, July 15 at 8PM Saturday, July 23 at 4PM Cast Wayne Lee* Gook Minsung Melissa Locsin* Yoo Nanhee Randall Nakano* Chorus: Father Alex Hsu* Chorus: Man Christine Chu Chorus: Woman Isabel Anne To Chorus: Hyonjin Mia Tagano* Chorus: Wife AeJay Mitchell, Erica Richar d son , Len Shaffer Choir James Tecuatl-Lee, Nicole Thordsen *appearing courtesy of Actors Equity Association Rivianna Hyatt Assistant Director From the Playwright I have never written about Korea. I could never find a way to write Korean people in English. At Royal Court and I was encouraged to write in Korean, and then translate it back to English. I found a way to articulate a kind of language that straddled between the English vocabulary and Korean imagery. English rhythms of speech with Korean tempo of thought. And unwittingly this project began as an experiment to clash two things that don’t seem to belong together: North and South, Korean and English, noise and quiet, isolation and love. In that clash, I believe I re-discovered, and was touched by, the tiny but magnificent beauty of connection between two very lonely people. 4 Biographies Playwright Hansol Jung is a playwright and director from South Korea. Plays include Cardboard Piano (Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville), No More Sad Things (co-world premiere at Sideshow Theatre, Chicago and Boise Contemporary Theatre), Among the Dead (Ma-Yi Theatre), Wolf Play, and Wild Goose Dreams. Commissions include from Playwrights Horizons, the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation grant with Ma-Yi Theatre and a translation of Romeo and Juliet for Play On! at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She has had works developed at Lark, New York Theatre Workshop, MacDowell Colony, Royal Court, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. Her plays have received the Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award (Among the Dead), Honorable Mention from the 2014 Arch and Bruce Brown Playwriting Competition (Cardboard Piano), and was named 2014 finalist for the Ruby Prize (No More Sad Things). She has translated over thirty English musicals into Korean, while working on several award winning musical theatre productions as director, lyricist and translator in Seoul, South Korea. Jung holds a Playwriting MFA from Yale School of Drama, and is a proud member of the Ma-Yi Theatre Writers Lab. Composer Paul Castles is an internationally-working composer based in Brooklyn, New York and Sydney whose work has been produced and performed by the award-winning South Korean Theater Troupe Georipae (including The Fountain, winner of Best New Musical at the 6th Daegu International Musical Festival), Victorian Opera, Clare Cook Dance Theater, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Chronology Arts, and Three Act Theater, through writing partnerships with US-based playwright Hansol Jung, South African librettist Mkhululi Mabija, London-based lyricist-bookwriter Victoria Saxton, and Seoul-based lyricist- bookwriter Chae-kyung Lee.