UP NEXT: CABARET CRESSIDA!

Summer is over, and so is the season of outdoor Shakespeare! Meanwhile, I’ve been in rehearsals for this delightful cabaret reinterpretation of Troilus and Cressida by Poltergeist Theater Project, a new theater company in the Bay Area that takes problematic plays and reinvents them from a queer, feminist perspective. This rehearsal process under co-directors Chris Steele and Sean Owens has been hilarious, beautiful, stimulating, and everything else you could want out of a collaborative process. And we’ll be singing some gorgeous music set to Shakespeare’s language by the brilliant Lou Lagalante. There is so much love and ingenuity in this piece, I can’t wait to show everyone! We run in the first two weekends of October, come see us!

ABOUT THE SHOW:

Come join us as we take Shakespeare's most explicitly queer play and set it dancing. Refocusing the narrative from the original script, this production puts the queer and femme characters at the center, giving them space to tell their own stories and celebrating the ambiguities, contradictions, and struggles of being a human at war with humanity and oneself. They say "All's fair in love and war," but you'll have to come decide for yourself.

All tickets will be pay-what-you-will at the door of the show. Limited edition participation packages will be available through Kickstarter in small quantities. Theatre that matters should be for all, and Poltergeist is dedicated to bringing queer art regardless of financial strata.

INFORMATION AND TICKETS:

Cabaret Cressida Facebook Page

UP NEXT: AS YOU LIKE IT AT SF SHAKES

I am so pleased to be a part of The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s production of As You Like It, understudying for the parts of Jacques and Audrey. This production will be a musical collaboration with the Kilbanes, and directed by Rebecca J. Ennals. SF Shakes productions are always free, and tour throughout the Bay Area! The Festival is dedicated to making art accessible to everyone, performing in public parks, which is my absolute favorite thing! There was recently an article going around explaining the progressive origins that led to Shakespeare’s prevalence in our parks during the summer months. I am grateful to be a part of this tradition and of this particular production!

INFORMATION

UP NEXT: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM AT CAL SHAKES

I am utterly thrilled to be working as an understudy for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Tyne Rafaeli, at the California Shakespeare Theater in Orinda! It’s been so educational and supremely entertaining to work under Annie Worden, whom I’ve admired from afar on the Cal Shakes stage in the past. I’m studying the roles of Helena and Snug, with a fairy thrown in. It’s magical.

INFORMATION AND TICKETS

About the Show:

Four lovers escape into the woods and find themselves entangled in a world turned upside-down. When it comes to love, what’s fantasy and what’s reality? Tricks abound and wires cross as we all seek escape from (or surrender to) the clutches of love.

UP NEXT: LIFE SUCKS BY AARON POSNER AT CUSTOM MADE

I’m excited to work with Custom Made Theater Co. for the first time, with Brian Katz directing! I’ll be working on the role of Ella. Very curious about her, and her prototype in Uncle Vanya. Time to brush up on Chekhov! Rehearsals begin in a few months, and the show goes up in May.

INFORMATION AND TICKETS

About the show:

In this brash reworking of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, a group of old friends, ex-lovers, estranged in-laws, and lifelong enemies gather to grapple with life’s thorniest questions—and each other. What could possibly go wrong? Incurably lustful and lonely, hapless and hopeful, these seven souls collide and stumble their way towards a new understanding that Life Sucks! Or does it? Posner’s follow-up to his Stupid F*cking Bird (seen at SF Playhouse) is Mel Brooks meets Chekhov: lowbrow, dirty, passionate, and unexpectedly tender.

CAESAR MAXIMUS IN THE NEWS

Caesar Maximus opened last weekend; audiences are loving it! Our cast and crew are doing amazing work. I received a lovely mention from Lily Janiak in the SF Chronicle:

Those same bursts of ocean air find a welcome echo in Emily Stone’s singing as a soothsayer, whose pure, ethereal vocals seem to seep from her surroundings as naturally as sea salt coasting in on marine squalls.

And thank you, Kathryn Yu, for your review on No Proscenium! 

And the Soothsayer impressively fulfills multiple roles here: the seer who foresees Caesar’s murder, a stern timekeeper who manages the audience’s attention, and a singer of ethereal arias.

I never leave the "stage" for two and a half hours because I have many jobs in this piece! It's challenging but so rewarding.

You can hear some of my unheeded warnings and a bit of the "ethereal vocals" in the trailer below! 

UP NEXT: CAESAR MAXIMUS AT THE MUSIC CONCOURSE

I'm excited to be playing the Soothsayer (with a twist) in this beautiful adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar! Get your tickets to Caesar Maximus with We Players at the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park! Previews begin this Thursday, August 16th.

INFORMATION AND TICKETS

About the show:

San Francisco’s Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park provides the stage for We Players’ brand new adaptation of Julius Caesar, CAESAR MAXIMUS. Influenced by the Gilded Age, we explore a Roman Republic corrupted by machine politics and old money. Incorporating the nineteenth century popular entertainments of Opera and Circus, this multi-disciplinary, site-integrated production explores power, grief, and popular action. Inspired by the bloody history of civil unrest, the piece leans into the blind fury of a righteously angry mob and opens up Shakespeare’s greatest political parable for our own tumultuous time.

Photos by Lauren Matley, Rock Shots Photography