Theater News

San Francisco Spotlight: September 2006

Stoppard Making Sense

Tom Stoppard and Carey Perloff
(© American Conservatory Theater)
Tom Stoppard and Carey Perloff
(© American Conservatory Theater)

With what’s already shaping up to be a banner year for the American Conservatory Theatre, the renowned company begins its 2006-2007 season with a revival of Travesties(September 14-October 15), penned by A.C.T. longtime collaborator, Tom Stoppard. This season also marks the company’s 40th anniversary as one of San Francisco’s most prominent theatrical organizations and coincides with the 15th anniversary of artistic director Carey Perloff, who helms the production. The play explores the extraordinary coincidence of author James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin, and Dada artist Tristan all living in Switzerland, and the zaniness that ensues when the historic icons become friends and neighbors. Death in Venice(September 7- 24), Giles Havergal’s one-man-show based on the 1912 Thomas Mann novella of the same name. Staged in association with Theatre Rhinoceros, it is the story of a German writer who falls deeply in love with a young boy and the internal struggle between morality and raw emotions that ravages him as a result of his burning desire

Also celebrating the big 4-0 is San Francisco’s Magic Theatre, which opens its new season with Sam Shepard’s The God of Hell(September 23 – October 22). Directed by Amy Glazer, this highly political tale by the Magic’s longtime playwright, enjoys its Bay Area premiere and takes audiences into the chaos that unexpectedly takes over Midwestern couple’s life after a salesman arrives at their doorstep selling patriotic paraphernalia.

Brian Copeland’s Not A Genuine Black Man returns to The Marsh once again for a limited engagement run (September 21-October 21). The one-man-show is a poignant play based on Copeland’s memoirs and holds the record for the longest running solo show in San Francisco’s history. This particular run is staged in conjunction with the release of Copeland’s new book of the same title, published by Hyperion Press. Also at The Marsh is Roy Zimmerman’s Faulty Intelligence (September 15 – October 7). For this evening of satire and songwriting, Zimmerman straps on an acoustic guitar to sing his scathing ballads to politics’ favorite bad boys, such as Dick Cheney and Jerry Falwell.

The Berkeley Repertory Theatre starts its season with a political bang and stages Mother Courage and Her Children (September 8 – October 22), playwright Bertolt Brecht’s anti-war musical about a religious war that tears apart nearly every member of the civilized world, to be directed by Obie-winner Lisa Peterson. Ivonne Coll stars as the title character, an intrepid peddler who hocks her wares to whoever is willing to pay. . This production features a new musical score composed by Gina Leishman, who writes — in addition for film, theater, and opera — for Mr. Wau-Wa band, a music ensemble strictly devoted to playing Brecht songs.

Director Lee Sankowich takes the reins for the Bay Area premiere of Orson’s Shadow (September 7-October 8), staged by the Marin Theatre Company. As its namesake implies, this off-Broadway hit, written by Austin Pendleton, centers around Hollywood heavyweights Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier and chronicles what happens when the two legendary egos go head-to-head while attempting to work together on Ioenseco’s absurdist tome Rhinoceros, as well as Olivier’s relationships with then-wife Vivien Leigh and future wife Joan Plowright.