NEW RESIDENCY AT EXIT ON TAYLOR!!

From a Press Release by Erica Lewis-Finein, Cutting Ball’s new publicist:

SAN FRANCISCO – Cutting Ball Theater has just found a home in the heart of San Francisco, where the company has secured a new permanent performance venue at the EXIT Theater on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street between Eddy and Ellis. The Cutting Ball Theater will be in residence at EXIT on Taylor eleven months out of the year, with the EXIT using one month out of the year to house productions for the San Francisco Fringe Festival. Located just a few blocks from the Powell Street BART, MUNI, Union Square, and across the street from Glide Memorial Church, Cutting Ball’s new accessible downtown location offers an extraordinary opportunity for organizational growth. For more information about The Cutting Ball Theater, visit www.cuttingball.com.

From Artistic Director, Rob Melrose: This is going to have a tremendous impact on our future. Getting a space of our own has been a goal of ours for years. It was always, however, a very distant goal. Thanks to Christina Augello and Richard Livingston at EXIT Theater, this dream is going to become a reality in a matter of months and in a space we already know and love. The Cutting Ball’s first show, Richard Foreman’s My Head was a Sledgehammer, debuted at the EXIT’s 1999 San Francisco Fringe Festival and many of our best productions have been presented at EXIT Theatre and EXIT on Taylor. Christina and Richard have been a wonderful source of support from the beginning and we are so happy to be creating this new relationship with them.

Chad Deverman and William O. Selig in Woyzeck at EXIT on Taylor.

We have been fans of the space at EXIT on Taylor since our first show there in 2003. It is a flexible black box with high ceilings and a very wide playing space, allowing us to do work that is epic and intimate at the same time. The shows that we have produced at The EXIT on Taylor in the past include: Macbeth, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Woyzeck, and The Vomit Talk of Ghosts.

Lasse Christiansen (as bear), Jessa Santens, and Elizabeth Bullard in The Vomit Talk of Ghosts at EXIT on Taylor

We have always tried to be a research and development company with a large number of experimental works being developed over a long period of time. At the same time, with venue space at a premium, our rehearsal time has always been extremely limited as have the number of projects we can bring to a full production. This new arrangement with the EXIT allows us more time and space to develop projects. We will also be able to offer workshops and classes in the future and best of all, we will be able to add more full productions into our season. The residency will also allow us to revamp the lobby and really make the EXIT on Taylor our home with our own stamp and flavor.

We are so happy to share this news with you. Stay tuned in the Fall of 2008 for a celebration at the space!

Justin Chu Cary, Robert Henry Johnson, and David Skillman
in The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World
at EXIT on Taylor.

The Cutting Ball Theater's 2007 – 2008 Season is made possible in part by production by grants from Grants for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Mental Insight Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, and the generous support of our individual donors.