The Cutting Ball Theater Newsletter

CUTTING BALL THEATER NEWSLETTER
November 14, 2009 Volume 6, Issue 8
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"It's glorious and weird, and you absolutely shouldn't miss it."
-Chris Jensen, SF Weekly

The Bald Soprano runs through November 22!

Please consider making a donation to support our 10th Anniversary Season. This is an extremely challenging time to run an experimental theater. In fact this season, a number of theaters in the Bay Area have already closed their doors forever. It took a Herculean effort to get to the point where we could maintain our own space and present a full season. In order to continue to present a full season at the EXIT on Taylor, we need to reach our fundraising goal of $250,000. We are already more than halfway there and need your help to reach our goal. If you believe in the work that we do, please consider giving us your support. Thank you!
-Rob Melrose, Artistic Director

Derek Fischer, Paige Rogers and Caitlyn Louchard

Donell Hill and Caitlyn Louchard

Donell Hill, David Sinaiko, Derek Fischer, and Anjali Vashi

"The Cutting Ball ensemble functions like a well-oiled machine... Within Melrose's tight orchestration, each actor finds whole volumes of delicious nuances."
-Jean Schiffman, The San Francisco Examiner

"In Cutting Ball's new production, translated and directed by Rob Melrose, the play is as revelatory as ever, in part because it's much funnier than you might remember. That's very much to Melrose's credit, but he is helped tremendously by Paige Rogers, who finds just the right pitch for her batty housewife."
-Chris Jensen, SF Weekly

"It's a lively production of a compact gem that could just as easily be impenetrable in less capable hands."
-Sam Hurwitt, Marin Independent Journal

"Acting is excellent throughout, as can be expected of Cutting Ball productions."
-Eryka M. Fraczek, San Francisco Bay Times

"Fast, fun, and fluid... the cast is uniformly outstanding."
-Patrick Vaz, The Reverberate Hills

"The Bald Soprano moves beyond absurd theatre to absurdly funny entertainment."
-George Heymont, My Cultural Landscape

"This production rocked, from the translation to the hilarious and precise movement of each of the killer actors."
-Tim Bauer

"It's wonderful that Rob Melrose and The Cutting Ball Theater takes these risks to bring us such challenging, eclectic material."
-Clinton Stark, Stark Silver Creek

Bald Soprano by Eugène Ionesco
In a new translation by Rob Melrose
Directed by Rob Melrose
October 23 – November 22, 2009
Opening Night: October 29 at 8pm

Click Here for Tickets!

There are only two weeks left to see The Bald Soprano, Eugène Ionesco's riotous "Anti-play" about the tragedy of language and the hilarity of miscommunication. This revolutionary play broke all the rules with its absurdist style in its Paris premiere in 1950, and its third production (that began in Paris in 1957) has broken world records by still running to this day! While Ionesco was trying to learn English, he turned the lines of his French-to-English textbook into play dialogue, bringing an English Mr. & Mrs. Smith to life with their friends the Martins. What starts out as a comfortable English evening turns awry with the visit of unexpected company, and ultimately transforms into a cacophony of nonsensical puns and proverbs where language itself becomes a character that emerges victorious in a bold pyrotechnical display... In a brand new translation by Rob Melrose, the play has a crisp reincarnation faithful to the original and accessible for our times. It is Cutting Ball's perfect follow-up to last season's award-winning production of Ionesco's Victims of Duty. Don't miss The Bald Soprano, the play that started Ionesco's career, launched an entire theatre movement, and begins our tenth anniversary season!

The Cutting Ball Theater's 2009-2010 Season is made possible in part by Grants for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Mental Insight Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.