Download odc theater presents the world premiere of night falls

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 8, 2011
Media Contact: John Hill
[email protected]
510.435.7128
ODC THEATER PRESENTS THE WORLD PREMIERE OF NIGHT FALLS
October 21 - 30, 2011
co-created by Deborah Slater & Julie Hébert
ODC Theater
3153 Seventeenth Street, San Francisco
odctheater.org
Peregrine can’t sleep. The following day
she’s turning sixty and has to give a
speech which she’s not yet written.
Anxiously she bounces off the walls of her
apartment in the middle of the night
trying to figure out what to do about
getting older and what the hell she’s
going to say to a bunch of young people
looking for advice. Peregrine—played by
several performers—searches her life for
clues: What has she done wrong? What
has she done right? What should she do
now? And then, an unexpected visitor
alters the course of the night.
Image Credit: Kirsten Sims.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, September 8,
2011 – ODC Theater is proud to
present the world premiere of Night
Falls, a work of physical theater cocreated by award-winning
playwright/director Julie Hébert and
San Francisco dance institution
Deborah Slater. Night Falls tells the
story of one woman on the eve of her
60th birthday as she faces the
repercussions of choices made long
before.
“Julie [Hébert] and I share an intense interest in exploring the complexities of life and of being
human,” says Slater who co-directs. “In creating Night Falls we were especially interested to
excavate what it means to get older and the paradoxes that attend the process of selfinventory. To convey this complexity Night Falls uses a number of devices, chief among them
the fracturing of a single character among multiple performers. In a way that would not have
been possible otherwise, this technique enables us to dramatize – to physicalize – the internal
dialogue that takes place within the characters.”
Slater and Hébert’s history of joint collaboration goes back to 1989 when they worked
together on a work titled Died Suddenly commissioned for the Cocteau Centenary in Los
Angeles, written and directed by Hébert, and choreographed and performed by Slater. It
premiered at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Hollywood. In that same year they also created
several works which premiered at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco – all of them
choreographed and performed by Slater, and written and directed by Hébert. These include
Almost Asleep, Beneath the Thin Skin, and Rashomon. In 1991 they reunited on a collection
of plays by Heiner Müeller which received their U.S. premiere at the Contemporary Arts
Center in New Orleans.
Joining their team is award-winning composer Bruno Louchouarn, who as a working
neuroscientist, as well, has been captivated by the play’s representation of a “fragmented
brain”. Giulio Cesare Perrone designed the striking set, which will include a 20-foot
driftwood wave. And the talented and inspiring Allen Willner serves as lighting designer.
The cast of performers includes Stephen Buescher, Bob Ernst, Jessica Ferris, Patricia Jiron,
Joan Schirle, and Patricia Silver.
Performances of Night Falls have been made possible by The Wallace Alexander Gerbode
Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Commission, The Stanley Langendorf Foundation and the
Art of the Matter Producer's Circle.
About Julie Hébert (playwright, co-director)
Julie Hébert is an award-winning writer and director of television, film, and theater. Hébert
started her creative life in San Francisco directing the Eureka Theater midnight production
of Cowboy Mouth, written by Sam Shepard and Patti Smith. She went on to become a
founding member of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and worked extensively with the
Magic Theater, Intersection for the Arts, and many other Bay Area theaters. Hébert oversaw
the direction of Shepard’s award-winning New York production of Fool for Love, starring Ed
Harris and Kathy Baker, and later Will Patton, Aidan Quinn, and Bruce Willis. She went on to
direct the Steppenwolf production of A Lie of the Mind, and an award-winning production
of Fool for Love with Pam Grier and Moses Gunn at the Los Angeles Theater Center. She also
took the play on tour throughout Japan. Specializing as a director of new work, Julie has
directed plays by David Mamet, Caryl Churchill, Dario Fo, José Rivera, Lucinda Coxon, Heiner
Müeller, and others at some of the most daring theaters throughout the country. Hébert’s
first work as a playwright, True Beauties, won the Bay Area Critics Circle Award for Best Play.
She followed that with the much-acclaimed Almost Asleep, Ruby’s Bucket of Blood, and The
Knee Desires the Dirt, which won a PEN Center Award for Drama. More recently three of
Hébert's plays have been produced in Los Angeles-- St. Joan and the Dancing Sickness at
Open Fist; Touch the Water, a commission with Cornerstone Theater about environmental
justice, performed on the banks of the Los Angeles River; and Tree which ran to critical
acclaim and sold out houses at the John Anson Ford Theater, produced by Ensemble Studio
Theater-LA. Tree won the 2010 PEN Award for Drama. It ran at Victory Gardens in Chicago
last spring, and at Horizon in Atlanta this fall. Among Hébert's many television credits are
some of our most popular dramas, including Numb3rs, ER, and The West Wing. Hébert has
ODC Theater | 3153 17th Street, SF CA 94110| Tel. 415-863-6606
also written screenplays for Female Perversions, nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at
Sundance, and Ruby’s Bucket of Blood, a Showtime film based on her play, starring Angela
Bassett. Hébert's television honors include a George Foster Peabody Award, a Prism Award,
and an Environmental Media Award.
About Deborah Slater (choreographer, co-director)
Deborah Slater has been performing, choreographing, and directing in theater and dance for
over 25 years. In 2009/10 her company, Deborah Slater Dance Theater, celebrated its 20th
anniversary. She has received numerous awards, grants, and accolades including a 2007
Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Hotel of Memories. She has collaborated with many
theater and dance companies including the Magic Theater, A Traveling Jewish Theater,
Dell'Arte, Theater Works, and San Diego Repertory Theater. Selected commissions include
the Yerba Buena Gardens Art Festival, Djerassi Resident Artist Program, The Cocteau
Centenary in Los Angeles, the Kings County Arts Commission in Seattle, and the
Exploratorium in San Francisco. Selected residencies include Red Cinder Creativity Center on
the Big Island in Hawaii and Djerassi Resident Artist Program in California. Slater co-founded
Circuit Network, an arts management consortium, was a founding board member of the
People's Theater Coalition (Life on the Water Theater), and was on the Dance Bay Area Board
for 5 years. In 1989, she founded ART OF THE MATTER, a non-profit dedicated to the idea
that art and everyday life are not, in fact, separate events. Slater serves as a Mentor for the
Vision Series for High School and Emerging Choreographers, was an advisor to the Marketing
Committee for National Dance Week/Bay Area, and recently completed six years as a
member of the Executive Committee of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program Board. She has
run Studio 210 in San Francisco continuously since l980.
About Bruno Louchouarn (composer)
French-Mexican Bruno Louchouarn is a composer and cognitive scientist. After graduate
studies in artificial intelligence in Paris he obtained a PhD in music composition at UCLA
where he studied with Paul Chihara, Ian Krouse, and Jerry Goldsmith. His musical
compositions are informed by his studies in the cognition of music and visual media, and
often focus on the performative aspects of language and music, the narrative structure of
myths, emotions and rhetoric. His music ranges from the futuristic cantina music heard in the
film Total Recall to live experimental multimedia performances, works for large orchestra, as
well as music for ballet and theater. His works have been performed widely, including RedCat
in Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall, UCLA's Royce Hall, Zipper Hall, The Getty Villa, The
Getty Center, Pasadena Playhouse, San Diego Repertory, Boston Court Theatre, LaMaMa in
New York City, and the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, as well as Chapman University,
Juilliard, University of Akron, UCLA, USC, and UCSD. Last year his concerto for marimba and
orchestra was performed at by Nick Terry at Chapman University and his evening-length
work Alcances was premiered by pianist Vicki Ray and the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet at
Art Center under a special commission by the Pasadena Arts Council for the Pasadena Arts
and Ideas Biennial, as well as the premiere of a new song for mezzo-soprano Juliana Gondek
at Zipper Hall. His video installation Day for Night, a 12-hour site-specific film of the Santa
Monica beach with original music was commissioned for the 2010 GLOW festival. He is
working on an opera, Voices in the Dust, that will premiere in early 2012 at UCLA. He teaches
music, multimedia, and cognitive science at Occidental College.
About Giulio Cesare Perrone (set designer)
ODC Theater | 3153 17th Street, SF CA 94110| Tel. 415-863-6606
Perrone is a playwright, set and costume designer as well as a stage director. He began his
career in his native Italy where he directed and designed mainly for the theater. Since his
arrival in the United States in 1995, he has directed and designed for both the theater and
opera. He was the recipient of a 2000 Pew National Artists Residency grant with Dell’Arte
International for his adaptation of Milton’s Paradise Lost. He has since received a 2002 PewTheatre Communications Group grant for his adaptation of The Memoirs of Jacques
Casanova. Perrone’s American design debut was the Laguna Playhouse production of
Goldoni’s The Liar, for which he won a Drama-Logue award. Now a US resident, Perrone has
140 theater and opera productions to his credit. He has worked for theaters and opera
companies including the San Diego Repertory Theatre, the San Jose Repertory Theatre,
Festival Opera, Dell’Arte International, the ACT Academy, Opera San Jose, Foghouse
Productions, California Shakespeare Festival, TheatreWorks, A Travelling Jewish Theatre,
Marin Theatre Company, and the Magic Theatre.
About Allen Willner (lighting designer)
Allen Willner has designed lights, sound, and set for many artists, musical groups, theater
and dance companies. They include The Erika Chong Shuch Performance Project, Shinichi
Iova Koga and inkBoat, Dan Wolf, The Traveling Jewish Theater, Deborah Slater Dance
Theater, East River Commedia, The Shotgun Players, Kenn Watt’s 5th Floor, Anne
Bleuthenthal, Katie Faulkner, Tanya Calamoneri & Company So.Go.No. Janis Ian, Richard
Schechner’s East Coast Artists, Scott Wells and Dancers, Motion Lab, The Dresden Dolls,
Monique Jenkinson, Faun Fables, The Billy Nayer Show, Sara Kraft and Ed Purver, Angus
Balbernie, Krista DeNio, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Paige Sorvillo/Blindsight, Leigh Evans,
Nanos Operetta, The Rova Saxophone Quartet, and Carla Kihlstedt. Willner’s direction and
design of inkBoat’s Heaven’s Radio received 4 Isadora Duncan Dance Award nominations
including the “Izzie” award for Lighting and Stage Design. In addition Willner has been
nominated for Isadora Duncan Dance Awards for the Visual Designs of Erika Chong Shuch’s
51802 and inkBoat’s Cockroach and received a Dean Goodman Choice Award for his lighting
design of Ingabor Weinnman’s post-holocaust play Don’t Look, Don’t Ask.
About ODC Theater
ODC Theater has been located in San Francisco's Mission district for over thirty years.
Nationally recognized as a cultural landmark, the Theater’s mission is to empower and
develop innovative artists. It aims to participate in the creation of new works through
commissioning, presenting, mentorship and space access; to develop informed, engaged and
committed audiences; and to advocate for the performing arts as an essential component to
the economic and cultural development of our community. Nationally known artists
Spalding Gray, Diamanda Galas, Molissa Fenley, Bill T. Jones, Eiko & Koma, Ronald K.
Brown/EVIDENCE, Ban Rarra and Karole Armitage are among those whose first San Francisco
appearance occurred at ODC Theater. Today, the Theater is home to a thriving Artist in
Residence Program, an acclaimed regional and national presenting program, a mentorship
program for emerging professionals, and a subsidized rental program for self-producing
artists. The Theater is a founding member of the SCUBA National Touring Network, and the
INNERSTATE California Touring Project for Dance. In September of 2010, the Theater
celebrated its grand re-opening after completing a 9 million dollar capital campaign to
renovate and expand its facility.
ODC Theater | 3153 17th Street, SF CA 94110| Tel. 415-863-6606
Calendar Editors, Please Note:
WHAT:
Night Falls
ODC Theater presents the world premiere of Night Falls, co-created by choreographer
Deborah Slater and playwright Julie Hébert.
Choreography: Deborah Slater
Text: Julie Hébert
Direction: Slater and Hébert
Original Music: Bruno Louchouarn
Set Design: Giulio Cesare Perrone
Lighting Design: Allen Willner
Performers: Stephen Buescher,
Bob Ernst, Jessica Ferris, Patricia
Jiron, Joan Schirle, Patricia Silver
WHEN:
October 21, 22 @ 8pm
October 23 @ 2pm
October 27, 28, 29 @ 8pm
October 30 @ 2pm
WHERE:
ODC Theater
3153 17th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
TICKETS:
$17 Students, Seniors
$20 General
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT:
odctheater.org
ODC Theater | 3153 17th Street, SF CA 94110| Tel. 415-863-6606