PROPOSED OPENING: FEBRUARY 18, 2008
BLADE TO THE HEAT (revival from 1997)
by Oliver Mayer produced with
San Jose Stage Company
BLADE TO THE HEAT captures the sensual
action of music and boxing, bursting through the brutality and
prejudice of America in 1959.
The multiple conflicts of love, cultural forces, and athletic glory and humiliation culminate in a stunningly choreographed fight to the end.
The multiple conflicts of love, cultural forces, and athletic glory and humiliation culminate in a stunningly choreographed fight to the end.
PROPOSED OPENING: JULY 14, 2008
A BOY AND HIS SOUL (revival from 2005)
written and performed by Colman Domingo
A BOY AND HIS SOUL is a dazzling and moving
true story of a childhood spent in Philadelphia in the
1970’s, during one of the great eras of soul music. In a
home with a lot of conflict, a lot of love, and a LOT of great
records, Colman and his family bring the music to life.
PROPOSED OPENING: SEPTEMBER 29, 2008
THE AMERICA PLAY (revival from 1994)
by Suzan-Lori Parks
Through the character of the Foundling
Father -- a black man, a gravedigger, and a look-alike for
Abraham Lincoln -- and the family searching for him, Parks
explores the American dream of greatness and the impulse -
creative, and destructive - to find one's place in the pattern
of history.
PROPOSED OPENING: NOVEMBER 17, 2008
EL OTRO (revival
from 1998)
by Octavio Solis
Crackling with passion, pop culture, and
Solis’ signature poetic theatrical language, El Otro
follows a Mexican-American teenager, her father, and stepfather
in a journey across the Rio Grande into Mexico, where they
explore the deepest, darkest secrets of their souls and the
fatal intertwining of their histories and their destinies.
Octavio Solis writes: “The good father and the bad.
The tenuous boundary between them. This is what EL OTRO is
about. A dark journey across the river to the place were God's
secrets betray Him, where the Devil is redeemed, and where men
dance the sardonic dance of Love, the one place where all
things are justified and demolished.”
A theater this small can scarcely be
expected to contain the excitement generated by Tony Kelly's
electrifying Thick Description production. – SF Examiner
These two acts roll, punch, and psych out
like championship material, and Tony Kelly's Thick Description
staging makes the work look like a non-brainer TKO. – SF
Bay Guardian
Sharp and infectious. As Domingo
sings along with a love ballad his stepfather would serenade
his mother with, waxes on about eight-tracks and 45s, or breaks
hilariously into the trendy dance-floor moves of yesteryear,
his narrative skillfully blends homage with a keen backward
glance on coming of age. – SF Bay Guardian
A sweet, comic, genuinely moving and at
times edgy performance memoir. Domingo's engaging, finely
tuned performance is irresistible. – SF Chronicle
Hilarious, sardonic, fantastical, and
intellectually cool by turns. It's a dream cast and a
fascinating show. – SF Bay Guardian
This is a piece of theater that doesn't
copy reality but instead creates a parallel universe, with the
vectors of race and power skewed. Whimsical and abstract as
Parks' construct seems, she uses it like a keenly sharpened
spade to dig down below the stories in the history books.
– SF Chronicle
A brightly nightmarish, frighteningly
comic, mystifying and downright entertaining Thick Description
world premiere. – SF Examiner
Exciting and violent, brutal and lyrical,
the new play boasts the kind of confidence and swagger that can
only come when a playwright is working so closely with a
theatrical company that it's hard to know where one ends and
the other begins.
– Oakland Tribune