Our popular, free Inside Scoop events have moved; they are now being held at the Orinda Theatre, 4 Orinda Theatre Square.

Appearing at the star-studded Tempest Inside Scoop are director Jonathan Moscone, actor Michael Winters (Prospero), actor James Carpenter (Alonso), choreographer/actor Erika Chong Shuch (Ariel), actor Emily Kitchens (Miranda), costume designer Anna Oliver, and Resident Dramaturg Philippa Kelly.

DETAILS

• What: The Tempest Inside Scoop
• When: Mon, May 14. Sweet treats and Peet’s at 6:30pm, panel at 7pm
• Where: Orinda Theatre, 4 Orinda Theatre Square. Please use the special entrance from the sidewalk to the left of the cinema’s main doors; look for a Cal Shakes greeter who will help you find your way.
• Cost: Free
• Seating: Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis for most guests.
• Cal Shakes Champions at the Supporting Cast ($250) level or higher: To reserve seats, email bsandefur@calshakes.org or call 510.809.3297.
• Parking: Free parking is available for this event in Orinda Theatre Square’s garage with validation. Please remember to bring your parking ticket into the cinema to receive validation.
• More info: 510.548.9666, info@calshakes.org, calshakes.org/events.

Date, time, and artists subject to change. Pictured above, clockwise from top left: Erika Chong Shuch and Jonathan Moscone in conversation (photo by Jamie Buschbaum); James Carpenter; Philippa Kelly at a 2011 Inside Scoop (photo by Jay Yamada).

Manoel Felciano and René Augesen in ROUND AND ROUND THE GARDEN at A.C.T.; photo by Kevin Berne.

You’ve been an A.C.T. Core Company Member since 2001, and have performed at Lincoln Center and the Public Theater in NY and on stages throughout the country. What’s your experience with outdoor theater?

I’ve not worked in outdoor theatre for a very long time. Around 20 years ago I worked at Trinity Shakespeare Festival in Fort Worth. I did Ophelia in Hamlet and Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew one summer, and Juliet in R & J and Luciana in The Comedy of Errors another summer. I’m told the weather in Orinda is much more fickle than Fort Worth!

What’s your experience with Noël Coward? Can you share any early thoughts on the role of Ruth Condomine or on Blithe Spirit in general?

In my first year at A.C.T. I actually did a production of Blithe Spirit in which I played Elvira (Condomine). It should be pretty interesting and odd doing a show a second time, playing a different character. I remember Shona (Tucker, who played Ruth) finding it particularly challenging to pretend like she didn’t see me; we kept cracking each other up because of it.

Mark Rucker directed you in Once in a Lifetime at A.C.T. What do you like about working with him? What do you think he’ll bring to this production?

I’ve actually worked with Mark a number of times. He directed me in one of my very favorite shows, The Rainmaker. I love working with him. I think he’s one of those rare directors that intuits what each actor needs, individually, and gives them that. He takes the time to know who you are as a person and as an actor and very generously morphs, sometimes several times a day, into exactly what you need at the time. It’s difficult to know when an actor needs to hear more or less from a director at any given moment. He somehow knows. And he’s always up for a game of “what if…”.  So he’ll bring to this production what he always brings, collaboration and fun and color and idiosyncrasy.

What or who inspires you right now? Any particular writers, music, current events, people, et cetera?

I fear anything I write here will sound pretentious but here goes.

I could go with the obvious and say Shakespeare. But it is true that I pick it up often. That I daydream about doing it quite a bit. That I secretly work on it. That when I teach it I keep working on it even after the class ends. And that I’m a bit obsessed with the actual “work” that it takes to do it.

But also I’m lately sort of obsessed and inspired by and always looking for performances and actors that don’t announce themselves, that transform into character without seeming to shout “Look at me! Look how good I am!” Bryan O’Byrne, Mia Wasikowska, Viola Davis. Performances that sometimes transcend what otherwise might have been mediocre material.

And finally, if you could have appeared any play in history, what (and/or where, and/or with whom directing or sharing the stage with you) would it be?

OK, this is really hard! I’d love to answer with my dream cast and play on the Broadway stage, now—but I feel like that’s cheating. So I’ll say Our American Cousin, so that I could throw my body over John Wilkes Booth and change the course of American history for the better. I’m kidding.

I don’t know! Maybe do Macbeth with Marlon Brando in the 1960s with Harold Pinter directing? That might be awesome!

Subscribe now to get the best seats at the best prices for Blithe Spirit and the rest of our 2012 season.

SFBATCC winners Carpenter and Campbell in TITUS; photo by Kevin Berne.

On April 2, the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle (SFBATCC) announced its 2011 award winners during a ceremony at the Palace of Fine Arts. In the categories for Plays at Venues Over 300 Seats, our productions of Candida and Titus Andronicus took home several awards each: Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone got the nod for his Candida direction, and Will McCandless for that production’s sound design; for Titus, James Carpenter garnered the Performance by a Male Actor in a Principal Role prize for his portrayal of the title character, Rob Campbell’s Saturninus role won him the Male Actor in a Principal Role category, and Paloma H. Young earned the costume design award.

Read the full list of winners here, and hearty congratulations to all!

In the months leading up to our 2012 Main Stage season, we are profiling some of the artists shaping our productions. —

What is your experience with outdoor theater, and how does that affect your expectations and plans for working in our amphitheater?

My first introduction to performance was outdoor theater. I grew up in the Virgin Islands and the two main places for performance were a big, outdoor island amphitheater, and then Parade. It wasn’t until grad school that I realized the importance of that idea of performance and accessibility, how it spills out into the audience. In graduate school (at Yale) we had a cabaret that I was the artistic director of, and it had an outdoor space. Some of my favorite shows ended up being in that outdoor space, and I loved to perform there because it allowed access for people who were passing by—who weren’t even necessarily there for the show—to see the guts of the making of the show a little bit. Most recently, I assisted Michael Greif on Shakespeare in the Park; when I moved to New York and I was deciding if I wanted to be in theater or not, I saw Shakespeare in the Park and it blew my mind, this idea that there was interaction with the natural elements and the text.

In particular, with this production of Spunk, growing up, having gone to the Zora Neale Hurston Festival (in Eatonville, FL) a lot—that festival is an outdoor festival, and the sunshine and the way the jazz played on the wind, these natural elements are very much a part of my memory of those experiences. In the play Spunk, the natural elements are referenced a lot. There is a very distinct thing about the trees and the look of the lake.  So there are two main things that I want to engage with in this production, influenced by my experience with outdoor theater. There is a call-and-response between the audience, the elements, and the performance onstage.  And there is the way in which the poetry of Zora Neale Hurston is influenced by the natural world—to be able to say “while we are transforming to Eatonville, we are also acknowledging the natural elements that are really here right now.” When the wind is blowing, we have actual wind to talk about. It’s one of the reasons doing Shakespeare outdoors is so great: Shakespeare so often references the elements, and the elements are just there. So I really want to have that interactive vibrancy with the audience. To elevate the poetry of the everyday; I think Zora is very much about this idea that everyday things, the way people speak, the way they might sew a little flower on their shirt, or the way the sun feels on your face—those everyday things, that poetry of the everyday is art.

You referred to a parade. Do you mean a parade with a big ‘P’ or just parades in general?

Parade with a big “P”.  We were off school so often because of so many parades: Three Kings’ Day Parade, Thanksgiving Parade. I’m interested in the way people enter the theater space, bringing people from wherever they are, however they want to interact with whatever is going on. (For Spunk) I think there is a kind of parade going into the amphitheater led by Guitar Man and Blues Speak Woman. And for the first prologue there is a parade of the performers coming through the audiences, so it’s never something that’s just up there. People will feel like they are being spoken to, like the whole space is alive.

What is your history with the work of Zora Neale Hurston?

I went to Middle School and High School in Orlando, Florida. Starting in seventh or eighth grade, we would go every year to Eatonville for the Zora Neale Hurston Festival. My mom was a visual artist and we moved a lot; wherever we moved to, we would plug into the local arts scene as much as possible. The Zora festival was one that we plugged into early on and we would go every year. In your kid mind it’s not like “oh, I’m going to this important Zora Neale Hurston festival”—it just became part of my understanding of art and the work that people often called craft. Being a real artist and listening to stories, listening to the rhythms of people who are not always listened to, is really important to me. It took me a while to understand the importance of it. I just liked going and listening to the music and see art, and I could get popcorn.

I almost did Spunk as my thesis and ended up doing Jelly’s Last Jam instead, also by George C. Wolfe. Zora’s work has energized me for a long time, so it’s a really thrilling thing for me to be a part of something that is a celebration of the theatrical while also celebrating Zora and what her mission was.

The cast of Patricia McGregor’s senior thesis production of George C. Wolfe’s JELLY'S LAST JAM at Yale University Theatre; photo by T. Charles Erickson.

How are you connected with Spunk playwright George C. Wolfe?

I followed his work for a long time and admired it. He holds the rights to Jelly’s Last Jam and it’s not staged as often as you would think it was, so he ended up coming to see the production. He gave a bunch of workshops around the production and I got to have conversations with him about it. We most recently saw each other when he came to the opening of The Mountaintop, (Hurt Village playwright) Katori (Hall)’s play on Broadway. We got to speak and I got to tell him I was doing this production and he said “thank you for keeping my rent paid.” We’ve actually been playing a little tag right now, trying to sit down and just talk about Spunk itself. The questions that he has and the theatricality with which he answers those questions are thrilling to me.

Is there anything else you would like to say about his work?

His work is deeply steeped in the examination of politics, of race, of class, of gender conversations. And sometimes he’s very, very overtly political but it is always with a wild humor, theatricality, and tongue-in-cheek wit. I love the provocateur in him. I love the super-smart mischievous kid who is always getting folks into trouble, but with a purpose. I love that spirit. I love the commitment to both: the commitment to playfulness and theatricality. I think he is an artist who loves the art of theater. He could do film, he could do other things. I think he writes directly for what I call “the simple magic of theater.” He loves the simple little transformations. He is actually, in this piece, very reverential to Zora, which is important to me. He plays up the thing that is naturally theatrical in her work but he’s never trying to deflate her. He’s always trying to elevate her. He took what he does and put it in service of what she does.

What is the first piece of theater you saw? What is the first piece you saw that made you think ‘I really want to be a part of this’?

The first piece of theater I saw must have been a Caribbean dance company. My sister was a really beautiful ballet dancer. I was the younger sister that was a clown and I remember watching her and the beauty of what she did and realizing that if I do the dance move one step off I’m actually going to get attention. It’s a little less about what I first saw than what I performed in.

The first real piece of theater was seeing a production of Midsummer in seventh grade. At that point I was a big sports kid. I had asthma so I realized I had to find something to put my energy into and, at the school, there was student production from the Orlando Touring Shakespeare group. That was the thing that told me I wasn’t going to do sports, I was going to do this.

Seeing Shakespeare in the Park was a way of seeing “oh, we can really do this professionally.” This is what it is to do it on a big scale, instead of just in a gymnasium and with a touring group. It was my junior year in high school.

The thing that really made me hone in on what I wanted to do was to see a production of Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight when I was in undergrad in Houston. Those politics. That attention to language. She records that person said “ah,” not “um.”

Is there anybody that you’d like to mention that inspires you right now that you haven’t mentioned already? Writers, music, current events?

The playwrights I adore: Katori Hall, Tarell McCraney, Marcus Gardley, José Rivera.

The work I adore: Improv Anywhere—they go into Grand Central Station and do “spontaneous” art. Catch people off guard. I am often interested in when people don’t even expect to encounter art, and then it happens.

There is also a playwright named Judith Adong who is from Uganda who inspires me just in terms of relevancy, absolute relevancy. She has this piece, Just Me, You and the Silence, that is about the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda; it is wildly funny and theatrical and brave. This law has been put on hold but is still up for serious consideration. I feel like it’s her mission to keep the spotlight on it by writing this play

I went to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit Savage Beauty. I thought, “oh wow, the stakes have been raised here.” Here is a person with such an absolute vision, just bold and unflinching and political. Of the things that have influenced me this year Alexander McQueen would definitely be one of them. I don’t wait on line for anything and I waited for this. It was at the Met and I waited in line for two hours. It was so worth it. Such a spectacular thing.

If you could direct any play in history what or where or with whom would it be?

I would want to direct some kind of wild theatrical opening to the Olympics. I’d love it to be to address the ideas of joy and unity in action. Somehow get at the underbelly of the things that frustrate that and arrive at something that is hopeful. Because I think we have a lot of cynicism in our world, and doing intelligent works that fights against cynicism is really important. The Olympics is a place where people try to set that aside for a moment. Yes, I want to have a conversation with the entire world about hope winning against cynicism. It would be in a lot of languages. There would be physical language because you have these physical titans. But it would really be about this idea to set aside entrenched conflicts and cynicism, and be more pure and hopeful. I’m going to start working on it now.

Subscribe now to get the best seats at the best prices for Spunk and the rest of our 2012 season.

New Cal Shakes Board President Paul L. "Buddy" Warner

California Shakespeare Theater today announced the election of San Francisco attorney Paul “Buddy” L. Warner as President of the Board of Directors. Mr. Warner, who joined the board in 2010, replaces outgoing president David Goldsmith, who served five one-year terms.

“My goal is to build on the important work done by David and his predecessors which has assisted our professional staff in making Cal Shakes a nationally recognized theater company,” said Mr. Warner. “Cal Shakes will continue to present the highest quality performances of both Shakespeare and the classics. We will also continue and expand our Artistic Learning program which provides a valuable theater learning experience to many underserved communities in the Bay Area”

Mr. Warner is a partner with Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP, with a practice specializing in commercial litigation and trials. He is the author of numerous articles on civil procedure, class actions, arbitration, and legal ethics and tactics, and was named one of the Top Attorneys in Business Litigation by Super Lawyers 2004-2011. Mr. Warner lives in Berkeley, and also sits on the board of Tehiyah Day School. He and his wife Jodi are long-time Cal Shakes supporters who, according to Mr. Warner, “have not missed a production since Cal Shakes moved to Orinda in 1991.”

“I am so grateful for the steady and sure guidance that outgoing President David Goldsmith provided over the past few years — a period of national economic turbulence,” commented Managing Director Susie Falk. “Cal Shakes has emerged with a renovated home, and greater organizational and financial stability, We are now poised for our next chapter of growth, and I am thrilled that Buddy will be at the helm with his significant board experience, professional expertise, and irrepressible enthusiasm for the organization. I know our board is in excellent hands.”

The 2012 slate of officers and their cities of residence are as follows:

• President: Buddy Warner, partner with Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP (Berkeley)
• Vice-President: Kate Stechschulte, architect (Berkeley)
• Vice-President: Alan E. Schnur, Ph.D., founding partner of Schnur Consulting Group (Orinda)
• Vice-President (ex-officio): Jonathan Moscone, Artistic Director (Oakland)
• Vice-President (ex-officio): Susie Falk, Managing Director (Berkeley)
• Secretary: Jean Simpson, retired educator and civic worker (Piedmont)
• Treasurer: Jay Yamada, civic leader (San Lorenzo)
• Immediate Past President: David Goldsmith, business consultant/health care management, (Orinda)

Newly-elected members of the Cal Shakes’ Board include:

• Ellen Dale is a long-time civic leader whose passion for the arts was instrumental in the creation of Cal Shakes’ permanent home at the Bruns Amphitheater in 1991, and most recently in the 2010 capital campaign to renovate the site. A native San Franciscan, Ms. Dale graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Psychology. She and Joffa, her husband of 45 years, have lived in Orinda since 2000 in a home designed by their daughter. Prior to 2000, they lived in Moraga for 28 years where they raised their three children.

• Erin Jaeb is a commercial photographer with a background in fashion, beauty and architecture, and a current emphasis on fine art photography. She serves as artistic director for the marketing materials of her family-owned business, Emerald Packaging, Inc., one of the largest produce packaging suppliers in the United States. Ms. Jaeb, her husband, and their three children make their home in Oakland, CA. 
• Marshall Kido holds a B.A. in journalism from San Francisco State University, has worked in the banking industry in California since 1977, first with Home Savings of America, followed by eight years as Area Sales Manager for Citibank. He currently serves as the Division Segment Manager at City National Bank in Walnut Creek.

Additional members of the Board are:

• Terry Bush, Director, Q Builders (Walnut Creek)
• Michael Cedars, M.D., Plastic Surgeon, Alta Bates-Summit Medical Center (Orinda)
• Phil Chernin, Certified Public Accountant (Lafayette)
• Joshua Cohen, Attorney, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP (Walnut Creek)
• Ed Del Beccaro, Managing Director, Grub and Ellis (Danville)
• Joseph DiPrisco, Ph.D., author/educator (Berkeley)
• Sonetta Hanson, yoga instructor and clothing designer (Orinda)
• Tony Kallingal, Vice President/Region Manager, Mechanics Bank (San Ramon)
• David Lawrence, retired, Private Client Services Manager, City National Bank (San Ramon)
• Richard E. Norris, Partner, Archer Norris (Walnut Creek)
• James Roethe, Arbitrator/Mediator, J. Roethe ADR Services; former General Counsel of Bank of America, and partner Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (Orinda)
• Michael Ross, Adjunct Professor, University of California and University of Virginia Schools of Law (Orinda)
• Michelle Runyon, Vice President, Wealth Advisor, Wells Fargo Private Bank (Orinda)
• John Ruskin, Vice President, Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, Inc. (Lafayette)
• Sharon Simpson, civic leader (Orinda)
• Frank Starn, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, U.S. Pharmaceutical, McKesson Corporation (Lafayette)

Photo of Philippa Kelly by Jay Yamada.

Our very own Resident Dramaturg Philippa Kelly will be the featured speaker at the Commonwealth Club of California—the nation’s oldest and largest public affairs forum—on Tuesday, March 13, in conversation with Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone. The talk is titled “Only Connect—Dramaturgy and Shakespeare’s Living Theater,” and will address The King and I, Dr. Kelly’s 2011 memoir of Australian life as seen through the lens of King Lear, and how theater can connect us to universal themes. ’Love, death, the human will to connect, the failure to do it—these big themes are at the heart of Shakespeare’s plays. How do we make such themes “live” on the stage today?  Kelly considers this question as dramaturg, author, and Australian.

The event will take place at 6pm at the San Francisco Club Office (595 Market St.). Tickets cost $7 for students, $8 for Cal Shakes patrons (using the coupon code “AskPhilippa”) and Commonwealth Club members, and $20 for the general public; they are available via the Commonwealth Club’s website. Check their online schedule for future broadcast times.

The installation is on display through January 30 at Addison Street Windows Gallery (2018 Addison St, Berkeley, in the windows across the street from Berkeley Rep and Aurora Theatre), and can be viewed 24 hours a day from the sidewalk. The exhibit is sponsored by the Civic Arts Program of the City of Berkeley, in cooperation with the Civic Arts Commission. Cook now teaches at Saint Mary’s College of California, where he is also the resident scenic and lighting designer for the Performing Arts department, the manager of the in-house theater, and much more. In 2006, Cook was honored with the Freeman Award from the Eugene O’Neill Foundation in Danville.

You’ve done your share of Shakespeare at OSF, Seattle Shakespeare, and elsewhere. What have been your favorite Shakespeare roles so far, and why?

Right now my favorite Shakespeare role I’ve gotten to do is the one I’m in the middle of doing now—Falstaff. I did Part 2 of Henry IV at Ashland last summer and am on my way to PlayMakers Rep in North Carolina to do the part in a compilation of Parts I and II. It’s such an exhilarating role, rich and various, especially if you get to do the second part. It seems the character was so popular that Shakespeare expanded on him a great deal in Part II, taking him all sorts of places that he didn’t have time and space for in Part I. He just gets more and more human—sweet, sour, boisterous, clever, vulnerable, dangerous, overwhelming, and unforgivable—as the plays go on. Huge challenge, huge satisfaction. As real and inimitable as a character in a play can get. I got to play King Lear several years ago, also an immense challenge but so much more stressful, dark, and despairing. Physically much harder, but again, unlike anything else you ever get to do in a character. I also had a ball playing Lucio in Measure for Measure many years ago. Such an unregenerate slime bucket but, again, alive as can be— and very funny.

Have you done The Tempest before? Can you share some early thoughts on your role as Prospero at Cal Shakes?

Yes, I played Prospero just two year ago here at the Seattle Shakespeare Company. I loved that as well and really look forward to another crack at it. The concept of that production was, for me, very compelling, and one of the reasons I’m so excited to do it at Cal Shakes is that I know Jonathan’s production will be completely different and provocative so it’ll be like starting from scratch, but I already sort of know the words. I guess Prospero is kind of a mini-Lear, emotionally at least: a total rage-aholic, still nursing, feeding a grudge against his brother over all the years he’s been on the island, letting that hatred and resentment corrupt his mind and the ways he deals with his, what—children? subjects?—Miranda, Caliban, and Ariel. The miracle of his cure, his healing, is very moving to me, courageous, humbling. Quite beautiful. And such terrific language.

In 2000 you were awarded the Fox Fellowship by TCG, to study in Britain and then hold a workshop on the language of Shakespeare. How has that experience affected your craft, and your life?

The Fox Fellowship, which I was so lucky to get, gave me an opportunity to study with David Hammond for two weeks at University of North Carolina, followed by two months in London where I worked with Mark Wing-Davey and Michael Langham for several weeks each, and went to the theater virtually every night. The whole experience was a dense and lively mix of study, discussion, activity, and theater-going that gave me a renewed energy for my work, and new ideas about how to approach it. Perhaps the most practical outcome of the whole process was that it led to the production of King Lear that I was in, directed by Mark and produced by PlayMakers Rep, where I had worked with David. My original project proposal was to learn more about speaking Shakespeare, but the heading was so general that it left lots of leeway for all kinds of learning in many areas. I’ve always been grateful for the kick start it gave me for the next phase of my working life.

What’s the first piece of theater you ever saw? Alternately (or in addition), what was the first piece you saw that really made you think, “I want to be a part of this”?

I remember seeing a production of HMS Pinafore that the local high school did when I was 8 or 9 that is probably the first theater experience I can recall. There was also a music-tent summer theater that produced road-show musicals in Cleveland; I saw a production of West Side Story there when I was in junior high school that I remember sent chills up my spine. It simply jangled my suburban world and made me aware of other places, other lives, other possibilities that I don’t think I have ever managed to shake. I don’t recall then thinking ‘Oh, yeah, that’s what I want to do with my life,’ but subconsciously it must have had that kind of effect. It’s odd that both those memories are about musicals, since that’s not the road I eventually ended up on. My first Shakespeare memory, in fact, is from the same junior high period, when we were bused into the Cleveland Playhouse to see Macbeth and all I remember of that was the buzz on the way home that we could see Lady M’s bra through her nightgown. Not very elevated. This was the time of my life though, when I had one of those extraordinary teachers who seem to shove you into a room where you meet the rest of your life. That’s probably my first real conscious step. She directed the school plays and was passionate, fun, supportive, eager, and serious. She’s really the one to blame….

What or who inspires you right now? Any particular writers, music, current events, people, et cetera?

I’m afraid I’m so old-school. Shakespeare still inspires me the most. Endless possibilities—endless. There are plays I think I’m just tired of and then I’ll see a production, or be in one, that amazes me all over again. I love watching they way actors and directors solve all the old questions, the moment-to-moment mysteries of the plays. Never get tired of that. Also crave any chance to do Chekhov, Shaw, and Tom Stoppard, any time; they all thrill and challenge me. Like I said: retro. I am also in love with movies, can’t get enough, they inspire and move and excite me. Almost any kind, old or new, foreign or domestic. They open my mind, make me consider things I might not otherwise. I try to keep up on politics and current affairs, but I’m afraid they tend to be the opposite of inspiring for me.

And finally, if you could have appeared any play in history, what (and/or where, and/or with whom directing or sharing the stage with you) would it be?

I’m nothing if not consistent … I want to see a Shakespeare in the Globe or Blackfriars. How briskly did they speak it? Did they really do them in two hours’ time? What did they sound like? What did they consider good acting? How would their perception of ‘real’ acting compare with ours? Did Burbage rant? Did Armin speak more than was written down? How did audiences really respond? Did they understand everything? How much did they participate and how did that affect the way the plays were performed? All that stuff.

Subscribe now to get the best seats at the best prices for The Tempest and the rest of our 2012 season.

Above right: Tyler James Myers (left) and Peter Macon star in Berkeley Rep's world-premiere production of GHOST LIGHT; photo by Kevin Berne.

The Cal Shakers Steering Committee invites you to participate in history through “Inside Ghost Light.” Our first Cal Shakers event of this year combines good company and food with a riveting theater experience:

• Have dinner and drinks with old and new friends at Berkeley’s iconic Jupiter ale house;
• Meet Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone, who created the deeply personal Ghost Light in collaboration with Berkeley Rep Artistic Director Tony Taccone;
• Walk two blocks from Jupiter to Berkeley Rep to see a performance of Ghost Light, a tremendously affecting (and funny) theatrical exploration of grieving and history—personal, local, and national.

WHEN: Thursday, February 9
~ 5:45-7:30pm: Dine at Jupiter
~ 8-10:30pm: See Ghost Light

WHERE: Jupiter and Berkeley Rep
~ Jupiter: 2181 Shattuck Ave
~ Berkeley Rep: 2025 Addison St

WHY: Support Cal Shakes, meet new people, get the ultimate insider’s point of view and a great rate on the hottest ticket in town*, and experience an extraordinary piece of theater.

HOW: RSVP here to purchase $75  tickets to this event. Ticket price covers both dinner and the show. OR start by joining Cal Shakers today for just $75 to receive discounts on all Shaker events—including $50 off the price of two tickets to “Inside Ghost Light“—and other membership benefits. Once you join Cal Shakers, we’ll send you an email with a discount code. Under 30? Email us directly for an additional discount!

TRAVEL INFO:
~ BART: Jupiter and Berkeley Rep are both located within a block of the Downtown Berkeley BART station.
~ Parking: Berkeley Rep recommends these garages.

*DON’T TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT: About that “hottest ticket in town”? Take a look at this press!

• New York Times, 12/29/11: “Illuminating the Legacy of a Fallen Father.”
• San Jose Mercury News, 1/12/12: “Review: ‘Ghost Light’ at Berkeley Rep”
• San Francisco Chronicle, 1/8/12: “Ghost Light premieres at Berkeley Rep”
• Podcast of KQED Forum conversation with Jon Moscone, Tony Taccone, and Dave Iverson, 1/6/12
• KQED-TV Channel 9, The Memory Be Green (documentary about the creation of Ghost Light). For air dates, see http://www.kqed.org/tv/programs/index.jsp?pgmid=20446.

Cal Shakers Steering Committee: Darcy Brown-Martin, Cal Shakes; Josh Cohen, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean; Ed Del Beccaro, Grubb & Ellis; Danielle DuCaine, Renne Sloan Holtzman Sakai LLP; Susie Falk, Cal Shakes; Samantha Fryer, Fred Finch Youth Center; Tony Kallingal, Mechanics Bank; Hye Young Lee, GMR Marketing; Samantha Leo, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Jen Loy, UC Berkeley; Scott Peterson, Mechanics Bank; Beth Sandefur, Cal Shakes; Maryam Shariat, Gap Foundation.

This event produced with the generous support of

In the San Francisco Chronicle, critic Robert Hurwitt named Jonathan Moscone‘s production of Candida, by George Bernard Shaw, among the year’s ten best, calling it “buoyantly nuanced, exquisitely designed, and unexpectedly suspenseful.” Hurwitt also gave this year’s Bay Area acting MVP nod to Rod Gnapp, who played Baptista in our The Taming of the Shrew this season. On his theater blog The Idiolect, independent critic Sam Hurwitt, a.k.a. Hurwitt the Younger, included Amanda Dehnert‘s brand-new play, The Verona Project, as one of his favorite 2011 productions, “entirely new and electric, with a touch of magical realism, witty dialogue, fiendishly clever storytelling devices, and some awfully catchy pop-rock songs”; one of his two MVPs was Verona‘s Julia, actress Arwen Anderson. Critic Chad Jones gave Shana Cooper‘s production of The Taming of the Shrew a prominent place on his Theater Dogs top ten, admitting that it was a tough call between that and our Candida but ultimately falling for how “leads Erica Sullivan and Slate Holmgren brought not only humor to this thorny comedy but also a depth of emotion I hadn’t ever experienced with this play.” And Cooper’s Shrew “packed a punch” according to KCBS‘ list of the Bay Area’s best arts and culture in 2011.

Accolades must also be given to Cal Shakes Artistic Director Moscone, whose production of Clybourne Park at A.C.T. made it onto every single list mentioned above!

Read the Chronicle‘s Top Ten list here.

Read The Idiolect‘s Top Ten list here.

Read the Theater Dogs Top Ten here.

Read KCBS’ Best Ofs here.