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

Amid the hurry and flurry of the holiday season just past, Bay Area media outlets were busy crowning the year’s best creative achievements. We’re proud to say that our productions made most critics’ top-ten lists for 2011.

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.

Stacy Ross

We are pleased to welcome the inimitable Stacy Ross to the ranks of our Associate Artist company. Ross, who made her Cal Shakes debut performing in all four shows of our 1992 season (as Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice, First Witch in Macbeth, Juno in The Tempest, and Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona), has been seen most recently on our stage as a series of brassy (and often bloodthirsty) babes in Titus Andronicus (2011), Mrs. Warren’s Profession (2010), Macbeth (2010), and An Ideal Husband (2008).

Hearty congrats also go to playwright Octavio Solis (John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven), who this month was awarded a prestigious United States Artists Fellowship. The USA Fellows—50 in all—each receive $50,000 toward project development and related expenses. Up next for Solis is his final South Coast Repertory workshop for Cloudlands, a musical collaboration with Adam Gwon, directed by Amanda Dehnert (The Verona Project); performances begin May 1. Solis is also working on commissions for the Magic Theatre and for Yale Rep.

L. Peter Callender and Joan Mankin are currently wowing audiences in The Soldier’s Tale at Aurora Theatre; if you’d like to catch it, you need to hurry, as it closes December 18. Callender goes straight into rehearsals for Frankie and Johnnie in the Clair de Lune (Jan 20–Feb 5) at Diablo Actors Ensemble, followed in the Spring by Xtigone (April 20–May 13) at African-American Shakespeare Company in San Francisco, where he is also Artistic Director. In February, Mankin will perform at the Ashby Stage in an original piece by Joan Holden called Counter-Attack, based on the interviews with diner waitresses found in the book Counter Culture.

Nancy Carlin’s production of Trevor Allen’s Working for the Mouse ends at EXIT Theatre Dec 17. Next she’ll direct Arms and the Man at Center Rep (Jan 27–Feb 25). James Carpenter is playing Scrooge in American Conservatory Theater’s  A Christmas Carol—for the sixth year in a row—through December 24, once again under the direction of fellow Associate Artist Domenique Lozano.

Susannah Schulman and Danny Scheie in the Berkeley Rep production of YOU, NERO; photo by Kevin Berne.

Speaking of A.C.T., Janet Foster has joined their Artistic Associate Company, as well, and is their new Casting Director, to boot. She’s currently casting Scorched, the West Coast premiere of Maple & Vine, and the award-winning Higher.

Dan Hiatt will be playing Jacob Marley and many others in a very musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol adapted and directed by Rick Lombardo and running through Christmas Eve at San Jose Rep.  Jan 17–Feb 12 he’ll play Harry Wilson in The Pitmen Painters by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) at TheatreWorks, directed by Leslie Martinson and also featuring James Carpenter and Cal Shakes regular Nicholas Pelczar.

Danny Scheie and Susannah Schulman are performing together in Amy Freed’s You, Nero at Arena Stage through January 1, reprising the roles they originated at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2009.  And upcoming projects for lighting designer Scott Zielinski in 2012 are Cat On A Hot Tin Roof for the Guthrie Theater, Good Goods at Yale Repertory Theater, An Iliad at New York Theater Workshop, Miss Fortune at Royal Opera House (London) and Abigail’s Party for the National Theater of Norway (Oslo).

December 2, 2011

Cal Shakes builds community. Our work—whether onstage, in classrooms, or in community settings—helps people of all ages discover and develop vital imaginative tools that improve lives and strengthen our society.

By giving to Cal Shakes this year, you will directly impact individuals  and communities, many of whom desperately need creative resources to survive, let alone thrive. You make a difference when you invest in Cal Shakes. You became a fundamental partner in our distinctive service: Fostering a vital culture of creativity that makes the Bay Area the most innovative, inclusive, and interesting super-neighborhood in our country.

Cal Shakes needs a major influx of donations in order to successfully meet our financial goals this year, and to ensure that we’re in the strongest position to meet the challenge of fulfilling our mission in 2012.

As government funding for the arts and arts education continues to decrease, many people are less and less able to access the creative tools and experiences that connect us as people and help our communities thrive. That’s where Cal Shakes comes in. And that is why I need your help, as our partner, to sustain and expand the work we do: building community through theater.

With your support for our Annual Fund, we can:

• Respond to the ever-growing demand for Cal Shakes arts education programs, and serve more Bay Area students.
• Ensure that future generations of artists and theatergoers—including your children and grandchildren—will be able to experience the beauty and power of Shakespeare and the classics.
• Create new outlets for marginalized voices, as Cal Shakes makes new American plays in collaboration with members of disparate Bay Area populations.

Your support makes the work of this Theater—your Theater—possible, and impacts thousands of people, many of whom would not have access to the arts or arts education without you.

Your investment in our work is an investment in building our community. Please make a 2011 contribution today.

Thank you for all that you do.

Sincerely,

 
Jonathan Moscone
Artistic Director

P.S. Click here to make your gift online; or to speak with someone personally, contact Donor Relations Coordinator Ian Larue at 510.548.3422 x107. Gifts can be made in installments.

P.P.S. By giving $100 or more in a 12-month period, you become eligible for benefits as a Cal Shakes Champion. If you’re already a Champion, increasing your gift may make you eligible for additional benefits.

Photo by Kevin Berne.

We are pleased to announce that, as of our October 31 deadline, we—or really, you—have collectively gone above and beyond Cal Shakes’ three-months-long new donor challenge. As of Friday, October 21, 250 wonderful people had joined the ranks of Cal Shakes supporters as new donors, while also helping us to secure a challenge gift of $10,000 from a longtime donor. Our generous donor—so excited about your response to her challenge—decided to extend it, offering another $1,000 for every additional 25 new donors making a gift of any amount to Cal Shakes by October 31!

As of October 31, exactly 300 new donors contributed a total of $13,862, earning us an additional $12,000 from our committed supporter. That’s a total of $25,862 to help us make theater and arts-education programs more accessible to thousands of underserved youth and adults each year.

New donors, THANK YOU! We are truly thrilled by your resounding support.

Sincerely,

The Entire Company

California Shakespeare Theater