Newsfeed: January-February 2012 by / Theatre Bay Area Staff

Sparking Interest in the Arts

ArtSpark is a collaborative partnership between South Bay arts producers and the schools of Santa Clara County. Managed by Symphony Silicon Valley in partnership with 1stAct Silicon Valley and the Santa Clara County Office of Education, the program’s goal is to provide the spark that ignites a child’s imagination through exposure to the performing arts in Silicon Valley. At capacity, ArtSpark will reach every student in grades 3–6 each year in every Santa Clara County school—public, private, charter and home school. Serving approximately 100,000 students per year, the program will introduce each grade level to one of the core performing arts disciplines (theatre, orchestra, ballet, opera) paired with a host of culturally diverse art forms. The program is one of the first cross-disciplinary arts education programs in the nation to reach every school in a large, multi-city county.

In its inaugural year, ArtSpark is focusing on grades 3 and 4 and has already booked 15,000 students to programs in December and March. In December, 8,500 third graders saw a special 55-minute adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” at San Jose Repertory Theatre followed by musical performances by Firebird Youth Chinese Orchestra or Maiko African/Latin Drum & Poetry Ensemble, or dance performances by Los Lupeños de San José or Aztlán Academy. Students on some dates followed their performance at San Jose Rep with a hands-on experience at the Tech Museum’s “Golden Age of Islamic Science” exhibit. “I thought it was a great experience since I never been to a theatre,” wrote Anna, a sixth grader. “That was the best day I ever had. In my life!” wrote fourth grader Isidro.

In March, 6,500 fourth grade students will attend a special educational concert with Symphony Silicon Valley at the historic California Theatre followed by traditional Japanese drumming with internationally acclaimed San Jose Taiko at the San Jose Center for the Arts.

All ArtSpark field trips are completely free—including busing—for the school and the students. ArtSpark also provides in-classroom materials for teachers. The program is made possible in part by generous start-up funding from Target stores. For further information visit artsparksv.org. —Lee Kopp

Winter Renewal

The longest-serving member of the Theatre Bay Area staff, Cara Chrisman, left the company in December after nearly 15 years with the organization. Starting as a TIX booth employee in one of her first jobs out of college, Cara rose steadily through the organization, becoming booth manager, then director of ticketing services, and finally Theatre Bay Area’s first deputy director of operations and finance. Cara’s departure was no surprise; for several years she’d been planning to move on to new challenges upon completion of her MBA from Golden Gate University, which she finished this year. Cara’s departure led to the creation of the new position of managing director, now filled by Dana Harrison. Dana comes to Theatre Bay Area with a diverse management background, from Bank of America and Charles Schwab to Oakland Noodle Factory and Black Rock City, LLC.

Aurora Opens Cabaret Stage

Aurora Theatre recently received a $25,000 donation from the family of Harry Weininger, a longtime subscriber and supporter who passed away in 2010. The donation was used for the seating, lights, stage and curtain needed to transform part of the existing Dashow Wing into “Harry’s UpStage,” a fully outfitted space for live cabaret and second-stage performance events at the Aurora. The new stage was inaugurated at a private event in December.

Bayview Restoration

The Bayview Opera House/Ruth Williams Memorial Theatre, built in 1888, is the oldest standing theatre in San Francisco; it survived both the earthquake and fire that leveled almost the entire city in 1906. Spearheaded by the nonprofit organization Bayview Opera House, Inc., the San Francisco Arts Commission, the National Parks Service and the San Francisco Historic Preservation Fund, restoration efforts were recently completed, earning the theatre the 2011 Governor’s Historic Preservation Award.

Historic preservation surveys generally focus on more affluent areas; the Bayview Opera House is the first and only building in San Francisco’s District 10 to be included in the National Register of Historic Places. Formerly known as the South San Francisco Opera House, the historic theatre is notable for its location in a low-income neighborhood and its service to the local community. The facility is currently dedicated to providing high-quality arts education for at-risk youth, for free or at a low cost, as well as presenting other cultural and community events. It also is available for rent to arts organizations, is easy to reach by public transit and features a large private parking lot. For more information, visit bvoh.org.

City Restructures SJ Rep’s Debt

The city of San Jose recently restructured a 2006 rescue plan for San Jose Repertory Theatre. The city council approved a proposal to convert a $2 million line of credit, which was set to be reduced by $400,000 a year starting in October, into a 25-year loan. Despite the Rep’s financial improvements over the last five years, management had informed the city that it was unable to repay the debt under the current deal. This new approach spreads the payments over a much longer period of time. The city, which is facing its own financial problems, reports that the $400,000 repayment had not been included when planning the current budget, so the shortfall will not cause additional layoffs or budget cuts to other programs.

Rep managing director Nick Nichols said the company was not asking for more money or for any payment forgiveness. “We think this is a positive step forward for the Rep and a fair and honorable deal for the city.” The restructured deal calls for a $35,000 payment next spring toward the debt balance and continued monthly interest and principal payments on the outstanding balance at the city’s interest rate of 0.727 percent. The Rep had a $773,019 loss in its last fiscal year and is carrying a $4.8 million deficit, but is expected to show its first operating surplus since 2007 in its next audit. The Rep draws about 75,000 people a year and contributes $9.1 million annually to the local economy. —Lee Kopp

A Theatre by Any Other Name

Following a six-month redesign of the theatre’s operations, ticketing, seating and stage, Dreamweavers Theatre Troupe has changed its name as well. “We have looked at every element of the theatre’s operations, from the plays we select to our production policies,” said board president Randi Storm. “We are rebranding the theatre company as Napa Valley Players to highlight all the new and exciting energy we’re bringing to local theatre.” The overhaul brings one more (certainly welcome) change: wine will now be available at every performance. Does this mean there were wineless performances prior to this? In Napa? Heavens!

Little Opera, Big Mission

The 2011–2012 season marks the beginning of Little Opera, a professional children’s opera company where each production is created entirely by the company members, ranging in age from 6 to 10 years. Helmed by Bay Area playwright and teaching artist Erin Bregman and young actor Alona Bach, the company offers a comprehensive seven-month program that leads students through the creation and production of an entirely original opera each season. As part of the development process, the children receive training in dramatic writing, acting, singing, music composition, dance and design, supplemented by master classes with accomplished Bay Area artists. As part of its commitment to arts education for all students, Little Opera recruits its company members from all backgrounds, and over 80 percent of its current members benefit from free or reduced tuition. Fundraising for its March premiere production has begun; visit littleopera.org for information or to donate.

New Spark for Fire

Crowded Fire Theater has appointed Laura Brueckner as its first-ever director of new work. Also the new associate editor at Theatre Bay Area, Brueckner has been a dramaturg and resident artist with Crowded Fire since 2010. In her new role she’ll produce the Matchbox commissioning and development programs, manage the company’s literary committee, act as lead dramaturg for main-stage productions and have a voice in season planning. The creation of the new position represents the company’s attempt to deepen and focus its commitment to new work.

Just in Time to Cast “A Christmas Carol”

On October 3, American Conservatory Theater welcomed Janet Foster into its ranks as artistic associate and casting director. Foster has cast a stunning array of musicals and plays nationwide, from her first artistic home in the offices of the late Stanley Soble in 1986 to Playwrights Horizons, to Berkeley Rep, to Broadway—and everything in between. Her casting credits also include television and film. Foster is a committed educator as well and has taught for a number of prestigious universities and theatre programs, including NYU and Yale. She also founded Actor 411, an organization offering informational seminars to actors in the New York City area. In addition to her casting work for ACT, Foster will serve as an instructor for the company’s Master of Fine Arts program and will contribute toward shaping ACT’s broader educational initiatives.

Don’t Forget the Motor City

The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded $30,000 to Z Space to support its upcoming musical theatre piece, “Miss Black World: we almost lost Detroit (a musical memoir),” scheduled to open in January 2013. Other development funds for the project have come from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and the Columbia Foundation. Conceived by Bay Area artists Marcus Shelby, Margo Hall and Ellen Sebastian Chang, “Miss Black World” is the story of a young black woman growing up in Detroit at the height of both Motown and the Civil Rights movement, loosely based on Hall’s own life.

And the Edgertons Go to...

Theatre Communications Group has announced that Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Palo Alto’s TheatreWorks are among the 2011 recipients of the prestigious Edgerton New American Play Awards. These awards, which range in amount from $5,000 to $75,000, provide selected TCG member theatres with additional support for the entire creative team during the development phase of a new work. This assistance is intended to bolster the world premiere production and thereby extend the life of the play past its first run—a difficult hurdle in the career of many new plays. Berkeley Rep received its award for Bill Cain’s “How to Write a New Book for the Bible,” its coproduction with Seattle Repertory Theatre. TheatreWorks was given its award for Dan Dietz’s “Clementine in the Lower 9.”

Dancing in CA$H

Theatre Bay Area and Dancers’ Group have announced the recipients of their fall dance CA$H grants. Local artists receiving this round of grants include choreographer Christine Bonansea for “No Exit,” performer/director Sonsheree Giles for “Was It a Dream I Loved,” choreographer/dancer Minna Harri for “Dead/Alive,” choreographer/dancer Dohee Lee for “GaNADa” and performer/choreographer Latanya D. Tigner for “Ndozi.” Granted organizations include Dandelion Dancetheater for “Power Play,” Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble for its 15th anniversary events and Navarrette X Kajiyama Dance Theater for “Bailout.” The CA$H Dance Panel determining the awardees comprised Laura Arrington, Traci Bartlow, Iu-Hui Chua, Christene Pinter and Joseph Copley.

Call for Proposals

What amazing art project or performance piece could you create if you had a two-story, 3,100-square-foot exhibition space at your disposal? What if you also had a budget of $1,500 and substantial technical, event production and publicity support? SOMArts Cultural Center would like to know—in fact, it’d like you to submit a proposal. The Commons Curatorial Residencies, established in 2009, support early and mid-career artists and curators in developing new art that specifically engages the Bay Area’s diverse cultural communities. Residencies culminate in a month-long exhibition in SOMArts’ Main Gallery space. Priority is given to proposals that connect artists and audiences through multiple levels of participation and/or education. Applicants must submit a letter of intent by February 3. For more information, including submission requirements, visit somarts.org/exhibitions/submissions.

New Arts Site Launches Media Blitz

For over 18 months, Arts Council Silicon Valley (ACSV) and 1stACT Silicon Valley have been working to create LiveSV.com, a dynamic new website platform and online community that went live December 1. Designed to help the public discover, experience and share what’s new and unique in the Silicon Valley arts, culture and entertainment scene, LiveSV replaces the Arts Council’s “Artsopolis” website. An accompanying “Discover the Unexpected” media campaign includes display ads in Bay Area News Group publications, radio and TV spots, and large-format ads on buses and light rail trains, billboards and other media. Arts organizations can purchase marketing space at deep discounts through a local ad agency that has negotiated special rates based on yearlong contracts with media outlets. By carrying the LiveSV URL and the slug line “Discover the Unexpected,” arts organizations can reserve space at discounts of 30 percent or more. Broadway San Jose has already purchased a contract for a full wrap on a VTA train, San Jose Jazz has shot some “surprise” videos of music breaking out in baggage claim at San Jose International airport, and Ballet San Jose shot a series of TV commercials with two uniformed San Jose police officers and San Jose Giants catcher Tyler LaTorre talking about why they love taking their wives to the ballet. Visit LiveSV.com. —Lee Kopp

Stealth Award

John Brebner of Petaluma, an ardent supporter of the Ross Valley Players for five decades, was recently taken by surprise at a performance of the theatre’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The RVP board, having decided that the company needed a way to recognize the extraordinary efforts of people like Brebner, created the Lifetime Contribution Award without Brebner’s knowledge and gave it to him in front of an appreciative audience. Brebner has held many roles in the company, including director of more than 25 productions, actor in many plays, president of the RVP board, and fundraiser whose labors made it possible to build the RVP scene shop. A smiling Brebner received the company’s thanks, a bouquet of flowers and a lifetime theatre pass; a plaque in his honor will be hung on the Barn Theatre door wall.

Mind the GAP

Aurora Theatre Company announced in November the four plays chosen as finalists for its Global Age Project new works initiative: “The Hummingbirds” by repeat finalist Garret Jon Groenveld, “In a Word” by his fellow San Franciscan Lauren Yee, “Rasheeda Speaking” by three-time finalist Joel Drake Johnson (whose play “The First Grade” was the first to graduate from GAP to the main stage season) and “Ashes, Ashes” by Kevin Christopher Snipes. The plays will be presented as staged readings in a four-week February Festival coinciding with the Bay Area premiere of Annie Baker’s “Body Awareness” in the regular season. Each of the four playwrights will receive a $1,000 award.

Stop Watching TV! Go to the Theatre!

“They even kept in some bloopers from rehearsal,” jokes Meredith Hagedorn of Palo Alto’s Dragon Productions Theatre Company. But she’s pleased about the publicity for Dragon’s summer production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” that came with her appearance on Peninsula Backstage, a community television program from the Media Center that airs in Palo Alto and surrounding towns.

The brainchild of theatre buffs Nina Perry and David Simon, Peninsula Backstage has been taping a new episode every two months, each highlighting an about-to-open local theatre production. The half-hour show includes interviews and a teaser for the production. Typical guests have included the director of the upcoming show and perhaps an actor or two, the choreographer or the music director. Scenes taped at earlier rehearsals or enacted live in the television studio break up the interviews and give the TV audience a taste of what it’ll see in the theatre.

“We talk about whatever is special about the show or about the theatre company,” says Perry, who hosts the TV show. Tom Gough talked about how childhood experiences helped him choose “The Tavern” for the Foothill College theatre arts department. Diane Tasca and Troy Johnson talked about how the Pear Avenue Theatre selects and develops locally written short plays for Pear Slices.

Coproducer and show host Perry has been hooked on live theatre since childhood. She is a member of Spontaneous Combustion, an improvisational theatre group that performs in San Francisco and Palo Alto. Coproducer and show director Simon has appeared in the chorus at West Bay Opera and in shows at Lyric Theatre of San Jose, Foothill Music Theatre, Woodside Community Theatre and the Stanford Savoyards.

And the bloopers? “If we’ve taped a rehearsal ahead of time, we generally edit them out,” says Simon. “After all, we’re trying to make the show look good. But Meredith’s stumble was so cute.”

Peninsula Backstage appears on cable channel 27 in Palo Alto, Atherton, Menlo Park, East Palo Alto and Stanford; the schedule is at midpenmedia.org. You can also see the show on the web at peninsula-backstage.blip.tv. Simon and Perry, always open to ideas about shows to highlight, can be reached at descommercial@earthlink.net. —Lee Kopp

Process Over Product

“What is your practice?” dance maker Ralph Lemon recently asked a group of choreographers. Lemon was here as part of CHIME Across Borders, the national component of a choreography mentorship program that is the brainchild of local choreographer and former Merce Cunningham dancer Margaret Jenkins. When Jenkins formed the original CHIME (“Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange”) in 2004, the goal was to break out of the isolation that can accompany the creation of art, including modern dance. “CHIME makes a place for artists to discuss craft and the issues of working as artists in this country,” says Jenkins. Choreographers and their mentors are paid a stipend and granted space and given opportunities to show and share their work.” I learn from all these smart young people,” says Jenkins, “and I feel more connected to my community.” The program is gaining steady momentum, having served over 80 choreographers. Major supporters include the James Irvine Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and CHIME programs are now available in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. CHIME Across Borders, created in 2010, brings mostly New York choreographers to work with Bay Area dance makers.

CHIME started as an experiment. Choreographers select a fellow choreographer to mentor their work for a period of up to one year, without having to produce any product. “The couplings aren’t always easy,” says Jenkins. “Choreographers have to develop trust in order to arrive at a new place at the end of the year.” The choreographers represent a myriad of dance forms. “Cambodian artists have participated, as well as butoh dancers, ballet artists and tap dancers,” says Jenkins. “The focus is on what is relevant to artists in making work, not necessarily on what is relevant to audiences. However, if the artist is true to himself or herself, it will speak to the audience. What the audience wants is good work. If the work is real, the audience will meet it.”

The next mentor for CHIME Across Borders is New York choreographer Elizabeth Streb, action architect for Streb Lab for Action Mechanics (SLAM). Streb is known for her very physical choreography incorporating boxing moves and Hollywood stunt work. “The mentors are not trying to influence how artists make work; rather they interact and help create dialogue,” says Jenkins. “Streb is interested in scientific questions of gravity and force. So she won’t be throwing mats down. She presents herself with problems to solve. Her work is charged, electric and comes from the rigor of her mind.” —Kathryn Roszak