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PRESS RELEASE -- DIVAfest 2004
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April 7, 2004
Media contacts: David Perry & Associates
(415) 693-0583
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Third Annual DIVAfest Roars Into San Francisco's EXIT Theatre May 20 - 29
EXIT Theatre celebrates 20 years Off-Union Square with a theatrical
“celebration of womanhood”
7 April 2004 - SAN FRANCISCO, CA: From May 20 through 29, San Francisco's EXIT Theatre celebrates womanhood from minx to matriarch, from virgin to vamp with its third Annual DIVAfest. EXIT Theatre's four stages will be a female folderol for two weekends of plays, solos, cabarets, comedy, dance, photography and film , all “with a female persuasion” created by a bevy of the very finest post modern prima donnas.
Included in this year's festival are three world premieres developed by EXIT Theatre: Kerry Reid's Boxcar Bertha, Talking Machine by Erica Blue, and The Women on Death Row Project by Kim Fowler and John Warren. Also on track for this year's festival are Drama Queens Come Clean from Dallas, Love Dances by Tara Brandel and Mna Rua Dance Productions, The New District Manager by Cameron Galloway, Mia Paschal's film The Art of Etiolation, A Tingle Tangle Cabaret featuring Janet Roitz and Billy Philadelphia, Happy Hyder's Objets de Passion: The Fluidity of Lesbian Femme and Emilie Valentine’s photography.
"I began DIVAfest to gather and produce a wide and diverse body of work by for and about women,” said Christina Augello, Artistic Director of EXIT Theatre. “It's immediate success confirms it place in the Bay Area arts arena.". No stranger to the house-side of the footlights, Augello will star in Boxcar Bertha and reprise her acclaimed performance in
Last of the Red Hot Dadas, also by playwright Kerry Reid. "A woman in a barrel, a man wearing grapes, high heels and a red transistor radio, sad eyes and a tweed cap, women and death, a woman searching, images, laughter, eyes aghast - mix them all together add audience and you have the third annual DIVAfest for 2004!"
Following is a full schedule of DIVAFest 2004 with brief production descriptions.
Boxcar Bertha by Kerry Reid with live musical accompaniment by Jack “Applejack” Walroth is directed by John Warren. Based on the legendary depression era hobo, feminist, and anarchist Bertha Thompson, this one woman show features Christina Augello. Boxcar Bertha received its first staged reading at the DIVAfest 2003. This depression era saga follows Bertha, a rugged hard living woman who rode the rails in the 1930s, on a journey from hobo to grifter, from prostitute to activist. APPLEJACK BIO PHOTO
Talking Machine by the ensemble directed by Erica Blue. "Papa the box is talking to me, this thing is cursed ... this thing is blessed." Talking Machine is a dance/silent film/opera epic created in a Neo Realistic Felini inspired world. It takes you on an odyssey of confused beauty, blind optimism and bread. Post War II, Italy, a group of people are drawn together by the Talking Machine which arrives mysteriously in their court yard and it begins speaking to each of them, evoking dreams, fears, and loves. In the end they resurrect hope surrounded by grapes. Erica Blue's most ambitious production to date with a stellar cast of the Bay Areas most talented actors and musicians. Erica's work has been performed at various venues including La Mama in New York City and in Italy. MORE INFO PHOTO
The Women on Death Row Project by Kim Fowler and John Warren is based on interviews, transcripts, and other material dealing with women on death row. The play received its first staged reading at EXIT in August 2003. Warren has written a number of other works including the critically acclaimed Groping For Justice: the Bob Packwood Story, first produced at EXIT Theatre’s San Francisco Fringe Festival in 1995. PHOTO
Drama Queens Come Clean is a series of monologues and scenes that the Austin American-Statesman described as “a robust and broad gyno comedy.” Conceived and performed by three actresses (Cindy Baker, Lory Stewart and Rachel Tamez) and one drag queen (Justin(e) Fields), this Dallas, Texas export takes the stage and recreates unique, hilarious and sometimes poignant episodes inspired by the company's real life experiences. Intended for mature audiences. PHOTO
Art of Etiolation by Mia Paschal features sound design by Yvette Janine Jackson and original music by Ray’s Vast Basement and Idris Ackamoor. “Etiolation” is a scientific term defined as the state in which a plant manages to survive without sunlight, whether by chance or by design. In this compelling independent film, Paschal portrays a struggling black actress who has survived an abusive childhood and isolated adulthood by lying. Through this exploration, she learns that achieving truth in her art is inseparable from living truthfully in her life. PHOTO
Love Dances by Tara Brandel and Mna Rua Dance Productions combines dance, song and spoken word in a dance theatre amalgam to celebrate the incredible human capacity to love during what Brandel describes as “the face of our current wars” Love Dances uses and sends out a message of hope in difficult times. PHOTO
The New District Manager by Cameron Galloway, directed by Meredith Eldred and Libby O’Connell combines horror film references, tap dancing, songs, and Shakespearean monologues in a story about one vagina's dream of stardom.: a nice Jewish vagina who smokes a cigar, tells nasty jokes, and always wanted to be a performer. This spine tingling tale of uterus delecti plummets into a macabre cabaret of discarded organs and corporate lust. PHOTO
Objets de Passion: The Fluidity of Lesbian Femme by Happy Hyder -- Executive Director of the nonprofit Lesbians in the Visual Arts -- is a series of vignettes formed by this lesbian femme's views on life from early training to be a good girl (with the music that accompanied it) to the challenges and rewards of polyamory and butch/femme attraction. PHOTO
A Tingle Tangle Cabaret brings together some of the Bay Area's best-known musical talents: chanteuse Janet Roitz, multi-talented piano man Billy Philadelphia, director Beth Wilmurt and choreographer Chris Black. In short it's an evening in which a dame and a piano player trip the light fantastic through a batch of hot, cool and crooked numbers. PHOTO
“Mama, What Do You Do?” and other new work by Emilie Valentine. Documentary and street photography by freelance photographer Emilie Valentine working in San Francisco and New York City. Since December of 1995 she has been producing a weekly photography website “SnapCity.” PHOTO
"Over the last 20 years,” says Augello, “ EXIT Theatre has nurtured and helped define the development of hundreds of theatre artists and their work and given theatre companies a place to grow and build an audience. I am very proud of how many of my talented co-workers think of EXIT Theatre as their artistic home."
Presenting over 700 performances per year by over 100 companies EXIT Theatre is one of San Francisco's most successful and enduring centers for alternative performance, producing the annual San Francisco Fringe Festival - the largest grass roots theater festival in the Bay Area - and the annual DIVAfest.
Later in the year, EXIT will present the 13th Annual SF Fringe Festival -- for which the theatre has become known internationally -- from September 8 through 19, followed by the “Best of the Fringe” on October 1 and 2 featuring a sampler of work from the just completed series. Rounding out its 2004 20th anniversary roster, EXIT hosts an ongoing monthly salon series: on Tuesdays “The Static Cabaret” open mike opportunity hosted by Steven Karwoski and on Thursdays “The Thursday Night Combo” a free-form variety show hosted by Mark Romyn.
EXIT Theatre is located at 156 Eddy Street & 277 Taylor Street, just off San Francisco's Union Square. The Powell Street MUNI / BART Station, Powell Street Cable Car lines, and numerous hotels, restaurants and options for parking are all within a two block radius. For more information please call (415) 673-3847 or go online to www.sffringe.org.
CALENDAR INFORMATION
WHAT:
EXIT Theatre's Third Annual DIVAfest
WHERE:
EXIT Theatreplex
156 Eddy Street & 277 Taylor Street
(near the corner of Eddy & Taylor near San Francisco's Union Square)
WHEN:
May 20 - 29 *
* Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays at 8pm; Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm & 10pm
WEBSITE:
www.divafest.org
TICKET INFO:
$10 - $20 sliding
DIVAFest All Show Passes $ 55.
To order call (415) 673-3847. Order online at www.divafest.org. Day-of-show discounted tickets available at TIX Bay Area on Union Square
A day-by-day schedule of DIVAFest 2004 follows:
May 20 at 8pm
The New District Manager
Women on Death Row
Drama Queens Come Clean
May 21 at 8pm:
Boxcar Bertha
Drama Queens Come Clean
Talking Machine
May 21 at 10pm
A Tingle Tangle Cabaret
Objets de Passion: The Fluidity of Lesbian Femme
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May 22 at 8pm
Boxcar Bertha
Drama Queens Come Clean
Talking Machine
May 22 at 10pm
Tingle Tangle Cabaret
Objets de Passion: The Fluidity of Lesbian Femme
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May 25 at 8pm
Last of the Red Hot Dadas
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May 26 at 8pm
The Art of Etiolation
(Emilie Valentine Photo reception at 7pm)
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May 27 at 8pm
Boxcar Bertha
Love Dances
Women on Death Row
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May 28 at 8pm
Box Car Bertha
Love Dances
Talking Machine
May 28 at 10pm
Tingle Tangle Cabaret
Objets de Passion: The Fluidity of Lesbian Femme
-------------------------------------
May 29 at 8pm
The New District Manager
Love Dances
Talking Machine
May 29 at 10pm
Tingle Tangle Cabaret
Objets de Passion: The Fluidity of Lesbian Femme
DIVAfest Home Page / EXIT Theatre Home Page
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news@davidperry.com
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