TheatreFIRST has been known in the Bay Area for two things: producing fresh and diverse theatrical offerings—like the Iraq War-themed Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter, a jazzy Grapes of Wrath and the prickly Anton in Show Business—and also being the only professional theatre company in Oakland. Highly placed Bay Area talents such as Domenique Lozano, Mark Jackson, Jon Tracy, MaryBeth Cavanaugh and Warren David Keith have worked under its banner. The company also runs a successful education program in the inner city.

Losing its lease in the Fox Oakland Building for the 2011–12 season, however, forced the company on the road, away from the theatre community it had worked so hard to build. Hanging Georgia, a multi-character biopic of Georgia O’Keefe, was performed in San Francisco’s Thick House. And TheatreFIRST’s next production, David Mamet’s Oleanna, will be produced at the Berkeley City Club April 20–May 13. According to artistic director Michael Storm, who helms the show, Mamet’s play is famous for being about sexual politics, but “its interrogation of larger class and economic power structures in our country has never been more pertinent, what with the financial crisis, the current elections and the ‘Occupy’ events.”

With this production, TheatreFIRST continues its commitment to nontraditional and multi-ethnic casting: Josie Alvarez, a Latin-American actor, will take on the role of Carol, which Storm expects will deepen the issues of class warfare in the play. As he puts it, “This play is about power—who has it, and how and why they keep it. I think it’s going to be extremely timely.”