BERKELEY, CALIF.: Shotgun Players announced its 2016 season, the theatre’s 25th and its first staged entirely in repertory. A core acting ensemble (El Beh, Caleb Cabrera, Kevin Clarke, Nick Medina, Cathleen Ridley, David Sinaiko, Josh Schell, Elissa Stebbins, Jomar Tagatac, Megan Trout, and Beth Wilmurt) and featured designers (Nina Ball, Ray Oppenheimer, Heather Basarab, Hannah Birch Carl, Valera Coble, Christine Crook, and Matt Stines) will work on the productions.
“I love the idea of working with a core group of artists over an entire year,” said founding artistic director Patrick Dooley in a statement. “Actors spend their lives as hired guns. They rarely get the chance to feel like they have an artistic home. The three years we spent creating The Coast of Utopia trilogy awakened us to the personal and artistic benefits of creating work over an extended period of time with a tight-knit group of people. No one dreaded those big three-show days. With excitement and adrenaline, everyone rose to the challenge of the moment. The audience felt it. The actors felt it. The shows were better.”
The season will begin with Shakespeare’s Hamlet (March 30–May 15, 2016). Every actor will learn every role in the play, and the audience will determine who plays which character before each performance. Mark Jackson will direct.
Next in the lineup will be the West Coast premiere of Penelope Skinner’s The Village Bike (May 25–July 3), about the relationship of a young married couple. Dooley will direct.
Following will be Heidi Schreck’s Grand Concourse (July 13–Aug. 21), about a basketball playing nun and her unlikely friendship with a mysterious young woman. Joanie McBrien will direct.
Next will be the West Coast premiere of Christopher Chen’s Caught (Sept. 1–Oct. 2), about an art gallery’s retrospective on the work of a legendary, dissident artist who was imprisoned in a Chinese detention center for a work of art.
Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Oct. 12–Nov. 20) will conclude the season. Jackson will direct.
