SAN FRANCISCO: Cutting Ball Theater has announced its 2017-18 season, which includes a range of new and experimental works.
“Next season Cutting Ball breaks new ground with artists spanning music, dance, and the visual arts, even as it welcomes back some familiar names and faces,” said Cutting Ball artistic director Paige Rogers in a statement.
“As we approach Cutting Ball’s 20th anniversary in 2018-19,” continued Rogers, “we are as committed as ever to defying expectations and nurturing an appetite for non-traditional theatre.”
The season will kick off with The Mineola Twins by Paula Vogel (Sept. 28-Oct. 29). The Mineola Twins tells the story of the women’s movement and the rise of conservatism as seen through the lives of identical twins. Cutting Ball associate director Ariel Craft will direct.
Next will be The Cutting Ball Variety Pack (Feb. 2- 13, 2018), a festival with three components: the Directors Series, the Playwrights Series, and the Reading Series. The Directors Series will feature four short, interdisciplinary works dedicated to directorial exploration and experimentation; confirmed artists include Paige Rogers, Leighton Fong, Daria Kaufman, and Randee Paufve. The Playwrights Series, an incubator of experimental new works, will feature two unproduced and unpublished plays, selected from a pool of 150 submissions and performed on Cutting Ball’s mainstage. The Reading Series will feature informal, one-time-only readings of plays that are potential candidates for Cutting Ball’s future seasons.
Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens (March 30-April 29, 2018) will be next. Considered one of Shakespeare’s “neglected classics,” Timon of Athens is a dramatic tale of betrayal and retribution. Cutting Ball founding artistic director Rob Melrose will direct.
Cutting Ball Theater was cofounded in 1999 by Rob Melrose and Paige Rogers, and presents avant-garde texts of the past, present, and future.
*An earlier version of this story misidentified the actors in the photo. They are Geoffrey Nolan and Lorri Holt, not Edward Covey and Joyce Rumsfeld.
