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Author Archive for Adrian Hoppel – Page 2

IN PLAIN SIGHT: September 4-20, 2015

Posted on September 3, 2015
by Adrian Hoppel
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Those Women Productions presents:

IN PLAIN SIGHT: Stories you never knew you never knew
at The Metal Shop Theater, 2425 Stuart Street, Berkeley, 94705 (one block east of Telegraph Avenue.
Plays weekends Sept 4-20
Tickets: http://thosewomen.brownpapertickets.com/
Ever wonder what lies beyond the margins of your favorite classic tales?

IN PLAIN SIGHT: Stories you never knew you never knewThe six short plays of IN PLAIN SIGHT explore this shadowy territory. Our anthology of original plays includes two vastly different versions of the Cinderella story: the whimsical comedy “Palace Watch” by Kat Meads and the darkly realistic “Pankhadi and the Prince” by Patricia Reynoso. The line-up also includes two contrasting portrayals of notorious mothers: Lee Brady’s tragicomic “Mississippi Medea,” in which a modern Medea appears on her favorite TV talk show, and Mimu Tsujimura’s lyrical drama “My Name Is Mother,” based on the legend of La Llorona. Two short plays by Carol Lashof will round out the evening. They are “When Briseis Met Chryseis,” a romance set against the backdrop of the Trojan War, and “After the Prologue,” in which the Wife of Bath tells you what women really want. Read More→

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Official Cast Announcement for Disclosure

Posted on June 25, 2015
by Adrian Hoppel
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Disclosure, posterHow often do toddler theater companies get to welcome TWO amazing casts on board for their summer season? It certainly feels like a treat to us!

Those Women Productions is proud to announce the cast of Disclosure, written by Carol S. Lashof and directed by Rem Myers.

Anne Hallinan as Anna
Gabriel Kenney as Adam
Kelly Rinehart as Janice
Valerie Weak* as Maya

*Member, Actors Equity Association; Disclosure is an Equity-approved project.

Stay tuned for more information about Disclosure, coming in August to Piano Fight: SF’s next landmark entertainment venue!

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Official Cast Announcement for In Plain Sight

Posted on June 13, 2015
by Adrian Hoppel
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Playwrights, directors, dozens of actors. Auditions and callbacks for In Plain Sight have been very intense!

As with choosing plays, our decisions were difficult ones, but again we have been thrilled with the results.

Those Women Productions proudly welcomes our newest ensemble:

Alicia Bales
Ed Berkeley
Sharon Huff*
Alexandra Lee11779820_870871526326598_356597758187235859_o
Ria Meer
Louel Señores
Suzanne Vito

*Member, Actors Equity Association; In Plain Sight is an Equity-approved project.

We are delighted to have these actors on board and are looking forward to an interesting, dynamic, delightful rehearsal process.

News, Uncategorized

What’s been hiding IN PLAIN SIGHT?

Posted on June 4, 2015
by Adrian Hoppel
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Hidden in plain sight (3)

In September 2015, THOSE WOMEN PRODUCTIONS will present In Plain Sight for a fully-staged three-week run at The Metal Shop Theater in Berkeley. In Plain Sight is an anthology of original short plays offering fresh perspectives on classic stories. As much fun as it was for playwright-in-residence Carol Lashof and producing artistic director Libby Vega to work together on Carol’s play Just Deserts in 2014, they wanted to expand their circle of collaborators. They invited directors Norman Johnson and Christine Keating to join the team and put out a call for scripts to Bay Area playwrights. The company was delighted by the number, the quality, and the diversity of the submissions, though it meant they had to make difficult choices.

The result: THOSE WOMEN will be staging two vastly different versions of the Cinderella story: the whimsical comedy “Palace Watch” by Kat Meads and the darkly realistic “Pankhadi and the Prince” by Patricia Reynoso. The line-up also includes two vastly different portrayals of notorious mothers: Lee Brady’s tragicomic “Mississippi Medea,” in which a modern Medea appears on her favorite TV Talk Show, and Mimu Tsujimura’s lyrical drama “My Name Is Mother,” based on the legend of La Llorona. Two short plays by Carol Lashof will round out the evening. They are “When Briseis Met Chryseis,” a romance set against the backdrop of the Trojan War, and “After the Prologue,” in which the Wife of Bath tells you what women really want.

News, Uncategorized

From Cinderella to La Llorona: Announcing the plays and playwrights of IN PLAIN SIGHT

Posted on May 5, 2015
by Adrian Hoppel

Our next show is IN PLAIN SIGHT, an anthology of short plays by Bay Area playwrights. It will run September 4-20, 2015 at The Metal Shop Theater in Berkeley.

IN PLAIN SIGHT

New takes on old tales from Cinderella to La Llorona

 Mississippi Medea by Lee Brady
Palace Watch by Kat Meads
directed by Norman Johnson

After the Prologue by Carol Lashof
Pankhadi and the Prince by Patricia Reynoso
directed by Christine Keating

When Briseis Met Chryseis by Carol Lashof
My Name Is Mother by Mimu Tsujimura
directed by Elizabeth Vega

 

 

 

News, Uncategorized
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In the Press

The press has a few things to say about Those Women:

Lily Janiak of the SF Chronicle, in a Datebook feature on Witch Hunt: “‘Witch Hunt’ gives Tituba hopes and fears, virtues and flaws. It gives her goals, and it makes her strategic in pursuit of them. In short, it makes Tituba a person.”

“‘Witch Hunt’ is an important and timely production,” writes Jordan Freed in Theatrius. 

Carol S. Lashof on the founding of Those Women Productions and the process of writing Witch Hunt, in the magazine 48Hills: “’We were frustrated trying to get our stories made, so rather than rant and rave we started making our own theater.’”

Fritz Mad’Laine writes of Witch Hunt in Theatrius: “The question of how to tell an unrecorded story plagues artists and historians alike. At Salem’s notorious trials, Tituba was the first to confess to practicing witchcraft—but we know little else about her. In Arthur Miller’s classic “The Crucible,” she appears as a victim of the pilgrims’ manipulation, but Lashof portrays her as the master of her own fate.”

“[Carol and I] have the same feeling that we want our audiences to take away. And her job is to convey that feeling on the page, and my job is to stand that feeling up and put it into action.” – Director Elizabeth Vega on collaboration with Lashof for Witch Hunt, in an interview with KPFA.

“You think about how much you think you know…I was mind-blown as to [Tituba’s] story’” – Witch Hunt actor Renee Rogoff on playing Tituba, interviewed on KPOO. 

“Most of what’s in popular [on the Salem witch paniic] is a gross distortion of the historical record,” says playwright Carol S. Lashof of her new play Witch Hunt, in an interview on KALW.

Lily Janiak lists UNQUESTIONED INTEGRITY as a Datebook Pick in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Those Women Productions offers a chance to account for how much or how little we’ve progressed since [since the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings] in 1991.”

“Marisela Treviño Orta conjures [a] supernatural border,” writes Carly Van Liere in Theatrius’s review of WOMAN ON FIRE.

Lily Janiak of the San Francisco Chronicle profiles our West Coast premiere of WOMAN ON FIRE and interviews playwright Marisela Treviño Orta: “Everything that happens along the border, it’s all connected.…The border is something that we have to grapple with as a society.”

“‘SHIFTING SPACES’ is so much more than an excellent feminist perspective on self image and determination…Characters transcend the stage, touchingly, as they search for and discover new identities,” writes Owen Brunell in Theatrius.

“Shakespeare would have been proud to see his work take on new life in MARGARET OF ANJOU,” says The Daily Californian.

Lily Janiak of the San Francisco Chronicle profiles Artistic Director Libby Vega: ““There can be a tendency to say, ‘If their stories were interesting, we would know them already.’” But, Vega continues, “just because the story’s not being told doesn’t mean the story’s not there.'”

About MARGARET OF ANJOU, Sam Hurwitt of The Mercury News writes: “the experiment of creating the illusion of a Shakespeare play all about Margaret is a success.”

Berkeleyside features Those Women Productions: “Carol Lashof and Libby Vega aren’t ashamed to reveal their infatuations with the “dead white guys” who populate the Western Canon.”

BEST OF THE EAST BAY: On the occasion of our first birthday in 2015, The East Bay Express named us “Best Year-Old Theater Company.”

Theater critic Sam Hurwitt described our production of IN PLAIN SIGHT as “a provocative mix of voices and perspectives on these classic tales that may inspire the viewer to look back at the originals with new eyes.”

The Dramatist Magazine lauds Those Women for joining the fight for gender parity, “turn[ing] patriarchy on its ear.”

Our production of DISCLOSURE was highlighted in the San Francisco Chronicle’s feature on the “hot SF scene” at PianoFight.

About our inaugural production in 2014, the Daily Californian wrote: “JUST DESERTS is offering something surprisingly new, and drawing a new audience. It is absolutely worth seeing, with or without a grasp of Greek mythology. This play works on multiple levels, and satisfies as diverse an audience as it attracts.”

JUST DESERTS was also an Editor’s Pick of Theatre Bay Area Magazine, where critic Lily Janiak wrote, “Lashof ingeniously channels both what many treasure about Greek mythology–its pitting of evenly matched foes in debates that dig deeper and deeper as combatants seem to be going in circles–while also skewering its misogyny.”


Those Women Productions
A Feminist Community Theater
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1700 Shattuck Ave.
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