UCLA Live continues to present daring and provocative work through its 2007/08 season including the Sixth International Theatre Festival. UCLA Live will once again show groundbreaking productions from around the globe, the upcoming festival features a U.S. premiere, two U.S. company debuts, multiple West Coast premieres and exclusive engagements from theaters based in Scotland, The Netherlands, the United States, Poland and England.
Mixing new and stirring works with revered and reinvented classics, the UCLA Live International Theatre Festival is scheduled from September into December 2007. It opens with the explosive U.S. premiere of the Iraq war drama, “Black Watch,” presented by the National Theatre of Scotland in its American debut, running Sept. 18 through Oct. 14. This politically charged hit of the 2006 Edinburgh Festival is a gritty, visceral work drawing on actual accounts by soldiers from Scotland’s legendary 300-year-old Black Watch regiment, ironically disbanded in 2004, the same week its 800-man battalion was deployed to one of the bloodiest areas in Iraq to replace 4,000 U.S. Marines. In another of the season’s most anticipated events and an exclusive West Coast engagement, one of the world’s greatest living actors, Sir Ian McKellen, directed by the visionary Trevor Nunn, leads the celebrated Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and Chekhov’s “The Seagull.” The RSC returns to Royce Hall for the first time in 33 years.
Equally compelling discoveries of the Festival tap the depths of the best of today’s international theater. From Sept. 19–23, Amsterdam’s trailblazing Dood Paard (Dead Horse) performs the West Coast premiere of “medEia,” an inspired, post-modern take on the ancient Greek tragedy of Medea. Edward Gorey meets Tim Burton in “The Fortune Teller,” from Oct. 18–28, a deliciously twisted marionette play about an inheritance created by former Lounge Lizards’ bassist and hip puppet maker Erik Sanko, with Gavin Friday narrating and an eerie score by Sanko and Grammy-winning composer Danny Elfman. In the Festival’s conclusion Nov. 27–Dec. 2, Poland’s profound Teatr Zar brings its meditative “Gospels of Childhood” to UCLA Live in its U.S. debut and exclusive American engagement, blending acting, chanting and movement with millennia-old polyphonic funeral songs and texts from Christian mythology.
UCLA Live also offers a special, family oriented event with “Aurelia’s Oratorio,” an intoxicating display of stage invention and circus acrobatics by Aurelia Thierre (Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter) and her director-designer mother, Victoria Thierre Chaplin.
In the six years since Director David Sefton launched UCLA Live’s International Theatre Festival, he has succeeded in presenting an unparalleled mix of high quality productions, frequently scoring programming coups with U.S. debuts, West Coast and Los Angeles premieres, and exclusive engagements of many of the world’s most significant works. With the support of UCLA Live, adventurous international theater has found a home on the West Coast and often in the U.S., gaining a launch pad to the rest of the country. By continuing to stretch artistic and geographic boundaries, UCLA Live’s Theatre Festival has helped define L.A. as a primary theater destination.
Performances will be held at these UCLA campus venues: Royce Hall, Freud Playhouse and Macgowan Little Theater. Series and Choose-Your-Own subscriptions consist of multiple events sold at a discount when applicable, and are on sale now. Single tickets are on sale as of July 23 (July 16 for current subscribers and donors). To purchase tickets visit www.UCLALive.org or call 310-825-2101 .
UCLA LIVE’S 07/08 SIXTH INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL
U.S. DEBUT, U.S. PREMIERE AND EXCLUSIVE WEST COAST ENGAGEMENT
National Theatre of Scotland—“Black Watch”
Sept. 18–Oct. 14, 2007, Freud Playhouse (Preview: Sept. 18)
Tuesday–Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., Sunday at 7 p.m.
“Black Watch,” performed by the National Theatre of Scotland in its U.S. debut, and the most talked about production on the international theater circuit, hits UCLA Live for its U.S. premiere in the first of only two U.S. engagements; the second in New York. This critically and publicly acclaimed hit of the 2006 Edinburgh Festival was written by Gregory Burke, directed by John Tiffany and based on actual interviews with soldiers who served in Iraq. It is a taut and uncompromising work about Scotland’s legendary 300-year-old Black Watch regiment, disbanded in 2004 just before its 800-man battalion replaced some 4,000 U.S. Marines in Fallujah.
Generously supported by The Scottish Executive and the British Council, U.S.A.
WEST COAST PREMIERE
Dood Paard (Dead Horse)—“medEia”
Sept. 19–23, Macgowan Little Theater
Wednesday–Saturday, Sept. 19–22 at 8 p.m.; Sunday, Sept. 23 at 7 p.m.
Amsterdam’s trailblazing Dood Paard delivers an inspired, post-modern take on the ancient Greek tragedy of Medea’s love and horrifying revenge. Actors Oscar van Woensel, Manja Topper and Kuno Bakker strip away theatrical pretense in this unconventional, poetic and humorous production interlacing images with songs from The Doors, Joy Division, Twisted Sister and Public Enemy.
WEST COAST PREMIERE
“The Fortune Teller”
Oct. 18–28, Freud Playhouse
Erik Sanko, creator and director
Danny Elfman and Erik Sanko, composers, and Gavin Friday, recorded narration
Thursday–Friday, Oct. 18–19 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 20 at 5, 7 and 9 p.m.;
Sunday, Oct. 21 at 3, 5 and 7 p.m.; Tuesday–Friday, Oct. 23–26 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 27 at 5, 7 and 9 p.m.; and Sunday, Oct. 28 at 3 and 5 p.m.
Edward Gorey meets Tim Burton in this deliciously twisted marionette play by former Lounge Lizards’ bassist and hip New York puppet maker Erik Sanko. The fantastic comic tale unfolds in a Victorian world as seven characters, representing the seven deadly sins; convene at a dead millionaire’s estate to claim their inheritance as determined by a fortune teller. With a grotesque cast of 15 handcrafted figures, the gravelly voice of Gavin Friday and an eerie score by Sanko and Danny Elfman, the Grammy-winning former Oingo Boingo frontman, this show is a perverse, yet gleeful spectacle.
EXCLUSIVE WEST COAST ENGAGEMENT
Royal Shakespeare Company
Starring Sir Ian McKellen, directed by Trevor Nunn
“King Lear” and “The Seagull” (Featuring McKellen in select “Seagull” performances);
Oct. 19–28, Royce Hall
“King Lear”: Friday, Oct. 19, Tuesday, Oct. 23, and Friday, Oct. 26 at 7:30 p.m.;
Sunday, Oct. 21 and 28 at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 27 at 2 p.m.
“The Seagull”: Saturday, Oct. 20, Wednesday, Oct. 24, Thursday, Oct. 25, and
Saturday, Oct. 27 at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 21 and 28 at 2 p.m. (With McKellen Oct. 20, 24 and 25)
In the season’s most anticipated event, one of the world’s greatest living actors, Sir Ian McKellen, directed by the acclaimed Trevor Nunn, leads the legendary Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and Chekhov’s “The Seagull.” Both plays, in compelling new RSC productions and presented in a Royce Hall adapted to provide a more intimate, acoustically superior experience, explore regret, loss and lives in crisis. One of only three U.S. engagements, with the other two in Minneapolis and New York, this dream billing brings together two towering figures of theater with the RSC for the first time in 17 years, since Nunn directed McKellen during RSC’s golden age in the ’70s and ’80s. McKellen’s astonishingly versatile career ranges from his recent Academy Award-nominated film role as Gandalf in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy to his memorable performances in “Gods and Monsters” and “X-Men.” Nunn, meanwhile, has presided over such landmark productions as “Cats,” “Les Miserables” and “Sunset Boulevard.”
U.S. DEBUT and UCLA LIVE EXCLUSIVE
Teatr Zar—“Gospels of Childhood”
Nov. 27–Dec. 2, Freud Playhouse
Tuesday–Friday, Nov. 27–30 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, Dec. 1 at 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, Dec. 2 at 2 and 7 p.m.,
Poland’s multinational company Teatr Zar, a disciple of the late theater revolutionary Jerzy Grotowski, brings its profound, visceral and ritualistic “Gospels of Childhood” to UCLA Live in its exclusive U.S. engagement. Reminiscent of Poland’s “Song of the Goat,” seen at UCLA Live in 2005, this is a spectacle that incorporates acting, chanting and movement with millennia-old polyphonic funeral songs from Georgia, Bulgaria and Greece and texts from Christian mythology. It is a deeply moving and meditative experience hovering in between the living and the dead in a primal spiritual journey.
WEST COAST PREMIERE—PART OF UCLA LIVE’S DESIGN FOR SHARING FAMILY SERIES
“Aurelia’s Oratorio”
Directed and designed by Victoria Thierre Chaplin, Performed by Aurelia Thierre
April 9–12, 2008, Freud Playhouse
Wednesday–Friday, April 9–11, 8 p.m.; Saturday, April 12 at 2 and 8 p.m.
An intoxicating display of physical theater, circus acrobatics a la Cirque du Soleil and dazzling stage invention, “Aurelia’s Oratorio” is a fantastical concoction by Aurelia Thierre (granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin and sister of James Thierre, famed for “The Junebug Symphony” which sold out to UCLA Live audiences two years in a row). Aurelia and her director-designer mother, Victoria, carry on the family tradition of spellbinding productions.
Tickets: Series and Choose-Your-Own subscriptions consist of multiple events sold at a discount when applicable, and are on sale now. Single tickets are on sale as of July 23 (July 16 for current subscribers and donors). Tickets may be purchased online at www.UCLALive.org, via phone at 310-825-2101 , in person at the UCLA Central Ticket Office at the southwest corner of the James West Alumni Center, and at all Ticketmaster outlets.
