FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Chelsea Graven, Marketing Associate, Z Space
Email: cgraven@zspace.org or 415-626-0453
PHILADELPHIA’S ACCLAIMED PIG IRON THEATRE COMPANY BRINGS OBIE AWARD-WINNING CHEKHOV LIZARDBRAIN TO Z SPACE JUNE 9-12, 2011 AS PART OF FURY FACTORY2011
WHAT: Chekhov Lizardbrain
WHEN: June 9-12, 2011
WHERE: Z Space, 450 Florida Street, San Francisco
SHOWTIMES: 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, 4 pm Sunday
TICKETS: $25 general admission, student/senior discounts available
TICKETS NOW ON SALE: AVAILABLE AT WWW.ZSPACE.ORG OR 800-838-3006
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, June 1, 2011 – June 9-12, Z Space will welcome Philadelphia’s beloved Pig Iron Theatre Company as they present their Obie Award-winning, critically acclaimed play, CHEKHOV LIZARDBRAIN. Hailed by the New York Times as one of the Top Ten Theatre Events in 2008, CHEKHOV LIZARDBRAIN combines neuroscience with vaudeville to present a comic meditation on our deepest impulses and contemporary neuroscience’s hold on our imaginations. This San Francisco premiere features Quinn Bauriedel, Dito van Reigersberg, Geoff Sobelle, and James Sugg, is directed by Dan Rothenberg and will be presented at Z Space as part of the 2011 Fury Factory Festival.
The setting is part laboratory and part vaudeville-theater, and the performance careens between trancelike dances, perception experiments, and full-throttle hilarity. The four award-winning performers – Quinn Bauriedel, Geoff Sobelle, James Sugg and Dito van Reigersberg – present a series of highly physical numbers that spring from disparate regions of the brain.
“We began with neuroscience but we ended up speaking in tongues,” says director Dan Rothenberg. “When we began this process I thought it might be difficult to find interesting material in the absence of the uniquely human skills of imagining the future, having two emotions at once, and logical argument,” he continues, “but it turns out that everything we truly care about springs from these deeper, darker regions of the brain.”
The remarkable cast represents the core of Pig Iron’s arsenal of performers: Pew Fellows in Performance Art Dito van Reigersberg (2002), Quinn Bauriedel (2002), and Geoff Sobelle (2006); and multi-Barrymore Award winning actor and composer James Sugg (also F. Otto Haas Emerging Artist of 2005 and Philadelphia Magazine Best Theater Talent of 2006).
PIG IRON THEATRE COMPANY, founded in 1995, has rapidly become known as a unique, innovative voice in American theatre and an audience favorite at the Live Arts Festival in their hometown of Philadelphia. Over the last sixteen years, the ensemble’s physical precision, lyrical writing, and exuberant productions have earned them 36 Barrymore Award Nominations in the past ten years; five grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; a Total Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Fringe; and an OBIE Award, Off-Broadway’s highest honor. Pig Iron’s work has toured to theaters and festivals in London, Edinburgh, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, Ireland, Poland, Ukraine, Brazil, Romania, Germany and Italy. In the fall of 2007, Pig Iron will be the only Philadelphia company to participate in Suzan-Lori Parks’s 365 PROJECT at the Joseph Papp Public Theater.
Z SPACE was founded in 1993 to promote the artistic and professional advancement of Bay Area theatre. With their signature Word for Word and Youth Arts programs, along with their commissioning and careful development of new plays, Z Space has become one of the nation’s leading laboratories for the development of new works and emerging playwrights. In August 2009 they moved to their new home in Project Artaud, and commenced the upgrade and transformation of this iconic theatre venue where they are creating a welcoming hub of outstanding artistry from all disciplines including theatre, dance, music, multimedia and visual arts.
FURY FACTORY FESTIVAL For the three weeks in June 2011 the many theater spaces in the Project Artaud building in San Francisco’s Mission district will become home to an outpouring of performance, artistic exchange and cross pollination, panel discussions, and training events open to everyone. This year, 31 innovative theater companies from all over the country will converge in San Francisco from June 7-26 for FoolsFURY’s acclaimed biennial theater festival, co-hosted by Z Space and Theatre of Yugen. CONTACT: Chelsea Graven, Marketing Associate, Z Space cgraven@zspace.org or 415-659-8136
