Allison Combs

As part of it's ARTbursts Series and in collaboration with 11th Hour Ensemble, Theatre of Yugen Presents

Alice.

September 8th - 19th

Preview: September 8th at 8 p.m.

Show Runs: September 9th through the 19th
Show Times: Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m.

Alice. is an original, company-devised production that promises familiar characters transformed and side-lined themes explored as the audience follows Alice on her journey through Wonderland – a world which rejects everything she has learned and come to expect – invigorated by daring movement (and a little Rock n’ Roll)!

Six actors, with their bodies alone, will create and remix Lewis Carroll’s classic ‘Wonderland’, bringing to life tidal waves of tears, hookah-equipped mushrooms, wild tea parties and a rabbit hole that extends to the center of the earth. Using a unique combination of theater and dance methods, the show includes Ballet, Jazz, Viewpoints, Suzuki, Noh, and Kyogen influences – attracting theater, dance, and non-traditional arts fans alike. Evolving over the past two years, Alice. has seen many different incarnations – everything from a two-minute piece at SOMArts, to a fifty-minute musical workshop edition in collaboration with Tony Award Nominee Barbara Damashek.

For the first time in its full format, in conjunction with the Theatre of Yugen (part of the ARTbursts series) and funded by Theatre Bay Area’s CA$H Grant, Director Allison Combs retells this classic tale of one individual’s adventures through the surreal and the extraordinary, while examining themes of transition, alienation, and courage in the face of the unknown.

Thoughts From the Director

"The more I work on this project, the more reason I find to continue working on it. It’s been two years now, and every time we perform a new version it doesn’t feel done, but slightly closer to some unnamed thing we’re inching towards. Perhaps it’s that the more I explore the text, the closer I can connect my own experiences with the absurd events in the story. Only recently have I discovered what it might feel like to be trapped in a Hall of Doors with no way through any of them, or to nearly be drowned in your own tears, or to be forced to run a race with no beginning and no end. Recently, in the country at large, Alice in Wonderland has undergone a huge resurgence, witnessed through Tim Burton’s film as well as a fair number of theatre productions. I would venture to suggest that these productions are not in reaction to Burton’s film, but rather in reaction to a societal need for this story. Something about Alice is definitely ‘in the air.’ What I hope to do in this final production is remove the layers and associations this story has acquired throughout the years, and get to the heart of the Wonderland. I want to find out what makes it pulse, why it’s timeless, and then share that it in our own way: with lots of running around, gymnastics, and a healthy pinch of Classic Rock."

- Allison Combs

For more information on 11th Hour Ensemble:

11th Hour Ensemble

For information or reservations please call 1-800-838-3006 or visit brownpapertickets.com

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SORYA!

October 27th – 31st 2010

Program: Selections from our English in Kyogen Repertoire

Theatre of Yugen's SORYA! will present the classic Kyogen comedy, Fukuro Yamabushi (Owl Mountain Priest), as well as Act 1 from a new adaptation of Ben Jonson's Volpone, the Fox by company member Lluis Valls.

For more information please call: 415-621-0507

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Moshe Cohen and Theatre of Yugen Co-Present

Mr. Yoowho's Holiday

Directed by Sheila Berotti

December 16 - January 2

Mr. YooWho discovers his dream of traveling the world in the most unlikely of places, a field of sunflowers. He travels through a potpourri of wonder generating laughter that reaches far across generational lines. Enter a world where humor and poetry intermingle with precision mini-board high diving, a world where European clown and mime mix with Japanese Kyogen and Yiddish Absurdism.

Following rave reviews in Europe (“Charlie Chaplin of a modern time”,) Moshe Cohen brings his show back home to San Francisco. In the fall of 2008 Moshe traveled to Krakow to work intensely with director Marek Pasieczny, bringing together work that Moshe has developed over the last twenty years. After serious dramaturgy work, Moshe unveiled his new work at the basement cabaret theater Loch Camelot. Now Moshe returns home to San Francisco, and builds upon this foundation in collaboration with the Theatre of Yugen, injecting a Noh and Kyogen influence to his insightful ritual of travel, and holiday celebration.

For more information please call: 415-621-0507

Press page - Neighborhood Eats & Drinks - Directions to NOHspace

Theatre of Yugen's 31st Season is generously funded in part by our supportive individual donors, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, Rockefeller MAP, Columbia Foundation, the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund/Grants for the Arts, Zellerbach Family Foundation, The Trust for Mutual Understanding, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Theatre of Yugen is a proud member of Theatre Bay Area, Project Artaud, Theatre Communications Group and the Network of Ensemble Theaters.