media contact:
erica lewis-finein
brightbutterfly[at]hotmail.com
CUTTING BALL THEATER PRESENTS WORLD PREMIERE
“MOUNT MISERY”
May 8-June 7, 2015
SAN FRANCISCO (April 17, 2015) – Cutting Ball Theater continues its 16th season, devoted to the
theme of “Injustice,” with the World Premiere of MOUNT MISERY by Cutting Ball resident playwright
Andrew Saito. Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose helms this new play, featuring David
Sinaiko, Giovanni Adams, Lorri Holt, and Geoffrey Nolan. MOUNT MISERY plays May 8 through
June 7 (Press opening: May 14) at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor (277 Taylor
Street) in San Francisco. For tickets ($10-50) and more information, the public may visit cuttingball.com
or call 415-525-1205.
Playwright Andrew Saito examines the United States’ inconsistent progress on issues of power and race
through the colliding histories of two prominent American figures on one shared tract of land. On a
plantation in a small Maryland town, a teenaged slave named Frederick Douglass once fought and
triumphed against an overseer named Edward Covey. The moment would permanently alter the course of
Douglass’ life, freeing him from fear and building a new sense of agency. In 2003, Covey’s home,
“Mount Misery,” was purchased by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for $1.5 million.
In MOUNT MISERY, Saito imagines Rumsfeld and Douglass’ interactions across time. MOUNT
MISERY was commissioned by Cutting Ball and developed as part of the 2014 edition of RISK IS
THIS… The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival; the production runs concurrently with the
2015 RISK IS THIS Festival in celebration of Cutting Ball’s new play development program.
“MOUNT MISERY is the most demanding and difficult play I have ever written,” said playwright
Andrew Saito. “The constant washing, filtering, and distilling of this play has led me to its kernel, its
bone. And it is the bone that this story strikes. As it should. We need to be struck awake. We need to be
struck to our feet. Things are not all well. Our country is built on grit and sacrifice and vision and love,
but also on theft, murder, lashing and suffocation. We can no longer close our eyes to the full spectrum
of our country’s history and status quo, on those whose flowered and bloodied grounds we live.”
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CUTTING BALL THEATER PRESENTS WORLD PREMIERE OF “MOUNT MISERY”
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“While Andrew Saito and I were workshopping his play Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night for the 2011
RISK IS THIS Festival, he told me about an article he read in The Economist about how Donald
Rumsfeld and his wife, Joyce, had purchased the plantation on which Frederick Douglass had spent a
particularly miserable year of his life with “slave-breaker” Edward Covey. Andrew wanted to write a play
about this and I was completely on board,” said Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose.
Continued Melrose, “What is most exciting to me about MOUNT MISERY is not the fact that the
Rumsfeld’s purchased the historical property for 1.5 million dollars for use as their summer home, but the
imagined interaction of Donald Rumsfeld and Frederick Douglass. Rumsfeld has a seductive logic and is
able to make a cool, reasoned argument for almost anything no matter how bad the idea actually is.
Douglass, on the other hand, is so eloquent and evocative when it comes to putting a human face on
oppression. Sometimes it takes a Frederick Douglass or a Harriet Beecher Stowe to make us see the
human cost of evil. This play is a reminder that during slavery times, there were plenty of people who
participated in slavery and still considered themselves good people. It is a very relevant reminder in
today’s ‘post-racial’ America.”
Rob Melrose is the Artistic Director and co-founder of the Cutting Ball Theater and works nationally as a
freelance director. He has directed at the Guthrie Theater (Freud’s Last Session, Happy Days, Pen, Julius
Caesar - with the Acting Company); Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Troilus and Cressida – in association
with the Public Theater); Magic Theatre (An Accident, World Premiere); PlayMakers Rep (Happy Days);
California Shakespeare Theater (Villains, Fools, and Lovers); Black Box Theatre (The Creature, World
Premiere); Actors’ Collective (Hedda Gabler); The Gamm Theatre (Creditors); and Crowded Fire
Theater (The Train Play), among others. Directing credits at Cutting Ball include the World Premieres of
Communique´ N°10, Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night; Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep,
Pelleas & Melisande, the Bay Area Premiere of Will Eno’s Lady Grey (in ever lower light); The Tempest;
The Bald Soprano; Victims of Duty; Bone to Pick and Diadem (World Premiere); Endgame; Krapp’s Last
Tape; The Taming of the Shrew; Macbeth; Hamletmachine; As You Like It; The Death of the Last Black
Man in the Whole Entire World; Mayakovsky: A Tragedy; My Head Was a Sledgehammer; Roberto
Zucco; The Vomit Talk of Ghosts (World Premiere); The Sandalwood Box; Pickling; Ajax for Instance;
Helen of Troy (World Premiere); and Drowning Room (World Premiere). He is a recipient of the NEA /
TCG Career Development Program award for directors. Melrose has a B.A. in English and Theater from
Princeton University and an M.F.A. in directing from the Yale School of Drama. He has taught at
Stanford University, UC Berkeley, USF, the University of Rhode Island, and Marin Academy.
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CUTTING BALL THEATER PRESENTS WORLD PREMIERE OF “MOUNT MISERY”
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Additionally, Melrose’s translations include Communique´ N°10, No Exit, Woyzeck, Pelléas and
Mélisande, The Bald Soprano, The Chairs and Ubu Roi.
Cutting Ball Theater has assembled a talented ensemble for MOUNT MISERY. An Associate Artist at
Cutting Ball, David Sinaiko returns to the company as Donald Rumsfeld in MOUNT MISERY. He most
recently appeared in the company’s productions of Ubu Roi, Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night, The
Chairs, Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep, Tenderloin, Lady Grey (in ever lower light), The
Tempest, Krapp’s Last Tape, …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, The Bald Soprano, Victims of Duty,
and Endgame. Other Cutting Ball credits include The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, The
Sandalwood Box, Ajax for Instance, Macbeth, 365 Plays/365 Days, Woyzeck, Chain Reactions, and RISK
IS THIS...The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. Additional credits include productions at
Shotgun Players, Golden Thread Productions, Crowded Fire Theater, and San Francisco Playhouse;
Sinaiko has been seen at the Goodman Theatre, The Actor’s Gang, and in the popular Bay Area one-man
production of David Sedaris’ SantaLand Diaries. He was a founding member of Chicago’s New Crime
Productions.
Giovanni Adams makes his Cutting Ball debut as Frederick Douglass in MOUNT MISERY. He is a
member of Rogue Machine Theatre Company and has appeared in productions at Yale Repertory Theatre
(Miss Julie, King Lear), IAMA Theatre Company (The Recommendation), Critical Mass Performance
Group (Amerkya (Work in Progress) ), and Gangbusters Theatre Company, among others. Film and
television credits include appearances on Fatal Instinct, Criminal Minds, Grey’s Anatomy, and Gary
UnMarried, among others.
Lorri Holt makes her Cutting Ball debut as Joyce Rumsfeld in MOUNT MISERY. For 10 years, Holt
was a member of the groundbreaking Eureka Theater, where she originated the role of Harper Pitt in Tony
Kushner’s Angels in America. Other regional theater credits include productions at Marin Theater
Company (Frozen), California Shakespeare Theater (Richard III), Berkeley Repertory Theatre
(Continental Divide), San Jose Repertory Theater, Center Repertory Company, Mark Taper Forum, La
Jolla Playhouse, and The Barbican (London), among others.
Geoffrey Nolan rounds out the cast of MOUNT MISERY as Edward Covey. He previously appeared in
Cutting Ball’s RISK IS THIS Festival; additional credits include productions with California Shakespeare
Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Crowded Fire Theater, Boxcar Theater, We Players, Douglas
Morrisson Theatre, and Piano Fight, among others. Film credits include Milk, and several short films.
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CUTTING BALL THEATER PRESENTS WORLD PREMIERE OF “MOUNT MISERY”
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Andrew Saito’s plays include Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night, which was developed at Cutting Ball
Theater's 2011 RISK IS THIS...Festival and received its World Premiere as part of the company’s 2013
main stage season; The Patron Saint of Monsters, and La Lechera, El Río, a finalist for the Princess Grace
Award. Awarded an Iowa Arts Fellowship at the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Saito has taught
playwriting and poetry to immigrant and underserved youth in San Francisco with WritersCorps and
Performing Arts Workshop, in rural Mayan villages in Guatemala, and at Kearney Street Workshop’s
Intergenerational Writers Lab. A Resident Playwright at the Playwrights Foundation and a Core
Apprentice at the Playwrights Center of Minneapolis, Saito’s work has been developed at Bay Area
Playwrights Festival, the Asian American Theater Company, Mixed Phoenix Theatre in New York, and
presented by Intersection for the Arts, Magic Theatre, Montalvo Arts Center, Bay Area Playwrights
Festival, and Brava Theater, among others. He was a finalist for New Dramatists and a Jerome
Fellowship, and was awarded a 2012 Fulbright Fellowship to continue his writing about and research of
marginalized communities in Papua New Guinea.
Co-founded in 1999 by theater artists Rob Melrose and Paige Rogers, Cutting Ball Theater presents
avant-garde works of the past, present, and future by re-envisioning classics, exploring seminal avantgarde texts, and developing new experimental plays. The company has commissioned, developed, and
produced new experimental plays, and has partnered with Playwrights Foundation, and the Magic
Theatre/Z Space New Plays Initiative to commission new experimental works. In addition to producing
West Coast Premieres and re-imaging various classics, Cutting Ball Theater has produced nine World
Premieres and seven World Premiere translations. Cutting Ball received the 2008 San Francisco Bay
Guardian Goldie award for outstanding talent in the performing arts, and was voted “Best Theater
Company” in the 2010 San Francisco Bay Guardian Best of the Bay issue. The company also earned the
Best of SF award in 2006 and “Best Experimental Theater Company” in 2012 from SF Weekly, and was
selected by San Francisco magazine as Best Classic Theater in 2007. Cutting Ball Theater was featured in
the February 2010, 2012, and December 2014 issues of American Theatre Magazine. In 2012, Cutting
Ball was awarded a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund a three-year residency for
resident playwright Andrew Saito. The American Theatre Wing, best known as the creator of the
Antoinette Perry “Tony” Awards, awarded the company with a 2013 National Theatre Company grant.
Cutting Ball was also featured in the February 2015 issue of American Theatre Magazine.
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CUTTING BALL THEATER PRESENTS WORLD PREMIERE OF “MOUNT MISERY”
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FOR CALENDAR EDITORS:
WHAT:
Cutting Ball Theater continues its 16th season, devoted to the theme of “Injustice,” with the World
Premiere of MOUNT MISERY by Andrew Saito, directed by Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob
Melrose. Cutting Ball’s resident playwright Andrew Saito examines the United States’ inconsistent
progress on issues of power and race through the colliding histories of two prominent American figures
on one shared tract of land. On a plantation in a small Maryland town, a teenaged slave named Frederick
Douglass once fought and triumphed against an overseer named Edward Covey. The moment would
permanently alter the course of Douglass’ life, freeing him from fear and building a new sense of agency.
In 2003, Covey’s home, “Mount Misery,” was purchased by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld for $1.5 million. In MOUNT MISERY, Saito imagines Rumsfeld and Douglass’ interactions
across time. Featuring David Sinaiko, Giovanni Adams, Lorri Holt, and Geoffrey Nolan.
MOUNT MISERY was commissioned by Cutting Ball and developed as part of the 2014 edition of
RISK IS THIS… The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival; the production runs concurrently
with the 2015 RISK IS THIS Festival in celebration of Cutting Ball’s new play development program.
MOUNT MISERY Special Events – for more information visit cuttingball.com
Gala Opening – Friday, May 15, 8pm, $50 tickets
May 8– $10 preview
May 10 – Pre-show Tea – 4pm (141 Taylor Street)
Happy Hour Fridays – meet and mingle 7-8pm
Preshow Talks (5 minutes) – before every show
Friday talk back series with the artists – post-performance talks following every Friday performance
Sunday talk back series “Examining Injustice” – themed post-performance talks led by Bay Area thought
leaders and Associate Producer Rem Myers following every Sunday performance
DATES:
Previews: May 8, 9 at 8pm; May 10, 5pm
Opens: May 14 (Press opening: May 14; Gala opening: May 15)
Closes: June 7, 2015
All performances Thursday at 7:30, Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 2 and 8pm, and
Sunday at 5pm
WHERE:
The Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor St., San Francisco
TICKETS:
For season membership, single tickets ($10-50), and more information, the public may
visit cuttingball.com or call 415-525-1205; group discounts available. Pay What You
Can tickets are available to neighborhood residents for all productions. Free student rush
tickets are available to students with valid student ID.
The Cutting Ball Theater’s 2014-15 season is made possible in part by The Compton Foundation, Creative Work Fund, Nathan Cummings
Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, Grants for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mental Insight Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, The RHE
Foundation, The San Francisco Arts Commission, The San Francisco Foundation, Venturous Theater Fund, The Zellerbach Family Foundation,
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CUTTING BALL THEATER PRESENTS WORLD PREMIERE OF “MOUNT MISERY”
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and Associate Producers: Weaver Schlenger Mazel LLP, Erik Blachford and Maryam Mohit, Marsha Cohen and Robert Feyer, Mary Anne and
Rob Cook ,Vic and Karin Cordell, Dan Lockwood and Caitlyn Pardo de Zela, and Katherine Robards.
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media contact: erica lewis-‐‑finein ·∙ brightbutterfly pr ·∙ brightbutterfly[at]hotmail.com