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media contact:
erica lewis-finein
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CUTTING BALL THEATER EXTENDS WORLD PREMIERE OF
“MOUNT MISERY”
SAN FRANCISCO (May 27, 2015) – Due to popular demand, Cutting Ball Theater announces that it
will add an additional two weeks of performances of its current hit production 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, Lori Holt, and Geoffrey Nolan. MOUNT
MISERY plays now through June 21 (added performances: Wednesday, June 10, 7:30pm; Thursday,
June 11, 7:30pm; Friday, June 12, 8pm; Saturday, June 13, 8pm; Sunday, June 14, 5pm; Wednesday,
June 17, 7:30pm; Thursday, June 18, 7:30pm; Friday, June 19, 8pm; Saturday, June 20, 8pm;
Sunday, June 21, 5pm) at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor (277 Taylor Street) in
San Francisco. For tickets ($15-50) 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.
About MOUNT MISERY, Robert Hurwitt of the San Francisco Chronicle declared the production
“provocatively intriguing...Snark would be easy, as would playing to our comfortable notions of right and
wrong. Saito’s play, commissioned by and developed with Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob
Melrose...seldom takes an easy way out.” Sam Hurwitt at the Marin Independent Journal called MOUNT
MISERY “inventive...sharp, dynamic...history may never be the same again.” Jean Schiffman at the San
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CUTTING BALL THEATER EXTENDS MOUNT MISERY
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Francisco Examiner dubbed MOUNT MISERY “[a] clever and provocative new play...imaginative,”
noting, “[Playwright Andrew Saito] makes our checkered history feel all too immediate.”
“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.”
“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.”
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
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CUTTING BALL THEATER EXTENDS MOUNT MISERY
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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.
The company also garnered an inaugural Acker Award for excellence in the avant-garde in 2013. Cutting
Ball was also featured in the February 2015 issue of American Theatre Magazine.
Playing concurrently with MOUNT MISERY, RISK IS THIS… The Cutting Ball Festival of New
Experimental Plays returns, rounding out the season with five new works in staged readings that push the
boundaries of what theater can be.
FOR CALENDAR EDITORS:
Due to popular demand, Cutting Ball Theater announces that it will add an additional two weeks of
performances of its current hit production 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, Lori Holt, and Geoffrey Nolan. MOUNT MISERY plays now through
June 21.
DATES:
Playing now through June 21
Regular performances: Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday-Saturday at 8pm, Saturday at
2pm, and Sunday at 5pm
Added performances: Wednesday, June 10, 7:30pm; Thursday, June 11, 7:30pm;
Friday, June 12, 8pm; Saturday, June 13, 8pm; Sunday, June 14, 5pm; Wednesday,
June 17, 7:30pm; Thursday, June 18, 7:30pm; Friday, June 19, 8pm; Saturday, June
20, 8pm; Sunday, June 21, 5pm
MOUNT MISERY Special Events – for more information visit cuttingball.com
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
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CUTTING BALL THEATER EXTENDS MOUNT MISERY
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Sunday talk back series “Examining Injustice” – themed post-performance talks led by Bay Area thought
leaders following every Sunday performance
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
walk-up tickets are available to students with valid student ID.
PHOTOS:
High-resolution digital art for MOUNT MISERY can be downloaded at
http://www.cuttingball.com/press or is available upon request by emailing
brightbutterfly[at]hotmail.com
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,
and Associate Producers: Weaver Schlenger Mazel LLP, Mary Anne and Rob Cook, Erik Blachford and Maryam Mohit, Vic and Karin Cordell,
and Katherine Robards.
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media contact: erica lewis-‐‑finein ·∙ brightbutterfly pr ·∙ brightbutterfly[at]hotmail.com