The Directors Series

Have you ever wondered how you would stage a production? What choices would you make? What would you want your audiences to feel?  To think? Hop on a fast moving conveyor belt of four short pieces featuring music, theater, and movement.

The Directors Series is a program of four short works across a single evening of performance dedicated to directorial exploration with the aim of introducing audiences to a broad array of interdisciplinary, experimental techniques. This series promotes collaboration between the mediums of theater, music, movement, and more and crosses cultural and linguistic boundaries. Placing a premium on the inventive capacities of its lead artists and providing these artists the opportunity to experiment, The Directors Series is rooted in a firm commitment to brave artistic choices.
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See all four works together on the following nights:
Friday, February 2 at 8pm – Opening Night Party!
Saturday, February 3 at 8pm
Sunday, February 4 at 5pm
Friday, February 9 at 8pm
Saturday, February 10 at 8pm
Sunday, February 11 at 5pm
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For tickets to any performance in this series, click below
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  •  
    Ode

    Randee Paufve of Paufve Dance has worked with Cutting Ball as a choreographer on A Dreamplay in 2016 and the upcoming Timon of Athens. She makes her performance debut in Ode, a piece created and choreographed by Daria Kaufman.In Kaufman's words, "Ode is a solo dance theater piece that approaches the ballerina’s pointe shoe as a tool for exploring sexuality and persona. It is concerned with how this appendage re-figures the body, how it alternately restrains and liberates, and the illusions that it grants." Ode's scenic design is by legendary East Bay artist Lauren Elder.

    Click on photo to read artist biographies

    <strong>Daria Kaufman</strong>
    Daria Kaufman
    Choreographer
    <b>Randee Paufve</b>
    Randee Paufve
    Performer

  • Proben im Haus

    Finally coming together, after many years of trying, Artistic Director Paige Rogers and Left Coast Chamber Ensemble’s principal cellist Leighton Fong create an original piece of theater-music fusion. Actor Carla Pauli (seen in Cutting Ball's Pelleas & Melisande and Hedda Gabler) joins Rogers and Fong in examining questions of rehearsal: how it intersects with home life and what it means to perform. Cello selections featured in the piece are George Crumb’s "Sonata for Violoncello 1" and Gaspar Cassado’s "Cello Suite 1" as well as lauded New York City based composer Eve Beglarian’s "Testy Pony" with text by poet Zachary Schomburg.

    Click on photo to read artist biographies

    <b>Paige Rogers</b>
    Paige Rogers
    Director
    <strong>Leighton Fong</strong>
    Leighton Fong
    Performer
    <strong>Carla Pauli</strong>
    Carla Pauli
    Performer

  • Iago: Images Unseen

    Iago: Images Unseen is Bay Area native Jonathan Vandenberg's freshly created, starkly envisioned adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello, placing the lens on the journey and inner life of the play's villain, Iago, author of a fictive and destructive world. Vandenberg, in collaboration with a cast of three actors, brings his stunning aesthetic to a devised work rife with paradoxes.
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    Vandenberg co-founded Ashes Company in New York City after receiving an MFA in Directing from Columbia University. His visually captivating work is often lauded for incorporating image, presence, and ritual.

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    Click on photo to read artist biography

    <strong>Jonathan Vandenberg</strong>
    Jonathan Vandenberg
    Director
    <strong>Ed Berkeley</strong>
    Ed Berkeley
    Othello
    <strong>María Ascensción Leigh</strong>
    María Ascensción Leigh
    Desdemona
    <strong>Max Forman-Mullin</strong>
    Max Forman-Mullin
    Iago

  • Pezzetti 2

    Beatrice Basso directed Pezzetti ("little pieces" in Italian) featuring co-creator and actor Valentina Emeri for last season’s Avant GardARAMA! Their piece investigated dislocation, childhood games, and the loss of one's mother in a trilingual solo performance. Continuing to explore these themes and deepen the work begun last season, this duo returns with Pezzetti 2: a second installment, this time bringing Basso onstage as well.

    Click on photo to read artist biographies

    <strong>Beatrice Basso</strong>
    Beatrice Basso
    Creator/Performer
    <strong>Valentina Emeri</strong>
    Valentina Emeri
    Creator/Performer

The Director Series is made possible in part by Shira Katz, Lucinda Lee Katz, Kate Knickerbocker and Laura Irvin