Zimmerman's Secret, Mee's Fêtes and Jonestown Set for Berkeley Rep 2004-05 | Playbill

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News Zimmerman's Secret, Mee's Fêtes and Jonestown Set for Berkeley Rep 2004-05 Berkeley Repertory Theatre has announced shows for its upcoming 37th season including Mary Zimmerman's Secret in the Wings, Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, Zora Neale Hurston's blues musical Polk County, Joanna Murray-Smith's Honour and the world premieres of Charles L. Mee's Fêtes de la Nuit and Leigh Fondakowski's Stories From Jonestown and the People's Temple
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Mary Zimmerman

The announced works will all be presented at Berkeley Rep's two-theatre complex which houses The Roda Theatre and the Thrust Stage. One more play title to be included in the season will be announced shortly.

Tony Award-winning director Zimmerman (Metamorphoses, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci) brings a little known fairy tales to the stage with her signature visual spectacle in Secret in the Wings. The work is set for a Sept. 3-Oct. 17 run.

Recent Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winner Ruhl (The Clean House) retells the myth of Orpheus and the title character in Eurydice, telling the story through the eyes of the heroine. Berkeley Rep associate artistic director Les Waters directs the play Oct. 15 Nov. 14.

Set in the Depression-era South, the blues musical Polk County, written by Zora Neale Hurston and Dorothy Waring, has gone unproduced and untouched since 1944 until discovered in 2000 by the Library of Congress. The show will see the Berkeley Rep stage, Nov. 19-Jan. 2, 2005. Kyle Donnelly directs the work he adapted with Cathy Madison.

The world premiere of Fete de la Nuit by Charles L. Mee (Wintertime) will play Jan. 28-Feb. 27, 2005. Les Waters directs the work set in modern-day Paris which mixes scenes, images, dances, songs and performance events to weave a tale of love and romance in which Parisians "attempt to reconcile their history with the multiculturalism of the present.". Berkeley Rep also presents the world premiere of Stories from Jonestown and the Peoples Temple directed by Leigh Fondakowski (The Laramie Project). Fondakowski penned the work with Greg Pierotti, Stephen Wangh and Margo Hall. It examines the events surrounding the 1978 murder-suicide of 914 members of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple.

The season will concludes with Australian playwright Murray-Smith's drama Honour. The four-character drama explores the ideas of fidelity, desire and sacrifice, and about the disappointments and hopes of marriage. Tony Taccone (Continental Dive, bridge & tunnel) directs the production.

The 2004-2005 Berkeley Rep season (subject to change) follows:

  • The Secret in the Wings - The Roda Theatre (Sept. 3-Oct. 17)
  • Eurydice - Thrust Stage (Oct. 15-Nov. 14)
  • Polk County - Roda (Nov. 19, 2004-Jan. 2, 2005)
  • Fêtes de la Nuit - Roda (Jan. 28-Feb. 27, 2005)
  • Stories from Jonestown and the Peoples Temple - Roda (Dates TBA)
  • Honour - Thrust (Dates TBA) Subscriptions are now on sale (single tickets go on sale in August) through Berkeley Repertory Theatre's box office, at 2025 Addison Street in Berkeley, CA by calling (510) 647-2949 or toll free at (888) 4-BRT-tix. For more information, visit the website at www.berkeleyrep.org.

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