press release
2009 - 2010 season

Undermain Theatre’s 26th Season

For press information: mail@undermain.org

On the heels of celebrating its 25^th anniversary, the Undermain Theatre begins its next quarter-century as Dallas’ leading developer of new, alternative and cutting edge work.

Undermain’s 26^th season will see the return of a major new work by an American master with a newly published edition of the script, a sensational world premiere by a continuing Undermain collaborator and hero of the American Avant-garde, the presentation of a new work by a world-class performance artist, and a major spring production directed by one of the driving forces of the American stage. This season the company will also present a Play Reading Series exploring both new and classic plays currently in development.  All the while, the theater will be celebrating the arrival of Dart Light Rail’s Green Line with the theme Take the Train to Undermain.  Beginning in September of 2009 the Green Line will bring two train stops within two blocks of Undermain’s door, providing audiences with unparalleled access to the theater and to the many pleasures of historic Deep Ellum.

The Undermain Theatre is pleased to announce the return of The Black Monk by David Rabe. This wildly popular production, which played to sold out crowds in the spring, will kick off the Undermain’s 26th season. The production is planned to coincide with the Simon and Schuster publication of the revised edition of the play prepared by David Rabe for Undermain Theatre’s April performance. The Black Monk, based on the novella by Anton Chekhov will be performed September 9th through October 3rd, 2009.

Directed by Katherine Owens. Scenic design by John Arnone, lighting design by Steve Woods, costume design by Bryan Wofford, and the sound design is by Bruce DuBose.

David Rabe brings Anton Chekhov’s spiritual mystery to vivid life. Tony and Obie Award winning writer David Rabe is the author of such classic American contemporary plays as Sticks and Bones, Hurlyburly, Streamers, In the Boom Boom Room and more. He' s also written screenplays for films such as I' m Dancing as fast as I can, The Firm and Casualties of War.

Based on the novella by Anton Chekhov, The Black Monk tells the story of a brilliant but haunted young scholar, Andrei Vasilich Kovrin. Exhausted to the point of madness by his studies, Kovrin returns to the garden estate of his childhood benefactor Yegor Pesotsky and his daughter Tanya. Kovrin tells Tanya the legend of the black monk whose image has been reflected in mirages for a thousand years and who will soon return in the flesh. One day in the garden, the black monk appears to the young man and holds the key either to enlightenment or to total devastation.

The cast for The Black Monk is: Bruce DuBose, Jonathan Brooks, Shannon Kearns-Simmons, Newton Pittman, Kent Williams, Stefanie Tovar, Richard Rollin, Ian Sinclair. Musicians will be Ariana Cook and Reynaldo Patiño.

“Mr. Rabe has heightened theatrical possibilities by extending descriptive passages into dramatic scenes that catch fire…The Black Monk is a heady event... Don't miss it."
~ Alvin Klein, The New York Times

"...staggeringly beautiful performances…The most sensitive and assured production in the company's 25-year history "
~ Lawson Taitte, Dallas Morning News

“dark and rich and splendid looking… the overall twilight feel of this production is one of its great, appealing accomplishments.”
~ Jerome Weeks, KERA Art & Seek

"The art of the imagination triumphs..."
~Alexandra Bonifield, OpEdNews

"This is a show you won't want to miss"
~ Martha Heimberg, Turtle Creek News

Photo: Katherine Owens

The Black Monk with Jonathan Brooks, Bruce DuBose, and Shannon Kearns-Simmons

Photo: Brian Barnaud

David Rabe (far right) in attendance 5/2/09 talking with Jonathan Brooks and Katherine Owens and Ashley Randall.

The World Premiere of
Port Twilight or A History of Science (A Chronicle of Folly, Wisdom and Madness)
A futuristic sci-fi thriller
Written by Len Jenkin
Directed by Katherine Owens
November 14th – December 12th, 2009

This fall the work of Obie Award winning playwright Len Jenkin is back on the Undermain stage with the world-premiere of Port Twilight, a futuristic sci-fi thriller. 1990 marked Undermain’s first Jenkin production with Poor Folks Pleasure. In 2006, working with Len in rehearsals, Undermain presented Mr. Jenkin’s Margo Veil: an entertainment, also directed by Katherine Owens, which was chosen by The Dallas Morning News as the number one pick of the seasons’ top ten productions. Now, the company has the opportunity to present the world premiere of this master playwright’s latest play, Port Twilight or The History of Science. Mr. Jenkins will be on hand to work with director Katherine Owens and the cast in rehearsal.

In the mysterious town of Port Twilight a macabre story unfolds with serio-comic dimensions helped along with a little song, dance and video imagery. An ensemble cast contemplates the post 9/11 American landscape while portraying a multitude of revolving characters including a B Movie production company, a team of strange dancing scientists, a wild, homeless Rabbi and an out of control Golem. The play’s mercurial structure mimics the actions of the human genome in this fascinating and ferocious history of high science.

"The play thrusts scientists and their work into the strange yet familiar environs of Port Twilight, an all purpose fantasy city incorporating images from our future and our past. In this landscape of dark magic and decay, other powers, as well as science, are capable of profoundly altering our lives”~ Len Jenkin on Port Twilight

Len Jenkin is a novelist, playwright, director, and screenwriter.
His novels include N Judah, New Jerusalem, and The Secret Life of Billy’s Uncle Myron (with Emily Jenkins).

Plays include Dark Ride, Pilgrims of the Night, Careless Love, My Uncle Sam, Limbo Tales, The Dream Express and Like I Say. His works for the stage have been produced throughout the United States, as well as in England, Germany, France, Denmark, and Japan.

His films include Blame it on the Night, Welcome to Oblivion, and American Notes.  

He has received many honors and awards, including three Obie Awards for directing and playwriting, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Award, a nomination for an Emmy Award, and four National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Mr. Jenkin holds a PhD in American Literature from Columbia University. He’s a professor in the Dramatic Writing Department, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.

“In his plays, Len Jenkin often takes us on dark midnight rides to mythic environments...he leads us through a stretch of the American landscape tantalizing our senses and creating a haunting world.”~ Mel Gussow, The New York Times

“…Unpredictable, structurally bizarre and strangely comic… Like magic realism, Jenkin's language is beautiful.”~ Jenny Sandman, Curtain Up

 “Len Jenkin has an unusual talent for reaching into shadowy places in the human psyche and coming up with evocative images.”~ Journal American (Seattle)

“He manipulates theatrical illusions with a playful manner that recalls Jorge Luis Borges, to disguise meditations on mortality.”~ Village Voice (New York)

The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac
Written and performed by Taylor Mac
February of 2010
Dates To Be Determined

The Undermain is thrilled to present the work of Taylor Mac, a Texas native and world- renowned performer. Mr. Mac describes himself as  “a theater artist working in the genre of pastiche,” and as a "cloon – a female clown.” By any account he is an incredible monologuist, playwright and performer who takes the art of drag performance to sublime heights. He has been named one of New York’s and the country’s best theater artists by American Theater Magazine, the Village Voice, Time Out NY, and The New York Press.

He is the recipient of a numerous grants including the Rockefeller Map Grant, The Creative Capital Grant, The James Hammerstein Award for playwriting, an Edward Albee Foundation Residency, The Ensemble Studio Theatre's New Voices Fellowship in playwriting, A Mabou Mines Suite (with collaborator Elizabeth Swados) and is currently a HERE Arts Center Resident Artist and a member of New Dramatists. He has performed his plays, The Young Ladies of…, Red Tide Blooming, (Performance Space 122) and The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac, in New York at P.S. 122 and HERE Arts Center, The Public Theatre and internationally. Taylor’s upcoming projects include the creation of a two-man show with Mandy Patinkin and himself, the epic-extravaganza The Lily’s Revenge, and a hand full of other insanely wonderful collaborations.

The Undermain is pleased to bring Taylor Mac to Dallas in The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac

Clad in exotic dress and sequined makeup Taylor Mac brings a showcase of his recent works to the stage with a multitude of costumes and props from a giant suitcase and accompanying himself on ukulele. The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac has played over 40 theatres world wide including:  the Sydney Opera House, The Public Theatre (Under the Radar Festival), London’s Soho theatre, Stockholm’s Sodra Teatern, Dublin’s Project Arts Center, Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival and The Spoleto Festival. A flamboyant chameleon of words, music, and sociopolitical tirades, Taylor Mac is a visual and vocal phenomenon. Mac employs gender-bending surrealism to explore the human condition and challenge the contemporary culture of fear.

“A Pierrot figure for the modern age.” ~ The (UK) Daily Telegraph

 “You marvel at how assured and in control this brash, genial performer is.”  ~ The New York Times

"An unflinching witness to a host of societies ills...linked together by a gentle impassioned humanity and a wry humor that can have you helpless with laughter, then overcome by an urge to weep." ~  The Herald

5 stars -- “ Quite the most distinctive and brilliant performer I've witnessed in ages." ~ The Scotsman

 “Mac is one of this country’s most exciting, heroic and disarmingly funny playwrights.” ~ American Theater Magazine

 “Taylor Mac seduces you, breaks your heart, patches it back up again and sews sequins along the scars.” ~  The Irish Times

 “Mac is a spectacularly accomplished performer…a grand showcase for this brave and constantly morphing/evolving pastiche artist” ~ NewYorkTheater.com

A Major Spring Production
To Be Announced
April 10th through May 8th
Directed by
Stan Wojewodski, Jr.

A director of international renown and a distinguished major player on the American theater scene for decades, Stan Wojewodski, Jr. is also familiar to Dallas audiences for his passionately intelligent productions of sweeping scope at the Dallas Theater Center. He directed critically acclaimed productions as diverse as Russian dramatist Alexander Ostrovsky’s A Family Affair, The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde and a new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice by Catherine Sheehy. Currently a Meadows Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at SMU, Stan Wojewodski, Jr. was Artistic Director of Yale Repertory Theatre and Dean of the Yale School of Drama for 11 years. He nourished the careers of playwrights Suzan-Lori Parks (winner of 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) and Eric Overmeyer; sent Triumph of Love by Jeffrey Stock and Susan Birkenhead to Broadway; and presented innovative dance-theater by choreographer Ralph Lemon that went on a successful national tour after premiering at Yale. Wojewodski’s productions at Yale include the premieres of Pentecost, Big Night, and Figaro Figaro.

Before his years at Yale, Wojewodski was the Artistic Director at Baltimore Center Stage for 14 years directing over 40 productions including the American premieres of plays by Edward Bond, Odon von Horvath, Vaclav Havel and Antonio Buero-Vallejo. Stan has also staged productions at, among others, the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Guthrie Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Old Globe, Mixed Blood, and Williamstown Theatre Festival, where he was an associate director. He has served on the board of directors for Theatre Communications Group, and he has been a frequent panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts.

“It is the human pull at the center of the Yale Rep. production of Candida that the director Stan Wojewodski Jr. elicits so compellingly.” ~The New York Times

“Best play of the season- Pentecost by David Edgar, directed by Stan Wojewodski Jr. Not to be forgotten: the immense vista summoned by the director.” ~The New York Times

“Stan Wojewodsk Jr. fancies the hold of old masters on new wave playwrights.” - Alvin Klein, The New York Times

“Stan Wojewodski Jr. has directed a perfectly classical Importance of Being Earnest.” - Lawson Taitte, The Dallas Morning News on the Dallas Theater Center Production.

“…director Stan Wojewodski Jr elicits virtuoso performances from all of his actors.” - Rohan Preston, Minneapolis Star Tribune on The Clean House at Mixed Blood Theatre.

“It's a lot of fun to see what crack actors and an on-top-of-his game director like Stan Wojewodski can do given this kind of classic material. Guest director Wojewodski, brings out every bit of venom in this poisonous piece. He has his actors going through their paces with polished precision and exuberant innovation...watch carefully or risk missing a rapid-fire set of comedic nuances.”- P. B. Miller, The Dallas Observer on A Family Affair, DTC.

Undermain’s 26th Season Lineup

The Black Monk by David Rabe
Wed. September 9th through Sat.October 3rd
Directed by Katherine Owens

Port Twilight or The History of Science by Len Jenkin
Sat. November 14th through Sat. December 12th
World Premiere Directed by Katherine Owens

The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac
by Taylor Mac
February, 2010. Dates to be determined
Performed by Taylor Mac

Spring Production: to be announced
directed by Stan Wojewodski, Jr.
April 10th through May 8th

Play Reading Series
To be scheduled throughout the season.
New plays, and classic plays being developed for new versions and translations

Photos from tha vault by Katherine Owens. (L-R: Goose and Tom Tom - 1989, the Undermain Theatre, Bloody Poetry - 1988)

Undermain Theatre performances are Wednesdays-Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. and Fridays-Saturdays at 8:15 p.m. Tickets are Weds $15, Thurs $15, Fri $20, and Sat $25. Undermain is located at 3200 Main Street at Murray Street in Deep Ellum. Discounts are available for seniors, students, KERA members and groups. Call 214.747.5515 or visit www.undermain.org.

ABOUT UNDERMAIN
Undermain Theatre, founded in 1984, is a company of artists that performs new and experimental works in Texas, New York, and Europe. The theater collaborates with playwrights, supports a theater archive and operates a theater under 3200 Main Street in Dallas’ legendary Deep Ellum. Call 214-747-2417 or visit www.undermain.org for more information.

Artistic Director: Katherine Owens. Executive Producer: Bruce DuBose. Associate Producer: Suzanne Thomas.