In The News

Undermain Theatre
to Bring Neil Young's Greendale to Ice Factory Festival in New York City

"The summer festival with the hippest downtown cred."
- TIMEOUT / NY

Undermain Theatre, through special arrangement with Wixen Music Publishing, is pleased to announce the transfer of its production of Neil Young's Greendale to this summers Ice Factory Festival presented by Soho Think Tank at the Ohio Theatre, 66 Wooster St. in New York City.

The Ice Factory Festival is an OBIE award-winning summer festival of new work where artists can take risks, try out new ideas, and bring their projects to a new level.

Plays introduced at the Ice Factory Festival have gone on to garner Drama Desk nominations, Obie Awards, Audience First Awards in Edinburgh, Off-Broadway productions, commercial runs, and national and international tours. ICE FACTORY 08 will mark the15th Anniversary of the festival.

Ice Factory Festivals Artistic Director, Robert Lyons has invited Undermain to perform Neil Young's Greendale on July 23-26, 2008. Undermain last performed at the Festival in the summer of 2000 when it presented its production of Lenora Champagne's Coaticook.

Neil Young's Greendale, the rock opera by the legendary singer - songwriter was adapted for the stage by Undermain Theatre and opened in Dallas on March 29, 2008. It runs through May 3, 2008. This song cycle has been compared to Thornton Wilder's Our Town and Sherwood Anderson's Winesberg Ohio as a portrait of the changing face of small town America. Performed with a live band and sung by an ensemble cast, Greendale explores the lives of three generations of the Green family through themes ranging from corruption to mass media consolidation to environmentalism.

The production will be performed by the original cast and live band composed of lead guitarist Kenny Withrow of New Bohemians. Paul Semrad of Course of Empire on bass, and Grammy winning drummer Alan Emertof Brave Combo. The production is directed by Undermain artistic director Katherine Owens.

"Greendale is an overwhelming experience, musically and theatrically."
-Lawson Taitte, The Dallas Morning News

"As presented by Undermain Theatre, Neil Young's Greendale is a hellacious piece of rock n roll This baby kicks; youre not likely to hear a livelier performance in any area theater"
.-Jerome Weeks, KERA 90.1 FM

"Undermain Theatres performance of Neil Young's Greendale takes the rock opera close to its source: the sonic undercurrent in every small town becoming a strange intersection of American dreams, sonic highways, and melodic bridges reminiscent of Wilder's Our Town."
- Cheryl Anderson, Edge Dallas

"The dense, driving sound goes right through the audience and makes for a terrific night of music and theater."
-Martha Heimberg, Turtle Creek News

The Dallas Morning News
REVIEW: 'Greendale' will have you revved up to save the planet
By Lawson Taitte

“…Greendale is an overwhelming experience, musically and theatrically.”

“…The singing actors all have stunning moments, but the three instrumentalists are the real stars here. Kenny Withrow of New Bohemians leads from the guitar; Paul Semrad of Course of Empire plays bass; and Alan Emert of Brave Combo is on drums. The music drives this show like the rolling river mentioned in one of the songs.
They're calling this Greendale a rock opera, but it's really a fresh form of its own. The musicians are on the greatly expanded Undermain stage the whole time, sometimes stepping forward into the central spotlight. The actors, too, sit or move around, pantomiming some clarifying action when they're not singing, breaking into dance that looks spontaneous but is carefully integrated.

… this bunch will have you leaving the theater rarin' to go and determined to save the planet.”

Turtle Creek News
Review: Neil Young’s Music Rocks Undermain
By Martha Heimberg

"Undermain’s intimate boutique theater on Main Street in Deep Ellum is suddenly huge. The basement playing space reaches back to the brick walls and over to the far corners. There’s room for a woman on a bicycle to ride round the big concrete columns – and room for a big cast of singers and a stunning trio of musicians to get the whole place rocking to Neil Young’s pounding rhythms. The dense, driving sound goes right through the audience and makes for a terrific night of music and theater.

“Greendale” is a kind of pop-rock opera, smartly directed together by Katherine Owens as a rhythmic, wave-on-wave series of events. Owens brings together Neil Young’s spotty impression of the emotional life of citizens in a small, close-knit community by virtually eliminating the space between songs, and clarifying lyrics with actors silently dancing or playing out the story. It works; somehow you see a plot emerge from the series of nine songs with no narrative voice over.

The whole town is affected when young Jed (handsome, clear-voiced Jonathan Brooks) is led astray by the devilish drug dealer (a sleazy, omnipresent Newton Pittman), and ends up shooting the town’s good cop. Sun Green (fetching Kristen Campbell in blonde braids and tight jeans) is lost and angry. The policeman’s widow (touching, dark-eyed Stefanie Tovar) mourns, and the media swoops down on the local community. Soon the serious painter puts on new glasses provided by the devil, and sees that he can sell his work if he sells out.

As the title indicates, the destructive forces at work here are withering the once-green haven. The guitars are soaring solo, the drums are pounding, and the harmonica is wailing in sadness “Be the Rain,” is evocative and powerfully delivered by the whole cast. And you’re left to decide if all destruction – to lives or to the natural world – are made of the same web of deception and violence. An interesting question."

KERA: Arts & Culture
By Jerome Weeks

"As presented by the Undermain Theatre, Neil Young’s Greendale is a hellacious piece of rock ‘n’ roll… This baby kicks; you’re not likely to hear a livelier performance in any area theater."

Undermain Theatre presents the theatrical premiere of
NEIL YOUNG'S GREENDALE
Featuring superstars of Deep Ellum music scene

Undermain Theatre, through special arrangement with Wixen Music Publishing, is pleased to announce the theatrical premiere of Neil Young’s Greendale. The rock opera by the legendary singer - songwriter will be adapted for the stage by Undermain Theatre on March 29-May 3, 2008. This song cycle has been compared to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and Sherwood Anderson’s Winesberg Ohio as a portrait of the changing face of small town America.

The cast is Bruce DuBose, Marjorie Hayes, Richard Rollin, Stefanie Tovar, Ian Sinclair, Kristen Campbell, Jonathan Brooks, Regina Yunker, and Newton Pittman.

The live band for Undermain’s upcoming production of Neil Young’s Greendale will be composed of legendary musicians of the Deep Ellum music scene. Leading the way as Music Director and lead guitarist is Kenny Withrow of New Bohemians. Paul Semrad of Course of Empire will perform on bass guitar. Joining the band on drums is two time Grammy award winner Alan Emert, of Brave Combo.

Performed with a live band and sung by an ensemble cast, Greendale explores the lives of three generations of the Green family through themes ranging from corruption to mass media consolidation to environmentalism.

Greendale was released in 2003 as an album (voted one of the best albums of 2003 by Rolling Stone Magazine), a film, and a rock tour. It is soon to be published as a graphic novel and this spring it will be produced as a rock opera with an incredible live band premiering at Undermain.

“The listener is left practically breathless with the beauty, hope, pathos and power of the music and the story.” – Neil Strauss, New York Times

Neil Young's GREENDALE
a rock opera
adapted for the stage
by Undermain Theatre

March 29 - May 3, 2008
Previews March 26, 27, 28
*** World Premiere ***

* above photograph by Michael Ochs Archives/Stringer

Forever (Neil) Young: Greendale Goes Undermain in March

Dallas Observer, December 27, 2007

The Snow Queen in The Dallas Morning News

CLICK HERE to read Lawson Taitte's (of The Dallas Morning News) story featuring Lynne Avarez, UMT and The Snow Queen

Undermain Theatre continues
2007-2008 Season
The Snow Queen by Lynne Alvarez

Undermain Theatre, the award-winning theater company founded in Dallas in 1984, announces the second play of its lineup of performances for 07-08. Undermain’s 24th season will continue its tradition of presenting some of the most masterful and innovative writers working today.

Continuing the season Dec.1-Dec.22 2007 will be the world premiere of The Snow Queen, a fairy tale for strange adults, by distinguished playwright and poet Lynne Alvarez. Overlapping stories of delusion and love set in Copenhagen in the early 1890s, The Snow Queen is the tale of an older woman, a younger man, a younger woman and many birds.

As adults we are told that we must grow up and leave the fairytale world behind but Lynne Alvarez, distinguished playwright and poet, has a different idea. She has bridged this gap and created a link to the world of fairytales in this new play commissioned by Undermain Theatre. In The Snow Queen, Alvarez has fashioned a beautiful ice covered world set in Denmark in the early 1890s to showcase the grandeur that is love. As in most fairytales, this story too revolves around the ideals of love and the lengths we go for love. But just as the seasons change, just as birds migrate, just as snows melt, so do our feelings, until we find that one true love.

Nina, our Snow Queen, has migrated south yet once again to find her “boy” for the season. Upon running into Christian, she chooses him and whisks him away up north for the winter. But relationships are never that easy, and even though Nina has all the glitz and glamour on her side, as the winter draws to an end and spring appears, Analiese, our young heroin, journeys north to find her love. Thus a timeless tale wrought with danger, adventure, and love, The Snow Queen is a fairytale for adults that still believe in magic.

"The plays of Lynne Alvarez possess a poetry and eerie quietude that is unique in our dramatic literature.” - Mac Wellman, playwright

"Lynne Alvarez is an enchantress. Her plays unfurl like flying carpets—the joy, the daring, the loop, the loops...prepare yourself for an exhilarating flight."--Tina Howe, playwright

"In her magical and mysterious plays, Alvarez creates characters filled with longing, imagination and an outrageous sense of humor. Her highly theatrical landscapes invite us into a world where towers rise up, people flee their pasts, love appears around surprising corners and the poet in all of us is reborn. Alvarez has a unique and joyful voice that celebrates the complexities of the American experience in all its diverse and startling incarnations. This collection is a major achievement by one of the best kept secrets of the American Theater." --Carey Perloff, Artistic Director, American Conservatory Theatre

Directed by Katherine Owens, the play features Christian Taylor, Rhonda Boutte, Kent Williams, Shannon Kearns-Simmons, Anastasia Munoz, and Matthew Posey.

About Shining City, Glen Arbery of Park Cities People says:

"It’s a long way from Shakespearean blank verse, but in Conor McPherson’s Shining City at Undermain... language itself becomes the primary focus.

It’s too bad this excellent play has only this weekend left in its run. If you have one play to see this month, make it this one.

Conor McPherson’s dialogue in Shining City makes David Mamet’s look a little formal by contrast. Set in the office of a former priest, now a therapist, the play is about two actions crossing each other — the struggle of a man grieving over his dead wife and his own sins, and the former priest’s continuing crisis of faith. This production is close to perfect, by far the best thing I’ve seen at Undermain since Caryl Churchill’s A Number several years ago, and easily the best drama in Dallas this year.

The Undermain’s space, always a little hard on people with claustrophobia, works beautifully for a set in which the therapist’s couch and chair facing the audience downstage create an immediate intimacy.

Bruce DuBose and Anthony Ramirez star in Conor McPherson’s Shining City at the Undermain.But it’s McPherson’s language that’s stunning. Sometimes a character goes through five or six seconds and 10 different starts just trying to find the right way to get a sentence out, but it never seems like a contrivance, and the actors under Katherine Owens’ direction are pitch perfect. In fact, Bruce DuBose as John, the man grieving for his dead wife, has a long monologue in the third scene that has you, on the one hand, completely lost in what he says, and on the other hand, marveling at the easy naturalness with which he gives this extremely difficult dialogue life. DuBose hits every emotion perfectly. If there’s better acting than this in Dallas, I haven’t seen it.

Anthony Ramirez as the priest-therapist (still a confessor, but without the power to absolve) has much less to say, but he gives his character a slightly creepy borderline identity. This is a man unsure of his own standing in sexuality (there’s one gay scene), spiritually hungry, full of guilt, cruel without meaning to be.

Shannon Kearns-Simmons as his fiancée, the mother of his child who supported him through his education as a therapist after he left the priesthood, has a pure believability. "

NOH
Angels, Demons & Dreamers

WHAT: A performance of
NOH – ANGELS, DEMONS, & DREAMERS
Japanese masterpieces of the supernatural

WHO: Adaptations written by Fred Curchack
Created and Performed by Laura Jorgensen
and Fred Curchack

WHEN: Dates: Thursdays to Saturdays, Nov. 1-17.
Times: Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8:15 p.m.

WHERE: Undermain Theatre, 3200 Main Street in Deep Ellum

TIX: Tickets are Thurs $15, Fri $20, and Sat $25. Discounts are available for seniors, students and KERA members. Call 214.747.5515 or visit www.undermain.org.

DESCRIPTION: NOH – Angels, Demons, and Dreamers is an evening of adaptations of five supernatural Japanese Noh plays and Kyogen. Using their acclaimed theatrical magic, Laura Jorgensen and Fred Curchack transform these timeless masterpieces into artistic adventures for the modern Western audience.

Noh plays are sublime poetic dance-dramas from 14th-15th Century Japan. Kyogen are outrageous comic interludes, performed in-between the intense Noh plays.

Plays include: DREAM OF KANTAN, SOTOBA KOMACHI, THE BIRD-CATCHER IN HELL, SHUNKAN IN EXILE, and HAGOROMO.

1. KANTAN is the tale of a magic pillow that gives dreams of the future.
2. SOTOBA KOMACHI is about an aged poetess who becomes possessed by her rejected lover’s ghost.
3. THE BIRD-CATCHER IN HELL is a hilarious farce about a bird-catcher’s encounter with the Lord of Death.
4. SHUNKAN is the story of a Zen Buddhist priest exiled on Devil’s Island.
5. HAGOROMO is a fairytale about a fisherman who steals an Angel’s feather robe.

BIOS: Fred Curchack has created over seventy original ensemble theatre pieces and twenty-six solos. His performances have been featured at dozens of international theatre festivals. He has received the Gold Medal at the International Festival of Solo Theatre, the American Theatre Wing Award, Critics’ Awards in L.A., S.F., Dallas, Austin, and his work has been "Best of the week" in the L.A. Times, “Top ten of the year" in The New York Times, "Top ten of the decade" in the Austin Chronicle, and in the "Top ten of all-time" in The Dallas Morning News. He has received funding from Creative Capital, the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts International, The Henson Foundation and he is a Guggenheim Fellow. After receiving a drama degree from the High School of Performing Arts in N.Y., and a BA and MA in Theater from Queens College, Curchack studied Japanese Noh with Sadayo Kita, Indian Kathakali with Krishnan Nambudiri, Balinese Topeng with Nyomen Wenten, choreography with Alwyn Nikolais, and he trained with Grotowski’s Polish Theater Lab. He has taught theatre at the United Nations International School, N.Y.; Sonoma State University, California; and he is currently Professor of Art and Performance at The University of Texas at Dallas. This is his fifth theatrical collaboration with Laura.

Laura Jorgensen has performed in Craig Lucas’ Blue Window, Reckless, Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest, Christopher Durang’s Laughing Wild, Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance and Three Tall Women, Terrence McNally’s A Perfect Ganesh, G.B. Shaw’s Heartbreak House, Alan Bennet’s Talking Heads, and Athol Fugard’s The Road to Mecca. She created roles in the world premieres of John O’Keefe’s Glamour and Queer Theory. She was an original member of Western Union Theater Company at Cinnabar Theater. While living in Budapest, she worked with The English Theater Company and directed their production of Our Country’s Good. Recently, she performed in Porchlight Theatre’s production of Oscar Wilde’s, The Ideal Husband. She has created and performed five shows with Fred, including The Mental Traveler, Golden Buddha Beach, Sexual Myth-Stories, and An American Dream Play.

Reviews of other shows by Laura and Fred:

"Fred Curchack, master magician of performance art, has just doubled his fire power by hooking up with legendary North Bay actress Laura Jorgensen. … an overwhelming presentation … Golden Buddha Beach is innovative, challenging and very, very funny … Jorgensen has brought the missing piece to Curchack's challenging, jigsaw puzzle of multi-media madness. The soul-baring narration, wit, unique stagecraft and jaw-dropping acting and singing will win over all but the most conservative of theatergoers.”
-- Ron Singer, Sonoma Sun

“One of the year’s ten most noteworthy plays…when Mr. Curchack is on stage, imagination knows no limitations…theatrical virtuoso.”
-- Mel Gussow, The New York Times

“Fred and Laura want to show you their pictures and tell you about their big vacation. Take them up on it. It's an enlightening experience. … Fred, of course, is Dallas' resident theatrical wizard and performance artist extraordinaire …Dallas theater fans are well acquainted with Mr. Curchack's bag of theatrical tricks … these techniques have reached a miraculous state of refinement … Golden Buddha Beach is probably the most entertaining and most powerful to date. … It's when they become fully themselves, exhibiting human behavior at its best and its worst, that they really get to you."
-- Lawson Taitte, The Dallas Morning News

“American Dream Play” puts Fred Curchack and Laura Jorgensen on the “A” team of performance artists in America.??… This production is a joy. The laughter these two evoke in sophisticated audiences may be as important as the revelations … a good part of the joy they bring is through their clowning. Jorgensen and Curchack are wonderful clowns in the European sense: They are poets who can do and be anything.
-- Ron Singer, Sonoma Sun

'Shining City' beams at Undermain

"...a superb version of this otherworldly Irish saga."

"...great acting as active expression or great acting as intense concentration. They're both on the Undermain stage in 'Shining City.'"

- The Dallas Morning News review

Undermain's 'Shining City' continues tradition of ghostly plays

- The Dallas Morning News article and slideshow

PRESS RELEASE for Shining City

Undermain Theatre, the award-winning theater company founded in Dallas in 1984, announces the first play of its new lineup of performances beginning September 2007. Undermain’s 24th season will continue its tradition of presenting some of the most masterful and innovative writers working today.

Launching the season Sept. 22-Oct 20, 2007 will be the Southwest premiere of Shining City, the Tony-award nominee by Conor McPherson. Originally produced at the Gate in Dublin and Royal Court Theater in London to critical acclaim, Shining City is set in Dublin, where a guilt-ridden man reaches out to a therapist after seeing the ghost of his recently deceased wife. The therapist, a former priest, wrestles with his own demons. Shining City will be directed by Katherine Owens. The cast is Bruce DuBose, Anthony Ramirez, Shannon Kearns-Simmons, and Brandon Weinbrenner

“…moving, compassionate, ingenious and absolutely gripping…[McPherson is] the finest dramatist of his generation.” —Daily Telegraph (London).

Undermain Theatre performances are Wednesdays-Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. and Fridays-Saturdays at 8:15 p.m. Tickets are Wed and Thurs $15, Fri $20, and Sat $25. Discounts are available for seniors, students and KERA members. Call 214.747.5515 or click here. For press information: Lisa Taylor, 214-943-1099 or lisatmp@swbell.net

2007-2008 Season Announced

Shining City
By Conor McPherson
Directed by Katherine Owens
A chilling urban ghost story
Sept. 22-Oct 20, 2007
Previews Sept. 19, 20, 21
Press night Sept. 22
5 weeks
Regional premiere
1 hour and 15 minutes

The Snow Queen
By Lynne Alvarez
Directed by Katherine Owens
A fairy tale for strange adults
Dec. 1—Dec. 22, 2007
Previews Nov. 28, 29, 30
Press night Dec. 1
4 Weeks
World premiere
1 hour and 15 minutes

To be announced soon!
A rock opera
Adapted for the stage by Bruce DuBose
and Katherine Owens
March 29-May 3, 2008
Previews March 26, 27, 28
Press night March 29
6 Weeks
World premiere
1 hour and 40 minutes

Undermain Theatre performances are Wednesdays-Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. and Fridays-
Saturdays at 8:15 p.m. Tickets are Wed and Thurs $15, Fri $20, and Sat $25. Discounts are
available for seniors, students and KERA members. Call 214.747.5515 or visit
www.undermain.org. For press information: Lisa Taylor, 214-943-1099 or lisatmp@swbell.net

Reviews for The Appeal:

The Dallas Morning News
Romantics get wacky in 'The Appeal'

Pegasus News

In Memoriam: Happy Yancey

Beloved Undermain ensemble member
Happy Yancey, 61, an accomplished costume designer, painter and art historian, died suddenly Friday in Dallas. Born Martha Jane Yancey in 1945 to Sherod Foster and Mary Frances Cunningham Yancey, she grew up in University Park and attended the Hockaday School. Even in infancy she was called Happy, and the name Happy Yancey was well known in the theater and arts communities from New York to California and Europe.

She began painting at an early age and later became interested in costume design. She attended the Arkansas Arts Center School of Art and Drama in Little Rock, Ark., and the University of Texas. At UT she studied with Paul Reinhardt and Lucy Barton. She also studied archetypal psychology at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. Her design credits number in the hundreds, including independent films, Arkansas Arts Center productions, and the Undermain Theater in Dallas.

She also designed costumes for the SMU opera series and shows for production in New York City and Los Angeles. Many shows she not only designed but supervised construction of the costumes.

Happy was an important part of the arts and theater community in Dallas and will be deeply missed. As one of her friends said, Happy's passing will "leave a big hole" in that community. Happy spent every summer of her life in Harpswell, Maine, where she is survived by family and many friends. Above all else, Happy will be remembered for her warmth, generosity and sense of humor. She had many friends throughout the United States and maintained lively relationships with most of them.

She is survived by her daughter, Martha Devin O'Neal of Dallas; a granddaughter, Vanya; her mother, Mary Frances Yancey of University Park; her brother, David Cunningham Yancey of Dallas; cousins Sherod Yancey of Harpswell, Maine, and Stephen Yancey of Dallasldest brother, Sherod Foster Yancey Jr., predeceased her.