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BELLA UNION SHOWS |
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Lady Susan July 2-26, 2009 |
ABOUT THE PLAY Meet Jane Austen's most shocking antiheroine! An early novella by the acclaimed author, Lady Susan has rarely been staged and never filmed, despite its compelling heroine and witty plot. Fascination and deception come naturally to the beautiful, widowed Lady Susan who manages, "without the charm of youth," to captivate every man who comes within her orbit. She manipulates various lovers while scheming to marry off her daughter, all to the chagrin of her highly respectable former sister-in-law. Click here for more! |
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| Selections from the novels of Jane Austen adapted by Christine U'Ren directed by Candice M. Milan* April 16, 2009 |
ABOUT THE PLAY As a special event for students taking Professor Stephen Arkin's course on Jane Austen, Bella Union Theatre Company visited the classroom to perform three scenes from three of Austen's mature novels: Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion, and to discuss staging literary works with the students. CRITICAL RESPONSE |
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Lady Susan staged reading April 26, 2008 |
ABOUT THE PLAY Meet Jane Austen's most shocking antiheroine! An early novella by the acclaimed author, Lady Susan has rarely been staged and never filmed, despite its fascinating heroine and witty plot. Bella Union worked with the Jane Austen Society of North America, Northern California region, and the English Department of San Francisco State University (Beverly Voloshin, chair) to perform a new staged reading of the play-in-progress, and get feedback from the experts. CRITICAL RESPONSE PRODUCTION NOTES |
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MEMBER PROJECT Performed October 3 to 13, 2007 click here for more info |
ABOUT THE PLAY ERC staged readings of a series of eight new works-in-progress by local playwrights. Two Bella Union company members had pieces accepted for the series. Gene Mocsy's Pandemic, the story of a cruise ship overtaken by zombies, was played to comic and chilling effect by cast members Martin Boswell, Reg Clay, Craig Dickerson, Amanda Krampf, Peter Matthews, Nick A. Olivero, and Elissa Stebbins. Christine U'Ren's Lady Susan, adapted from the novel by Jane Austen, was performed with true English aplomb by Wylie Herman, Amanda Krampf, Celia Maurice, Gene Mocsy, Craig Souza, Elissa Stebbins, and Andrew Westhoff. |
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MEMBER PROJECT Performed May 10 to May 14, 2007 and May 17, 19 and 20 click here for more info |
ABOUT THE PLAY Bertolt Brecht's Fear and Misery of the Third Reich is a collection of scenes showing the creeping terror and demoralization ordinary Germans experienced while living under Hitler's regime. Brecht wrote the pieces over the course of several years, from 1935 to 1938; several are often performed as stand-alone one-acts. ERC is one of the very few companies to stage the collection as a complete work, which, as ERC wrote, builds in intensity until "it urges us to resistance and action". Bella Union company member Christine U'Ren made a rare foray into acting for this compelling project. CRITICAL RESPONSE |
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The Ambassador's Holiday Short film made for the 48 Hour Film Project Screened on June 29, 2006 |
ABOUT THE FILM Participants in the 48 Hour Film Project have just 48 consecutive hours, Friday to Sunday, to write, cast, shoot, score, and edit a short film. Each film must include an assigned character, prop, and line of dialogue. The movie's genre is drawn out of a hat. Bella Union roamed the colorful streets of San Francisco to create The Ambassador's Holiday, a darkly humorous story of international intrigue. Under the direction of Gene Mocsy, company members created a basic storyline, then improvised all dialogue on-camera. |
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MEMBER PROJECT Performed February 28 to April 1, 2006 click here for more info |
ABOUT THE PLAY ERC's sixth one-act festival included works by August Strindberg, Tennessee Williams, and Federico Garcia Lorca. Bella Union company member Gene Mocsy acted in two plays, Playing with Fire, by Strindberg, and And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens, by Williams. Company member Christine U'Ren designed costumes for both of those shows, as well as The Love of Don Perlimplin for Belisa in His Garden, by Lorca. CRITICAL RESPONSE |
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Improper Ambitions: Two Women in the Paris Art World Performed from September 9 to October 2, 2005 click here to see pictures
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ABOUT THE PLAY CRITICAL RESPONSE PRODUCTION NOTES |
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Women in the Louvre staged reading Performed on January 19, 2005 click here to see pictures |
ABOUT THE PLAY Bella Union plans to stage a full-scale production of the script in September 2005, at the Rhino Studio Theatre in San Francisco, CA. PRODUCTION NOTES |
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Lysistrata staged reading Performed on March 3, 2003 |
ABOUT THE PLAY From the Lysistrata Project website: "On Monday, 03/03/03, Fifty-nine countries hosted 1,029 readings of Lysistrata, Aristophanes' anti-war comedy, to protest the Bush Administration's unilateral war on Iraq…there was a reading in every single U.S. state. PRODUCTION NOTES |
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Demon_Industry Performed from October 25 through November 17, 2002 |
ABOUT THE PLAY Full-scale production of Demon_Industry began a year after its staged reading (see below). With the exception of Ms. Milan and Ms. Hepps, it featured a new cast, whose backgrounds enriched the script with personal detail. In front of an audience, the play revealed itself to have an edgy balance of comic observation and chilling violence. Readers in the audience recognized the story framework of Henry James' novella The Turn of the Screw. Additional material was gathered by the playwright during "crunch time" at Electronic Arts in Redwood Shores. PRODUCTION NOTES |
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Devouring Time Performed on |
ABOUT THE PLAY CRITICAL RESPONSE PRODUCTION NOTES |
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Demon_Industry staged reading Performed on August 16, 2001 |
ABOUT THE PLAY Bella Union improvised this play in the basement of a San Francisco office building, until security caught us. We were determined to develop a play that would actually scare people raised on horror films. The framework was Henry James' novella The Turn of the Screw. We layered in goth culture, high tech office stress, bloodthirsty videogames, and a SWAT team. Each actor was kept in the dark about each others' secrets and no one anticipated the terrifying final scene. Candice, playing the heroine Jessica, was ignorant of the horrifying backstory that doomed her character…until it was too late. It was thrilling to hear an audience gasp at a staged reading—and even more rewarding to hear they could follow the plot. PRODUCTION NOTES |
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La Ronde Directed by Daria Hepps Performed from February 9 to March 4, 2001 |
ABOUT THE PLAY Written between 1897-98, La Ronde was considered by its author to be too scandalous for publication. It was a word-of-mouth sensation based on a limited edition of 200 copies Schnitzler printed for friends in 1900. The 1903 trade edition was attacked as subversive and obscene, and the press refused to review it. The police curtailed a public reading in Vienna. The publication was confiscated and banned for nearly 20 years in Germany; the ban was only lifted following a court trial. An unauthorized production in Budapest was banned in 1912. The play's official premiere in Vienna in 1921 was accompanied by further protests and proto-Nazi reviews claiming the play was "Jewish filth." CRITICAL RESPONSE “La Ronde is marvelous historical material, interesting and funny, full of dirty anthropological details about Old World sexual manners…" PRODUCTION NOTES |
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