EURYDICE

by Sarah Ruhl
directed by Frank Condon

April 17 – May 16, 2010

:Love and grief, life and death are both endless and tentative, fixed and mutable in the strange world of "Eurydice," the devastatingly lovely -- and just plain devastating--theatrical gloss on the Orpheus myth by the inventive young playwright Sarah Ruhl."                                                                 
                         ~   NY Times

Four Stars ****

“… trippy, bold, challenging.
A poetic vision unlike any other.”
 
~ The Sacramento Bee

Highest Rating
“Sometimes an artist who has enjoyed a notable, long, successful run
decides it’s time to go, and very consciously declares, ‘The end.’
Shakespeare did it with The Tempest.

And that’s what Frank Condon, who has directed an astonishingly
strong sequence of shows under the River Stage banner over the
past 16 years does with Eurydice … .

 … one of the most aching and memorable expressions of  grief and loss
this critic has seen on the stage. …. a vividly clear- and hallucinatory-
plunge into the agony and loneliness of the final, unalterable farewell. … powerful … visceral … awesome … .

It is a memorable farewell from a director who’s given us
many fine shows through the years.”

    ~ Sacramento News & Review

The Playwright’s Festival of New Works

directed by Frank Condon

July 2010

Highly regarded, and gaining a growing national reputation for developing new plays, including seven world premieres to date, among them Gunfighter: A Gulf War Chronicle, Ghost Dance, and The Scottsboro Boys. New plays are work-shopped in rehearsal and given staged readings followed by discussions between playwright, director and audiences.

July 16 and 17, 2010 at 8:00 p.m.

CONFESSIONS OF A PULPETEER

This one-man show with guitar and back up fiddles and song, area local Lee Boek explores the rise and fall of his career as a fundamentalist preacher, from his childhood days listening to fire and brimstone sermons on the radio to his travels across America as a young itinerant preacher. When his seriously epileptic son becomes an emblem of what it means to be excluded, Boek reexamines his faith.

This project includes musicians of the highest quality from the Boston folk music scene. You won't want to miss it!

Friday July 30 and
Saturday July 31, 2010 at 8:00 p.m.

"THE LITTLE MERMAID IS NOT FOR CHILDREN "
by Alina Trowbridge

Our playwright is Chair of the Board of Directors of the Playwright's Center of San Francisco, and has had her work seen often in SF. This intriguing play deals with three sisters of an overbearing, operatic mother, who are dreamed to be mermaids and her mother a sea witch. A fascinating work to end our 15th Anniversary Season.