Same Boat Theater Collective Premieres THE EMERYVILLE HORROR
UPDATED (6/24/20): Same Boat Theater Collective, the Bay Area’s first environmental justice theater company and a participant in the inaugural PlayGround Innovator Incubator, presents their debut production, the world premiere of THE EMERYVILLE HORROR: A TALE OF ENVIRONMENTAL VENGEANCE in a full livestream immersive production featuring a global cast from San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London and New Delhi, July 10-12. Tickets are $15 ($30 for First Class Fare), with reduced prices available for students and people in need. To purchase tickets online, visit https://tickets.playground-sf.org/TheatreManager/1/online?event=241.
Written by Bay Area playwrights Linda Amayo-Hassan, Lynn Aylward (lead writer), Lisa Kang (lead writer), Ellen Koivisto and Bridgette Dutta Portman and directed by Salim Razawi (Bay Area) the cast includes Marissa Ampon (Bay Area), Lou Cooper (Bay Area), Pamela Drummer-Williams (Bay Area), Peter Fitzsimmons (Bay Area), Piyush Kumar (New Delhi), Rosemarie Kingfisher (lBay Area), Sidal Kekilli (London), Sundarri Maria (Los Angeles), Amytza Maskati (lBay Area), Don Nguyen (Bay Area), Vinh Nguyen (Bay Area), Gloria Stanley (Bay Area) and John Scott Richardson (New York). Image and Sound Design is provided by Shubhra Prakash(New Delhi) with Zoom Tech Management by Marissa Ampon (Bay Area) and Potrero Stage, San Francisco.
The production is at the cutting edge of post-pandemic arts. While many theaters are producing plays via Zoom, The Emeryville Horror goes a step further and turns this constraint into a creative advantage. The cast comes together from three continents and five time zones, and performances will be simultaneously streaming around the globe. At each of the two performances, the audience will devise an ending to the story for the actors to improvise. Just as we face the daily life challenges of COVID 19, nobody knows how it will end!
This new play is a horror story that couldn’t be more frighteningly timely. As the world deals with climate change, the play brings us to a world where large chunks of land, once sacred indigenous burial grounds, as well as people from vulnerable populations are vanishing in Emeryville. Citizens take matters into their own hands to figure out why, as elected officials pursue their relationships with chemical companies.
With the onslaught of the second pandemic, systemic racism, following on the heels of COVID 19, this production becomes even more relevant as it illustrates how marginalized people suffer the most from climate change. It amplifies the spirit of the protests as we see people of color, an Ohlone elder, a trans teen, a Vietnamese refugee and Latinx immigrants triumph over bias and oppression.
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Performance One
July 10 7pm San Francisco/PDT
10pm New York/EDT
July 11 3am London/BST
730am New Delhi/IST
Performance Two
July 12 9am San Francisco/PDT
12pm New York/EDT
5pm London/BST
930pm New Delhi/IST
THE EMERYVILLE HORROR is presented as part of PlayGround’s Innovator Incubator Initiative.
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Same Boat Theater Collective’s mission is to bring innovative, meaningful theatrical experiences about environmental issues to as diverse an audience as possible, with the goal of generating a critical mass of individuals to act against environmental degradation. We aim to change the current narrative by telling stories about our biosphere for all species who live here. Details at https://www.sameboattheater.org. Same Boat Theater Collective is fiscally sponsored by PlayGround and is a proud alumnus of PlayGround’s Innovator Incubator program for new theater companies. Support for this production comes from a Theatre Bay Area CA$H Grant and generous individual donors.
PlayGround is a leading playwright incubator and theatre community hub in the Bay Area, with a deep commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Under the leadership of Co-Founder and Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann, PlayGround’s mission is to support the development of significant new local voices for the theatre, helping to launch these writers onto the national scene. PlayGround operates Potrero Stage, a 99-seat state-of-the-art performance venue and home to some of the Bay Area’s leading new play developers and producers, including PlayGround, Crowded Fire, Golden Thread, and Playwrights Foundation. For more information about PlayGround, visit https://playground-sf.org.
The PlayGround Innovator Incubator is a multi-year intensive incubation program to support theatrical innovation and the launch of new innovative theatrical production companies. Same Boat Theater Collective is pleased to be part of the inaugural Innovator Incubator cohort of 2019. For more information about the Innovator Incubator, visit https://playground-sf.org/incubator.