ARTISTS REPERTORY THEATRE’S 2015/16 SEASON 

The Understudy 
by Theresa Rebeck
Sept 8 – Oct 4
Alder Stage
An understudy rehearsal for a fictional Kafka play on Broadway teeters on the edge of reality when Harry – the understudy for Jake, who is the understudy for Bruce, a Hollywood action star about to land a multimillion-dollar part – must work with the ill-fated production’s exasperated stage manager whose life he ruined long ago. The Understudy is a raucously funny existential exposé ...
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ARTISTS REPERTORY THEATRE’S 2015/16 SEASON 

The Understudy 
by Theresa Rebeck
Sept 8 – Oct 4
Alder Stage
An understudy rehearsal for a fictional Kafka play on Broadway teeters on the edge of reality when Harry – the understudy for Jake, who is the understudy for Bruce, a Hollywood action star about to land a multimillion-dollar part – must work with the ill-fated production’s exasperated stage manager whose life he ruined long ago. The Understudy is a raucously funny existential exposé ...
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As my last two posts prove, I have been neglecting updating my website.  I'm happy to announce my second season--the 2014/15 season--at Artists Rep.  2015/16 planning begins!

ARTISTS REPERTORY THEATRE’S 2014/15 SEASON

Intimate Apparel
by Lynn Nottage
Guest Director TBA
Sept 9 – Oct 5
Portland Premiere 
A riveting, romantic tale by this Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright about the empowerment of Esther, an African American seamstress in 1905 NYC, who creates exquisite lingerie for both Fifth Avenu...

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I meant to post this 3 months ago!  8 shows in our two spaces.  Here they are:

http://www.artistsrep.org/learn-about-us/our-201314-season.aspx

ARTISTS REPERTORY THEATRE’S 2013/14 SEASON

The Big Meal 
Sep 3 - Oct 6 
Written by Dan LeFranc 
Directed by Dámaso Rodriguez 
West Coast Premiere
Set in a quintessential American restaurant, entire lives whiz by for a modern family whose stage and age are short-order fare. From birth to that inevitable last course – and every corndog, calamari and Cadilla...

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To kick off the new year, I had the pleasure of spending three days in rehearsal with playwright Ellen Simon and an extraordinary cast led by Marsha Mason and Mary Steenburgen for the Pasadena Playhouse Hothouse reading of "Aunt Stossie's Coming for Five Days.

http://pasadenaplayhouse.org/blog/2013/01/05/marsha-mason-and-more-to-star-in-pasadena-playhouses-aunt-stossies-coming-for-five-days-18-9-broadwayworld-com/


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 Damaso Rodriguez to head Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland

By David Ng

December 6, 2012, 2:23 p.m.

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I am honored to be a finalist in the company of such great directors...
 

Bill Rauch Wins Zelda Fichandler Award

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`The Doctor's Dilemma' at A Noise Within in Pasadena explores timeless issues

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I love scenic designer Susan Gratch's design for our show.  Here's her rendering for the first of the play's four locations.  We head into tech rehearsals next week.  I'm looking forward to seeing this image come to life.  We open Oct. 20 after several previews.




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I'm working with a wonderful cast on Martyna Majok fantastic new play set in Newfoundland.  This is part of the Summer Playwright's Festival, which includes 22 plays read over the course of 8 days.  All performances serve as benefit for The Road Theatre Company.

On the rocky shores of Petty Harbour, Newfoundland, a house stands against a storm. Outside, the boats cling to their anchors and the sea churns, waiting. One by one, three banished sons return home and discover their fisherman fat...

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Excited to be returning for my 4th production at A Noise Within.  This more 'unknown' Shaw work ought to be well-known. It was hugely popular in the first half of the 20th century.  Its core premise is genius, and the play is very funny while creating a platform for discussion about the "doctor's" power to play God, the "artist's" quest for immortality and the consequences of living without regard others. 

The Doctor's Dilemma

By George Bernard Shaw
Directed by Damaso Rodriguez

Oct 13 - Nov 25...

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I started my career in Chicago, where I spent my first three years out of college.  I was an actor back then, dabbling in directing.  It's fun being back to remount Fact & Fiction with William Nedved and Adam Silver which I directed last summer in L.A. as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival.  We're presenting it at The Gift Theatre, a fantastic company that Will co-founded.  Here's a cool piece in Time Out. The show is a very raw, very simple confessional piece (2 monologues), but the way W...
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This ad ran in today's L.A. Times



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THE HEIRESS
By Ruth and Augustus Goetz
Suggested by the Henry James Novel Washington Square
Starring
Richard Chamberlain
Heather Tom
and
Julia Duffy
Directed By Dámaso Rodriguez

An American Classic

April 24 – May 20, 2012 (Opens April 29)

Catherine Sloper, who stands to inherit a fortune from her ailing physician father, is a plain-looking young woman living under his malevolent scrutiny, as well as his well-meaning but cold-hearted demeanor. Dr. Sloper disapproves of Catherine's passionate s...
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I really enjoyed working with Matt, Del and a wonderful cast and production team on The Boomerang Effect!  The show runs through April 29 at the Odyssey Theatre.

Shores and Rodriguez Catch Leavitt’s Boomerang

Playwright Matthew Leavitt fittingly dedicates the premiere of The Bo...

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Furious Theatre Company
is back with the world premiere of
“No Good Deed”
a live-on-stage graphic novel adventure
at [Inside] the Ford

LOS ANGELES – December 13, 2011 – Get Furious! Furious Theatre Company is back with a gritty and savagely humorous live-on-stage action adventure that is part theater and part graphic novel. The world premiere of No Good Deed, written by Furious playwright-in-residence Matt Pelfrey, directed by Dámaso Rodriguez and featuring graphic illustrations b...

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I'm in prep and pre-production for Desire, which will audition at the beginning of next month and start rehearsals in October---at A Noise Within's brand new 281-seat home in Pasadena.  I'm honored to be part of the inaugural season and continue to be blown away by the play.

Desire Under The Elms

By Eugene O'Neill

Directed by Damaso Rodriguez
November 19 - December 18, 2011
(Previews begin November 12)

Young Eben Cabot's keen and greedy eye is on the farm. His father's voluptuous new bride Abby...

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I spent the summer in rehearsal with a great cast for Kyle Jarrow's very cool new play produced by Lisa Brenner's new company, Electric Footlights.  We open next week in a very limited run (just 8 performances).  Check it out.



ELECTRIC FOOTLIGHTS PRESENTS
In this dark comedy from Obie-Award winning playwright Kyle Jarrow, a man’s wife gets in a crippling car accident while he's in bed with another woman, and he begins to wonder: do his actions have the power to cause disaster?

STARRING
Micha...
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June 18, 2011 By Kathryn Osenlund

All around the TCG conference and concurrent festivals, theater people are voicing questions and concerns about the viral encroachment of media into theater. Speculation on eventual outcomes abounds. 

Into the fray comes the Furious Theatre Company – premiering a movie. So from the get-go, Pure Shock Value is about as encroached as it gets.

Film was the next logical step for them, according to Managing Director Nick Cernoch. It’s a first film by direc...

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Here's a single frame from Pure Shock Value
See the rest of them June 17 @ 8pm, June 19 @ 6:15pm, June 24 @ 6:15pm, June 25 @ 10:15pm




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Join us for two twisted tales of invasion of privacy, plus Brazilian food and drinks!
Get your tickets here:





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Click on the image to visit the Pure Shock Value website where you can watch the trailer and get details about the upcoming screenings at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.




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The Eccentricities of a Nightingale by Tennessee Williams, which I directed, closed last weekend after a great two-month run in rep at A Noise Within.  Set designer Joel Daavid took this beautiful shot of his set before the final performance.  The production has the distinction of being the final fully staged performance of a play by ANW at the old Masonic Temple in Glendale that the company called home for its 19 year history.  The set is a large-scale piece of assemblage art inspired by the...
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The Furious Films feature Pure Shock Value, which I directed, was selected as the "Centerpiece Feature" of the 2011 Hollywood Fringe Festival [Film].  The film will screen four times during the festival:


Ticket info and other details coming soon!



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I attended my first LoNyLa lab session today:  a very unique reading of Anne Garcia-Romero's outstanding new play, Paloma.  I say the reading was unique because the first half of the play was presented by a cast of three and director in New York and broadcast to "hubs" in London and L.A.  We then took a 10 minute break and the L.A. cast of three and director took over the second half of the play.  This was followed by a feedback session over Skype with the playwright in one location and LoNyL...
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NAKED AND FURIOUS CONTINUES!
Furious Theatre Company and Naked Angels, one of the leading off-Broadway theatre companies in New York, continue their creative development series called Mondays LA: Naked and Furious with their third reading of 2011, BOTTLED UP by Erica Lipez

Monday, March 28, 2011 at 8 PM
BOTTLED UP
A play by Erica Lipez
Directed by Damaso Rodriguez

Featuring:
Madeline Zima
Dana Kelly, Jr....

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NEW REVIEW GO THE ECCENTRICITIES OF A NIGHTINGALE

​Photo by Craig Schwartz

It's New Year's Eve in Tennessee Williams' drama, and Alma Winemiller is enchanted by the crisp snaps of "frosty branches crackin'," but she's so flushed with an inner flame she's shed jacket, scarf and gloves. Deborah Puette's Alma is burning, set alight by a firecracker the recently graduated doctor John Buchanan (Jason Dechert, in a role made for him) casually tosses at her during Glorious Hill, Mississipp...

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Naked Angels is collaborating with the Furious Theatre Company in Pasadena, CA to bring its unique 3-Step Formula for creative development to the West Coast and expand its programming to feature works for film and television in addition to the stage. Located on opposite sides of the country, Naked Angels and Furious Theatre Company share a mission to empower fresh voices through the development of provocative new work. Together the two companies will produce Mondays LA: Naked and Furious...

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...directed by ME in the Julianne Argyros Stage.



The Prince of Atlantis
by Steven Druckman
Directed by Damaso Rodriguez
Monday, January 10 7:30pm

"Set in the Down the Lake section of Boston, where the jargon is all their own, and so is the bombast, this tender — and funny — play is all about family, loyalty and love. At its center is Joey Colletti, one of the biggest seafood importers in the East, who got in a little trouble with his company and landed in a minimum security prison. To add ...
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Book by Kyle Jarrow
Music & Lyrics by Kyle Jarrow and Nathan Leigh
Directed by Dámaso Rodriguez

Big Money is a funny, freewheeling rock musical about taking risks, finding love - and reaching for the American Dream.

Set in the early 80s with a period synth-pop score, Big Money follows three contestants and their host on the set of a Burbank, California game show, where clawing for the big prize means a wild ride through their greatest fears and fantasies. A musical about striving to win fa...

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See highlights from reviews here:
http://bitter-lemons.com/2010/10/blithe-spirit-a-noise-within-100-sweet/

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Theater review: 'Blithe Spirit' at A Noise Within

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NEW REVIEW GO BLITHE SPIRIT

​

Photo by Craig Schwartz

Noel Coward's comedy faced an acid test in its first outing: It opened in the darkest days of World War II, when London was undergoing the Blitz. It kept Londoners laughing even when bombs were falling, and it has proved hilarious ever since. As research for his new novel, writer Charles Condomine (Scott Lowell) calls upon eccentric spiritualist Madame Arcati (Jane Mcfie) to conduct a séance at his house. She unwittingly summons ...

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A Noise Within's season was announced yesterday: http://bit.ly/9FCp6i

I'll be directing Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward, the second show in the fall season, opening October 2010. 

Looking forward to it!


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I have just signed on to direct a show in the Fall, though I cannot disclose the title or theatre until it hits the press. Check back soon!


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