The Marsh Extends Don Reed's E 14TH: TALES OF A RELUCTANT PLAYER The Marsh Extends Don Reed's E 14TH: TALES OF A RELUCTANT PLAYER The Marsh Presents Eliot Fintushel’s BAUDELAIRE: LOVE & LUST Wednesday, October 28, 2009 The Marsh Presents Rie Shontel’s MAMA JUGGS: THREE GENERATIONS HEALING FRACTURED BODY IMAGES Wednesday, October 7, 2009 Dan Hoyle’s Tings Dey Happen Returns To The Marsh November 5 – 28, 2009 The Marsh Presents Bob Scott’s THE JADE PYRAMID The Marsh Extends Ann Randolph’s LOVELAND Dan Hoyle’s Tings Dey Happen The Marsh Extends Don Reed's EAST 14TH STREET Charlie Varon’s Rabbi Sam Returns To The Marsh

The Marsh Berkeley EXTENDS Don Reed’s East 14th – True Tales Of A Reluctant Player

Extends through March 28 on Fridays, Sundays and select Saturdays. The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way in Berkeley. Friday: 9 pm, Saturday: 8 pm and Sundays: 7 pm

Tickets are $20-35 Sliding Scale. $50 Reserved Seats. To buy tickets call 1-800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org

2009 TOP TEN PLAYS - EAST BAY EXPRESS!!

"Irresistible presence" - SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"...Nothing short of amazing." EAST BAY EXPRESS
"Hilarious. The audience can't stop laughing...Don Reed plays all the characters with both ease and inexhaustible energy" - THE NEW YORKER
"A graceful genial performer...It's hard not to love 1970's funk and soul and Don Reed." - NY TIMES

San Francisco's sleeper hit! Now in its ninth month! What’s more, during the week, Don Reed is the warm up host on Jay Leno’s new show. How cool is that!

Back in 1970’s Oakland, his stepfather forced him to be a straight A, God-fearing church boy - but he wanted to be just like his dear old Dad. Too bad he didn’t know dear old Dad was a pimp.

100 Minutes 17+ One Intermission

The Marsh Extends Don Reed’s East 14th Street: Jan 8-16, 2010 – Two weeks only!
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The Marsh Extends Don Reed’s East 14th – Tales Of A Reluctant Player

January 8 through Jan 16, 2010. The Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia Street @ 22nd Street in San Francisco. Friday: 9 pm, Saturday: 5:00 pm

Tickets are $20-35 Sliding Scale. $50 Reserved Seats. To buy tickets call 1-800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org

"Irresistible presence" - SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"...Nothing short of amazing." EAST BAY EXPRESS
"Hilarious. The audience can't stop laughing...Don Reed plays all the characters with both ease and inexhaustible energy" - THE NEW YORKER
"A graceful genial performer...It's hard not to love 1970's funk and soul and Don Reed." - NY TIMES

San Francisco's sleeper hit! Now in its ninth month! What’s more, during the week, Don Reed is the warm up host on Jay Leno’s new show. How cool is that!

Back in 1970’s Oakland, his stepfather forced him to be a straight A, God-fearing church boy - but he wanted to be just like his dear old Dad. Too bad he didn’t know dear old Dad was a pimp.

One Performance Only!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 7:30 pm on The Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia Street @ 22nd Street in San Francisco.

Tickets are $10-15 Sliding Scale. To buy tickets call 1-800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org

Crystal balls levitate, scarves turn to snakes, and a golden octahedral box produces smoking censers and a holy grail as Fintushel performs poems from Baudelaire’s “Flowers of Evil” in French and English (including the banned poem "Les Bijoux.") The show also includes Fintushel playing the songs of Debussy live on the Etherwave Theremin, an instrument which, by interacting with an electromagnetic field, requires no physical contact.

The Baudelaire translations used in the play are by Fintushel who says he loves Baudelaire “because of his delicious contradictions. He is profoundly religious—his images are mainly drawn from Catholic ritual—and at the same time he is the bawdiest sensualist. His ecstasies come from the flesh and from the sky. Pure magic. The audience will be simultaneously illumined and debauched."

Eliot Fintushel is a veteran actor and physical performer with a background in mask theater, pantomime and improvisation. He won the National Endowment for the Arts Solo Performer award twice, then served for two decades as a program analyst for the NEA's Theater Panel.

One Performance Only!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 7:30 pm on The Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia Street @ 22nd Street in San Francisco.

Tickets are $10-15 Sliding Scale. To buy tickets call 1-800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org

In this intimate one-woman show, three women face late puberty, breast-feeding, old age and breast cancer in their Oakland Housing Project living room. The play is woven together with original a’capella breastfeeding songs and laughter.

Rie Shontel is a playwright, multi-medium artist, poet, and an award-winning radio journalist. An East Oakland, CA native, she grew up in an area called “Funk Town” where late night storytelling often took place under streetlights, affording her an opportunity to live vicariously through her neighbors. Rie recently performed her one-woman show “Mama Juggs” in Oakland, California; Durham, North Carolina and Raleigh, North Carolina. As Anita Shontel Woodley, she has a Harry Chapin Media Award and an Emmy for coverage on CNN of the events of 9/11. She’s also written and produced a play called, “A Great Dream Now a Nightmare,” about African-American inner-city youth who ignore Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other Civil Rights leaders sacrifices.
For more information visit, http://rieshontel.blogspot.com/

Following Us State Department Sponsored Nigerian Tour

November 5 – 28, 2009

Thursday & Friday at 8:00 pm; Saturday at 5:00 pm on The Marsh Mainstage, 1062 Valencia Street in San Francisco.

Tickets: Thursday: $15-35; Friday: $20-35 Saturday:$25-35; Sunday $21-35. All Sliding Scale. Reserved tickets $50. To buy tickets, call 1-800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org.

“A smart, engrossing, funny, challenging and moving look at… Nigeria's bloody oil politics….an aptly complex, hard-hitting piece that paints memorably touching and entertaining figures.” –Robert Hurwitt, SF Chronicle

Following Dan Hoyle’s return from his whirlwind, US State Department sponsored tour of Nigeria, The Marsh is presenting 11 additional performances of TINGS DEY HAPPEN, his Will Glickman Award winning solo show about Nigerian oil politics. Hoyle will conduct post-show talkbacks after each Thursday and Friday night performance, during which he will answer audience questions and share his experiences.

Developed with and directed by solo performance master Charlie Varon TINGS DEY HAPPEN is a riveting adventure story, a geopolitical tour de force about the year Hoyle spent exploring the West African oil frontier. The Niger Delta has been targeted as the “new Middle East” of oil security and is an extremely dangerous place.
Hoyle traveled alone around the swamps, befriending militants, warlords, diplomats, activists and prostitutes. Even the U.S. ambassador sought him out to find out what was going on. In this time of rising energy politics, and as witnessed by the State Department’s invitation, the show remains, if anything, even more relevant than when it premiered in 2007.

One Performance Only!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 7:30 pm on The Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia Street @ 22nd Street in San Francisco.

Tickets are $10-15 Sliding Scale. To buy tickets call 1-800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org

Coming of age in the American West at the end of the 1960’s, a young man, Billy, is drawn in by the visions and dreams of others, but learns that he must follow his own path.

Bob Scott is a fingerpicker, poet, songwriter, teller of odd stories, singer of cowboy blues, and member of many bands past and present. Some of these incarnations include Rhythm Kitchen, the Belvederes, Not Bob Scott, The Dave Marz Trio, and Lucky Lew. He holds a Doctor of Thinkology degree from Oz University. See www.myspace.com/luckylew2

Extended through December 12, 2009

“If anyone can make you laugh about a subject as serious as dying, it’s Ann Randolph sharing both vulnerability and audacious humor that are the basis of her immense talent.” Linda Ayres-Frederick. SF Bay Times
Thursday at 8:00 pm & Saturday at 5:00 pm in The Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia Street in San Francisco.

Tickets: $15-35 Sliding Scale. Reserved tickets $50.
To buy tickets, call 1-800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org.
The Marsh is excited to announce the premiere of Ann Randolph's new solo show LOVELAND. Join Randolph as she takes us on the irreverent, hilarious and deeply human journey of Franny Potts. Facing up to the greatest loss of her life while flying from LA to Ohio surrounded by strangers, Franny stumbles her way from awkward confusion through the mystery, tragedy and beauty that unite all us.

A stunning performer, Mel Brooks compares Randolph to the late Gilda Radner for her audacious humor, her generosity and her ability to take us from tears to laughter in the same minute. Randolph’s previous solo show, “Squeeze Box,” was the Winner of LA Weekly’s “Best Solo Show” and the Los Angeles Times Ovation Award for “Best Solo Performer.” Its extended run at The Marsh played to sold-out audiences for eight months last year.

September 10 – 26, 2009

Thursday at 8:00 pm; Saturday at 5:00 pm; Sunday at 7:00 pm on The Marsh Mainstage, 1062 Valencia Street in San Francisco.

Tickets: Thursday”$15-35; Saturday:$22-35; Sunday $21-35. All Sliding Scale. Reserved tickets $50.
To buy tickets, call 1-800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org.

Dan Hoyle has been invited by the US State Department to perform Tings Dey Happen, his award-winning show, in Nigeria.

“A smart, engrossing, funny, challenging and moving look at… Nigeria's bloody oil politics….an aptly complex, hard-hitting piece that paints memorably touching and entertaining figures.” –Robert Hurwitt, SF Chronicle

Dan Hoyle is taking TINGS DEY HAPPEN, his award-winning, solo play about Nigerian oil politics, on a whirlwind tour of Nigeria, sponsored by the U.S. State Department. The show, based on Hoyle's year in Nigeria studying oil politics on a Fulbright Scholarship, will travel to five cities in two weeks this October as part of the State Department's public diplomacy focus on anti-corruption issues.

To help Hoyle prepare for perhaps his most important audience yet, The Marsh will present a short nine-show revival of TINGS DEY HAPPEN during the last three weekends in September.

Developed with and directed by solo performance master Charlie Varon TINGS DEY HAPPEN is a riveting adventure story, a geopolitical tour de force about the year Hoyle spent exploring the West African oil frontier. The Niger Delta has been targeted as the “new Middle East” of oil security and is an extremely dangerous place.
Hoyle traveled alone around the swamps, befriending militants, warlords, diplomats, activists and prostitutes. Even the U.S. ambassador sought him out to find out what was going on. In this time of rising energy politics, and as witnessed by the State Department’s invitation, the show remains, if anything, even more relevant than when it premiered in 2007.

Extended for the fourth time through November 30! The Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia Street @ 22nd Street in San Francisco. Friday: 9 pm, Saturday: 5 pm

Tickets are $15-50 Sliding Scale. To buy tickets call 1-800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org

"Irresistible presence" - SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"...Nothing short of amazing." EAST BAY EXPRESS
"Hilarious. The audience can't stop laughing...Don Reed plays all the characters with both ease and inexhaustible energy" - THE NEW YORKER
"A graceful genial performer...It's hard not to love 1970's funk and soul and Don Reed." - NY TIMES

San Francisco's sleeper hit! Now in its fifth month! What’s more, during the week, Don Reed is the warm up host on Jay Leno’s new show. How cool is that!

Back in 1970’s Oakland, his stepfather forced him to be a straight A, God-fearing church boy - but he wanted to be just like his dear old Dad. Too bad he didn’t know dear old Dad was a pimp.

Charlie Varon’s runaway hit show RABBI SAM, which played to rave reviews and sold-out houses for three months earlier this year, returns to The Marsh for a limited run.

The show plays October 17 to November 22, 2009 on The Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia Street @ 22nd Street in San Francisco.

Tickets: Saturday: $25-35; Sunday: $20-35 (sliding scale); Reserved Seats: $50. To buy tickets call 1-800-838-3006 or visit www.themarsh.org

The show plays Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 7:00pm except Sunday November 1 & 15 at 2:00 pm. For more information go to www.themarsh.org.

“Charlie Varon is very funny” – The New Yorker; “An uncannily gifted mimic” – Washington Post;

“San Francisco’s brightest satiric star” SF Chronicle

Rabbi Sam is the spiritual genius who will bring American Judaism into the 21st century. Or he’s completely out of his mind. You decide. The play tells the story of a rabbi who wants to reinvent American Judaism, and the congregation that hires him. Some people love the new rabbi. Some can’t stand him. And, of course, some can’t stand each other. RABBI SAM is a play for Jews, Gentiles & anyone who has ever attended a meeting.

The San Francisco Chronicle has credited Charlie Varon with “redefining the art form” of solo theater. He’s the creator of the hit shows Rush Limbaugh in Night School and The People’s Violin, and director of Dan Hoyle’s Tings Dey Happen. This is Charlie Varon’s first new full-length play in nine years. The Marsh is thrilled to have back on stage our edgy, comic genius!