Showtimes:

Friday, May 18, 2012
One Show:
Starts: 7:00 PM
Doors: 6:30 PM

Saturday, May 19, 2012
Two Shows:
Starts: 2:00 PM
Doors: 1:30 PM
and
Starts: 7:00 PM
Doors: 6:30 PM

Tickets:
$15 general admission

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Live Theater
THEATER GROUP BROKEN ANCHOR COLLECTIVE
Presents
Fiction

Broken Anchor Collective and Arena Theater present “Fiction”, a play by Steven Dietz.

Broken Anchor Collective is an innovative group of four young, talented local thespians: actors Amanda Woodward (Our Town, Anastasia), Hannah Parsons (Proof, The Music Man) Jon Carlo, (Our Town, Proof), and director Bryn Elizan Harris.

“Fiction”, the collective’s first offering is an adult, articulate and often witty drama with an intriguing and thought provoking plot.

Linda and Michael Waterman are both successful writers, happily married to one another, who thrive on the give and take of their unusually honest and candid relationship. However, when they decide to share their diaries with one another, the boundaries between past and present, fact and fiction, trust and betrayal begin to break down. No life, as it turns out, is an open book.

The play marks Harris’ directorial debut on the Mendonoma Coast, although since graduating from University of North Carolina School of the Arts in 2010 with a BFA in directing and returning to the west coast, Harris has been very active in the local theater scene, performing and choreographing (Love on the Edge, Teo’s Five Deuces Cabaret) and with local musicians for several venues and events, plus choreographing, (‘HONK!, The Music Man), directing stage combat, (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), and co-directing and choreographing a musical theater workshop with her mother Jan Harris.

“I chose this play for several reasons. Dietz is the eighth most produced regional theater playwright in America today, (excluding Shakespeare) and tied with Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee for number of productions”, asserts Harris. “Dietz is best known for the musicality in his writing. My mentor and Dean of UNCSA’s Theatre Arts Dept, the formidable Gerald Freedman, always says, ’In a musical you are trying to find the story in the music, In a play you work to find the music in the story.’

“Other advantages include: utilizing a minimal set, which allows for more creativity as director and demands the audience’s imagination; having a cast of three that forces an intimacy between actors and director allowing the cast to ‘drop into’ the characters in a deeper way. Also, with the popular new form of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and personal “blogs”, public journaling is becoming the norm. “Fiction” poses questions that provoke self-analysis and discussion as well as providing pure entertainment.”

Broken Anchor Collective’s mission is to explore performance art with offerings that are ‘out of the box’ in terms of theme, style, and production values. Please contact Bryn Elizan Harris (884-1127) regarding participation in future productions. All tickets are $15.00, available at Four-Eyed Frog, The Sea Trader in Gualala, Arena Market and at the door each performance.

The Arena theater bar and snack stand will be open.

Showtime:
Saturday, May 26, 2012

Show Starts: 8:00 PM
Doors Open: 7:30 PM

Tickets:
$10 general admission
Advance sale thru Brown Paper Tickets only

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Cloudfire
BENEFIT FOR ARENA THEATER

Local group Cloudfire will play a benefit concert for Arena Theater Cloudfire's unique sound combines oud, dulcimer, bansuri flute, didjeridu, and a metallophone built from scrap playing with more familiar instruments such as saxophone, electric bass and drum set. The members of Cloudfire bring a range of musical experience, from rock and folk to world, jazz and classical. Exploring modes from around the world in an improvisational format, their sound goes from subtle or intense to dreamy and ethereal. The resulting sound is both comforting and surprising at the same time.

Living on the California coast,
north of the Golden Gate and
west of the San Andreas fault,

Cloudfire is . . .
Gretchen Barton (oud, dulcimer, bansuri flute) has been making music on stage the past few years with Sofyan, Rock Rose Tribal bellydance troupe (Rakkasah in Richmond, Tribalfest in Sebastopol, Caspar Community Center, Harvest Hafla at Arena Theatre) and as a guest musician of the Mendocino Stories & Music Series.

Janet DeBar first heard a didjeridu ten years ago in the Mojave desert. She has been learning to play since then. The didj is her first and only musical instrument, although she does have fourteen of them. She lives on the coast at The Sea Ranch where local harbor seals sometimes clap in appreciation of her solos.

Harrison Goldberg has performed on tenor, alto and soprano saxophone with a variety of groups, including Tabula Rasa, Legend and Neon Egypt; he also provides hand percussion to Cloudfire's sound. An alumnus of Berklee College of Music, Harrison has literally spent a lifetime in music from East to West Coast.

Dave Jordan is Cloudfire's bassist, playing grooves on a left-handed electric bass guitar. A refugee from Silicon Valley, he is also Cloudfire's recording engineer and web designer. Before moving to the coast, Dave played keyboards with Limbic Sanctuary, an eclectic folk-rock band.

Leon Schneiderman (drums, metallophone) was a member of the theater group Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo and a founding member of Oingo Boingo. During the group's early years he built original instruments, sets, costumes and theatrical devices, which contributed to the group's memorable and unique shows. He now sculpts and builds / plays percussion instruments.