FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT
Ariane Bicho
SFSU College of Creative Arts
PHONE
(415) 338-1442
FAX
(415) 338-0520
E-MAIL
abicho@sfsu.edu
Press Release published by the College of Creative Arts and the
Office of Public Affairs
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Based on the life of Daisy
Bates, the play won the Rella Lossy Memorial Award for Playwrighting
SAN FRANCISCO, September 16, 2002 – The College of
Creative Arts’ Theatre Arts Department presents the premiere of Daisy
in the Dreamtime, a new play by Lynne Kaufman opening at 8:00
pm Friday, October 11 and running through 2:00 pm Sunday, October 20
in the Little Theatre on the San Francisco State University campus. Winner of the 2001 Rella Lossy Memorial Award for Playwrighting,
Daisy in the Dreamtime is based on the true story of Daisy Bates,
the Irish émigré who, in 1913, pitched a tent in the Australian outback
where she lived with the Aborigines for 30 years. Directed by
Chicano playwright, director and educator Roy Conboy, Daisy in
the Dreamtime has received staged readings at The Lark, New York;
Horizons, Washington D.C., and Playbrokers, San Francisco.
The ensemble student cast portrays three men and three women: Daisy Bates,
King Billy (an Aboriginal man), Jack Bates, Annie Lock (a missionary),
Grandma Hunt and Radcliffe-Brown (an English anthropologist).
Together, the lives and beliefs of the characters intertwine in the
Australian outback and Ireland taking the audience on a fascinating
exploration of Aboriginal culture and its freedom from two Western
obsessions: the pressure of time and the accumulation of goods.
With 10 national premieres to her credit, Lynne Kaufman’s early
works were regularly produced in San Francisco by Magic Theatre including Dottie
and the Boys (1990), Speaking in Tongues (1989), Roshi
(1987) and The Couch (1985). She is the recipient of
residencies from The New Harmony Project, Indiana, and the Djerassi
Foundation and has won awards including the Kennedy Center/NEA/New
American Plays Award; Best New Play, Dramalogue; Bay Area Critic’s
Circle; the Glickman Award and the Rella Lossy Memorial Award in
Playwrighting. In 1998, Ms. Kaufman’s play Fakes was
optioned by Twentieth Century Fox for a feature film. She is
represented by the Susan Gurman Agency, New York.
Roy Conboy is a Chicano playwright, director and educator and
serves as Chair of the Theatre Arts Department and Head of the Creative
Writing Graduate Playwriting Program, San Francisco State University.
Considered one of the leading Chicano playwrights in the country,
Mr. Conboy’s most well-known works include Drive My Coche (2000),
When El Cucui Walks (1994) and Dancing With the Missing
(1992). The latter two plays toured nationally with San
Francisco’s El teatro de la Esperanza, a company of which Mr. Conboy is
an associate artist. He is also a founding member of and artistic
associate of Cucucuevez Multicultural Ensemble of Santa Ana, the former
general manager and casting director of the Grove Shakespeare Festival,
Garden Grove; the former director of new plays and players at Santa Ana
College, and a founding member of the Pacific Art Center in Arcata. Mr.
Conboy is currently developing Illegal Corrido, a solo performance
piece with music that explores the intermingling of immigrants both legal
and illegal, which will premiere in 2003 at El teatro de la Esperanza.
Established in 1999 to honor SFSU alumnae Rella Lossy, a theatre critic,
actress and writer, the Rella Lossy Memorial Award in Playwrighting
is a biennial prize administered by the Theatre Arts Department.
A woman of abounding energy and creativity, Ms. Lossy
published several plays, served as theatre editor of Bay Arts Review, and
was a founding member of Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. The Rella Lossy
Award funds a Northern California Playwright-in-Residence to develop a new
play to premiere at San Francisco State University. Cherylene
Lee’s Knock Off Balance was the first winner of the Rella Lossy Award
and premiered in March 2000.
Ticket and Schedule Information
Thursday, October 10, 8:00 pm (preview);
Friday and Saturday, October 11 & 12, 8:00 pm;
Thursday-Saturday, October 17-19, 8:00 pm;
Matinees: Sunday, October 13 & 20, 2:00 pm.
All performances are in the Little Theatre located in the Creative Arts
Building on the SFSU campus, 19th and Holloway avenues.
Tickets: $10 General Admission/$8 Students & Seniors.
Call the Creative Arts Box Office at 415/338-2467, Monday through
Thursday, noon to 4:00 pm. Tickets also go on sale one hour before
each show.
With graduates such as Tony Award-winning Director Daniel Sullivan [Proof]
and Academy Award-nominee Annette Bening [American Beauty], the Theatre
Arts Department offers a comprehensive program of both practical and
theoretical courses for undergraduate and graduate students whose
interests center in various aspects of educational and professional
theatre. The curricula provide students with background for advanced study
in the dramatic arts, for teaching or for a career in professional
theatre. As a center for the training of future theatre artists, the
department is committed to introducing a plethora of theatrical traditions
and cultures to students. To this end, the department employs its four
theatre spaces as learning laboratories in which students collaborate with
faculty and guest professionals. Studio workshops and advanced stage
productions in those theatres are the culmination of the educational
experience.
Theatre Arts is a department of the College of Creative Arts, which
has the only academic program primarily devoted to the creative arts in
northern California. Under the direction of Dean Keith Morrison, an
internationally acclaimed faculty directs over 3,000 undergraduate and
graduate students in seven disciplines: art, cinema, broadcast and
electronic communications, music, dance, theatre, and design and industry.
The College of Creative Arts is part of San Francisco State University,
one of the 23 member universities comprising the California State
University, the largest system of higher education in the nation.
SFSU is a highly diverse, comprehensive, public and urban
university. For more information about the College of Creative Arts,
please visit www.sfsu.edu/~allarts/. For an application,
please call Admissions at 415/338-1113.
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