I just saw Rossums Universal Robots. Amazing production! As good as anything I have seen at the big fancy San Francisco theaters. All four members of the cast were extremely talented. The Robots vs Humans theme was very relevant to today's world. I highly recommend! read more

We saw Mount Misery here on Friday night and it was A-mazing! Even though I live in the Tenderloin, I had never been to the Exit theater before. Tickets are super reasonable and the theater is small enough that every seat is great--you are mere feet away from the actors. The play we saw was really cool-Frederick Douglas and Donald Rumsfeld communicating through time and space. Like nothing I've ever seen. Really high caliber acting going on here and I love that they are taking risks by staging cutting edge (well, ball) plays. I noticed that their membership is also a great deal! 30% off already reasonably priced tickets. I can't wait to come back! Glad they are in my nabe :) read more

The Cutting Ball Theater - Mount Misery! - Performing Arts Near Me - San Francisco, California

One of my absolute favorite theater spots in the city, and a real testament to the fact that theater is about the community, because every time I attend a performance, the audience is absolutely electric. Lov e their seasons, their directing team and the local actors they showcase with each performance. Plus, half-price tickets at "Under 30s Thursdays" shows are the bomb. read more

I drove up from San Jose just to come to Cutting Ball Theater and follow a hunch I had about this play called Tenderloin... WOW, so glad I did! A couple nights ago I had the absolute pleasure of seeing an original theater-work commissioned by Cutting Ball Theater and directed by Annie Elias. What a MAGICAL piece! I lived on the edge of the Tenderloin for nearly six months (a few years back) and only wish this play had been around at that point. I am FOREVER changed! What a brilliant and heart-felt play. Each and every actor reached into my heart with their embodiment of such true-life personality. Their presence, as individuals and a community, was transcendent. Elias and her amazing team, crafted a wholly inclusive experience for the audience, bringing me into the world of the Tenderloin that is always there. It was as though the play was a baby... in the womb of the theater... inside the Mother Tenderloin. A special shout-out to all involved in producing the audio-scape for Tenderloin! The ambient sounds and music were woven together beautifully... and the way they rose and then fell away completely, allowing a given personality to be with us... the artistry of what was done is beyond words. KUDOS to Cutting Ball Theater for supporting artistic visions like this one. Every San Francisco resident and visitor alike would see the Tenderloin with gentle and compassionate eyes, had they seen this gem of a play. I will come back to see more of what you do! read more

Thom Pain (based on nothing) is playing through 4.5. If you like plays with plots that entertain and amuse, this isn't the best choice. On the other hand, if you don't mind having your psyche poked, getting stared down by the star, and being in the dark for a while (literally), this is a great choice. Whatever your preference, this short one-hour piece will give you lots to discuss afterward. Jonathan Bock gives a stellar performance delivering Twitter-size streams of consciousness on life's transitory pain points. In the character's ADD addled way, he riffs on the end of childhood innocence and losing a first love, all while engaging the audience (sometimes physically) in the process. Like the Beckett characters they've been compared to, Will Eno's Thom Pain is miserable from the inside out in a world that doesn't offer many bright spots. However, every once in a while, his pain doubles back on itself, giving him (and us) the belief that this too, may just pass. Hint: if you're shy like me, don't sit in the front row or on the end of the aisle. Also, this isn't appropriate for children, as there's strong language and graphic verbal imagery. read more

"Mud," the newest production at the Cutting Ball Theatre, is a funny, dark, and ultimately wrenching play about three people struggling to pull their lives together, only to face greater obstacles -- each other. The actors leave everything on the stage, and the intimacy of the theatre leaves the audience feeling every emotional turn. I love the Cutting Ball because it always challenges me, takes me out of my comfort zone and puts forth the essential elements that we all have to deal with in life. In this play, the most intriguing character is the troubled soul Lloyd, and how even as Mae and Henry try to inspire him to pull his life together, ultimately he brings them down to his level -- to the mud of the title. In the past few years, I've seen several Cutting Ball productions, from creative interpretations of Shakespeare to even more avant garde and experimental fare. I am never disappointed, and always stimulated. The theater seems to have found a great audience and support, and I look forward to many more outstanding evenings with the Cutting Ball. read more

Just went Friday night to Ubu Roi. It is so crazy and hysterically funny in parts. Check out the Examiner review, they were pretty much right on. http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/cutting-ball-goes-wild-with-ubu-roi/Content?oid=2696624 This is the greatest little secret gift theater to the bay area....so ready to try new things, nurture new playwrights, support their loyal and talented acting team and they are really all wonderful people on top of it. I always enjoy my evenings there. I even bring my teens to the lighter shows, like this one, and they also enjoy the show and the whole company. Lots of positive energy. If you can get to one, it is fun to go to the nights where the company directors et al give talks about the show. This particular play was first produced in Paris in 1896 and was absolutely scandalous. It is still waaaay out of the box and the director, Yury Urnov, has just taken it that much further. You won't believe the creativity. Anyway, if you can't tell, I loved it and I just love Cutting Ball read more

This is a great theatre! I've come here only for one show and it was pretty well organized. Their seats were comfortable. They actors were great and the staff was incredible! read more

Wow! Cutting Ball has outdone itself (after Bald Soprano I didn't think it was possible to do MORE or BETTER)! Playwright Marcus Gardley wins awards for reasons! This new work by the deservedly award winning Gardley is sensational! The language exquisite and accessible. The choreography of Rami Margron defies description. Water! Really! You have to see it to believe it. People were floating and swimming! Before I get to how great the great acting and performing was... (surpassing all expectations) let me take a moment to applaud the costumes (and hat!) Callie Floor's design ideas and execution are outstanding. Every actor in the large cast was enticing and engaging. Cutting Ball is in residence at Exit on Taylor. Seventy seats (a definition of intimate theater) so there is literally no room for an under performer to go unnoticed. This performance, everyone was a star in their own right. Brer Bit (Martin Grizzell) is perfect! He can jump and move in ways I didn't think possible! Blanche Verse (Sarah Mitchell) delivers enthusiasm and some fine harmony. Free Girl (Erika McCrary), Cadence Marie Verse (Jeannette Harrison) both are believable being very good at ignoring what they don't want to see in the moment. Aldo Billingslea could not have been better as Damacus /Demeter; never giving up and looking OK in a dress! Jean Verse (ably portrayed by Cutting Ball favorite, David Sinaiko) continued his sinister ways and got what he deserved (perhaps) while poor Yankee Pot Roast (Zac Schumman) did what nature and circumstances commanded and in the end was no better than that. Not to forget Jesus, David Westley Skillman, moonwalking is only one of his many talents. The inimitable Miss Ssippi and her waves (Rebecca Frank, Halili, Knox, Erica Richardson) were great! Their movement, their voices, the very clothes they wore were so rich and textured. Very little willful suspension of disbelief required. I was carried away into this story and stayed there the entire time. The audience leaped to their feet afterwards! There is no better indication of audience pleasure! Amy Mueller directed this masterpiece. There is no doubt that this show has a long successful future. Kudos to Cutting Ball for this excellent production, against which others will be measured. read more

Wow, great show! I had heard about Thom Pain when it premiered in New York, and was thrilled to learn of its opening in San Francisco. The verdict? It blew away my already-high expectations. Jonathan Bock was outstanding as Thom...this is such a complex, pained character, and yet Jonathan infused a cutting (no pun intended) humor that had the Friday night audience rolling at many points. This is a character you absolutely need to see...within a 5-minute period he can charm you, scare you, and teach you about the curious workings of the mind. I was riveted for the entire hour. Will Eno's play is truly a masterwork of language, and this production at the Cutting Ball completely delivers. Very moving, darkly funny, completely engaging. In short, fantastic! read more

We've been to several Cutting Ball shows now and I feel great about giving them 5 stars. Fantastic experimental theater. Definitely worth checking out whatever's currently playing. read more

The set, lighting, and performance of their production of Beckett's Endgame was sophisticated. The characters seemed to take on a Bay Area flair: Clov seemed like today's twenty-something from the Mission and Hamm could be an animated individual form the Castro. I'm not sure the Bay Area modernization gave advantage to a supposedly inhumanly absurd play like the Endgame, but I have to applaud the production for presenting the audiences such a important play. read more

Thom Pain was excellent but my review is for the space, which was very cool. Simple small unpretentious. I'd definitely come back for another production. read more

Hurry and see Will Eno's three new one-acts NOW! I see over 150 performances a year in the Bay Area, and this is my favorite in recent memory. Funny, provacative, challenging theatre - what more could you want?! I love nearly everything CB puts on, which is why I subscribe. But, don't miss this one, in particular. read more

A shout out to the remarkable productions. It's a small theater, low-budget staging, which makes an adequate backdrop to excellent acting & interesting choices of plays to stage. read more

http://taliabaruch-gosee.blogspot.com/ http://copyous-solutions.blogspot.com/ Exit, on the shady end of town, is an intimate theater. An in-your-face intimate. When Mrs. Smith fills the stage, rouge hostess lips grinning, crisp, chirp voice piercing through the quiet theater, you forget the stuffy claustrophobia that crept in just a short minute ago, when the doors snapped shut and the lights switched off. For the next 65 minutes, all sorts of absurd dialogues will follow. They will be so absurd that they will make sense. Makes sense? Picture this: you're on a family car ride out of town. You're humming a tune, while your brother is tapping on to a completely different rap. You're trapped in the same small space, isolated in separate bubbles, entirely oblivious of one another. Sounds familiar? Well, that's what if feels like when, as an observant, you follow the characters communicate on different vibes, or rather miscommunicate. It's like zapping randomly through different TV channels. Each channel lures you in to its autonomous universe, making sense on its proper plane, but ping-ponging between them leaves you jumbled. In this Anti-play, the characters aren't advancing a story line, resolving a conflict, reaching catharsis. They're just there, in the moment, stating the obvious or abusing the state. of mind. They're engaged in a meaningless banter and nonsensical story telling that would not shame Alice's Mad Hatter Tea Party. It is language, not plot, that catches the spot light, pirouetting from the outset to the off set. The dialogues are delivered in clear articulation, resembling the Assimil method for teaching a foreign language through full sentences--tapes of random every-day life phrases, with odd association links. "The sound of words, the rhythm, the rhyme, and even the tone," says Rob Melrose, "are often as important as the meaning itself. So here, my goal was to preserve some of the schoolbook formality and awkwardness..." This is a bald theater form, even in today's liberal standards, let alone in 1950, when the original production of The Bald Soprano débuted in Paris. Ionesco showcases text as the center piece of the play in the same way a choreographer presents movement in a dance show, or a composer delivers music in a concert hall. By presenting text heavy with clichés, puns, repetitions and non sequiturs, Ionesco reveals the inadequacies of verbal communication. And the Cutting Ball cast carries these words through torrential seas as a loyal vessel, and unloads the cargo safely on shore. read more

THOM PAIN (BASED ON NOTHING), written by Will Eno and directed by Marissa Wolf in this stunning Bay Area premiere, is a compelling, gorgeously crafted play --- mordantly humorous, it features one Thom Pain (played with great power and intelligence by Jonathan Bock), who appears to have rented this space for an hour to try to make a connection with an audience, to share something important if possible. (I should add that I am a close relative of this young director, Marissa Wolf -- my good fortune!) The play starts in darkness as Thom walks on and tries to light a match, and it ends in darkness, with the lingering image of his serious, evocative face. In between, this one-person show, directed with great vision, grace, and precision by Wolf and brought to vivid, brilliant life by Jonathan Bock, engages the audience in each precisely created, funny, painful, surprising, or moving moment. Eno claims Beckett as an influence; I see a more immediate influence in sharp-tongued, suffering comedians like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, and in the tense, disturbing, moving plays of Edward Albee, with his sense of the futile and shifting "games" played between humans, often at great cost. "Only connect," as Forster said -- and even though the connection is often a brittle one in Eno's world, the overwhelming sense by the end of this beautifully produced play is that connection is, in spite of all, not only possible but profoundly necessary. Kudos to Cutting Ball Theater for a gorgeous and significant show. read more

The Cutting Ball Theatre's production of "...and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi" is BRILLIANT! It is one of the most amazing pieces of theatre I have seen in years. What a priviledge to seee such wonderful talent take Marcus Gardley's poetic writing and stage an experience I won't soon forget. A mix of music (spirituals to beat box- all a capella), motion, poetry, humor, tragedy, taking you into the morass of african american and white american relations using the Civil War and the myth of Demeter and Persephone. An EXCELLENT case- I think it is up there with "Angels in America".. read more

Saw Cutting Ball's "Pelleas and Melisande" last week and recommend it. Two things stood out that made going to a Tenderloin theater in the rain worh the trip. One was the tight, well thought out, disciplined theatrical ideas from start to finish. Rarely see this consistency and level of competency in small theater. No weak scenes, no missteps from the director, Rob Melrose. There is a choreographed element to the actors' movements, and you can see how well rehearsed they are. The second thing I admired was the high level of acting, particularly from Caitlyn Louchard as Melisande, Jessica Rudholm as Yniold, and Gwyneth Richards as The Queen and The Old Servant. Her performance as The Old Servant is by itself worth the price of admission. Five stars, two thumbs up, and a "thanks a lot". read more

I like this theater. The Antigone they just had on was a great interpretation. Also, if you are thinking whether or not to buy the more expensive tickets or stay on the bench, there is really nothing wrong with the bench at all. It is a very small theater, five or so rows on each side, so you are close no matter where you sit. read more

This is a high four stars for Tenderloin by Annie Elias, a documentary about San Francisco's notorious neighborhood (as well as home to many cheap but good eateries, as any good SF Yelper knows). Actors speak the words of the locals, a la Laramie Project, bringing them to life (almost literally--one of the interviewees portrayed died shortly after being interviewed by the cast). It's a lot of fun and serious at the same time, and well worth your time. read more

GO SEE THE BALD SOPRANO!! (http://cuttingball.com/season/09-10/the-bald-soprano/) This Ionesco play (in a new translation by Rob Melrose, Cutting Ball's brilliant artistic director) is accessible even to those of us who struggle with Absurdist and other avant-garde theater. So it's a great introduction if you're new to this part of the theater world. It's a riotous piece acted beautifully and incredibly energetically by Cutting Ball veterans and players new to the CB stage. Don't miss it. read more

Just saw Will Eno's new play(s) "Lady Grey (in ever lower light) and other plays" which is up until April 10th, 2011. The first play is poignant and amusing, the second meta-amusing and David Sinaiko is hilarious in the third. If you in need to some smart, funny theater that isn't a polemic, then run, don't walk (but look both ways before you cross the street of course) to this show. read more

A very good independent theater that is worth keeping an eye for their programs. They always come out with a couple of shows I am interested in. read more

Saw Cutting Ball's production of Ionesco's Victims of Duty, and was greatly entertained. The new theater is small and intimate, and I thought they utilized the space imaginatively and effectively. Ionesco's absurdist play which is self-reflective, as in the middle of things the play itself is under discussion, builds to a crescendo of physical comedy in a spirit of manic wildness. A number of themes & issues are sent up by Ionesco including interrogation, the authority of the state, and torture, all of which have contemporary resonance after the past eight years of Bush/Cheney. In addition, psychoanalysis, with Freudian double-entendres abounding, Ionesco's posthumous dialogue with his father, an oddly confessional element, and some breathtaking nonsense. I thought the actors were very well suited to the material, and were very good. Direction and staging impressive, the ensemble work, especially at the climactic ending was beautifully done; bedlam contained, an explosion in a shingle factory! read more