MIKE DAISEY RETURNS TO BERKELEY REP IN HIS LATEST SOLO SHOW— 14 PERFORMANCES ONLY OF THE UGLY AMERICAN BERKELEY CA, JUNE 23, 2005Fact Sheet Berkeley Repertory Theatre announced today that monologist Mike Daisey will return to its stage this summer with his latest side-splitting solo show, The Ugly American. Last summer, Bay Area audiences howled with laughter during Daisey’s romp through 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com. Now he bounds back into Berkeley for only 14 performances of his new hit. Presented on Berkeley Rep’s intimate Thrust Stage—which has hosted other prominent solo performers such as Sarah Jones and Anna Deavere Smith—The Ugly American will preview on July 23, open on July 24 and play Wednesdays through Sundays until August 13. Tickets are priced from $10 to $35. Berkeley Rep will also present—for one night only—a special workshop of Daisey’s developing piece Monopoly! on Sunday, August 14 at 7 PM. Tickets for this workshop are only $5! Both shows are directed by Daisey’s longtime collaborator, Jean-Michele Gregory, who also directed Dog Years. The New York Times calls Daisey “absolutely hilarious,” the Wall Street Journal says he has “the wry sensibility of David Sedaris” and the New York Post calls him “a cross between Robin Williams and Spalding Gray.” According to the New Yorker, Daisey is “a charismatic performer; his shows have the insightful hostility of the best comedy.” “Mike’s combination of humor, fearlessness and personal insight give his shows a sense of enormous scope,” says Berkeley Rep Artistic Director Tony Taccone. “Through the lens of his outrageous journeys we gain a fuller appreciation of both the absurdity and miraculousness of life.” “There are some stories you have to wait to tell, and The Ugly American is one of them: the story of a young man making the kind of stupid decisions that only the young can make,” Daisey remarks. “I’m thrilled to be back at Berkeley Rep. Performing 21 Dog Years here last year was wonderful, and I can’t wait to bring this story to Berkeley Rep’s audience. They’re an audacious bunch, and I think they’ll really understand.” The Ugly American is Daisey’s dazzling new tale about his misadventures as an exchange student in London. Having never lived anywhere larger than his hometown in the backwoods of Maine (population 300), he heads off to study acting in the world’s most cosmopolitan city—but his teachers insist that if he could just stop being funny, he might one day become a real actor. Expecting to be greeted by the ghosts of Shakespeare and Olivier, Daisey instead falls in with a post-modern, neo-feminist theatre group that creates idiosyncratic shows in an abandoned church on the edge of town. When he falls in love with an actress who, unbeknownst to him, is a member of the world’s oldest profession, the hilarity has only begun. The Ugly American received workshops at Manhattan Theatre Club, Seattle’s Intiman Theatre and the Cape Cod Theatre Project before premiering in June at ACT Theatre in Seattle. It comes to Berkeley from the 2005 Spoleto Festival and will be broadcast on BBC Radio this fall. Monopoly! is a monologue about the warped genius of inventor Nikolai Tesla and his war with Thomas Edison over electricity. This battle is etched into the streets of New York City, and Daisey traces its tendrils all the way to the Microsoft antitrust case and the one remaining retailer in his hometown: Wal-Mart. Along the way, he puzzles over the checkered history of the titular board game and how to find perfect love in a world that recognizes only profit and loss. In reviewing the show’s recent Off-Broadway run, the New York Times declared Daisey “the master storyteller” for his “brilliantly spun narrative.” Monopoly! will play for one night only on Sunday, August 14 at 7 PM. Tickets for this workshop are only $5. Mike Daisey is a monologist best known for his hit show, 21 Dog Years. That monologue, about the years he spent at the Internet giant Amazon.com, began at the Speakeasy Backroom in Seattle and went on to play for six months Off Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre. It then traveled nationally to Berkeley Rep, Seattle’s Intiman Theatre and Portland Center Stage and internationally to Edinburgh and London. Last year, Daisey launched the series All Stories Are Fiction, during which he created 13 new monologues in as many weeks at New York City’s cutting-edge performance venue, P.S. 122. He has since created new episodes of All Stories Are Fiction for ACT Theatre in Seattle and Portland Center Stage, and returned for a second season of new monologues at P.S. 122—all of which can be heard at Audible.com. Daisey’s other monologues include I Miss the Cold War, Monopoly! and Wasting Your Breath. His film Layover will be shot this summer in Copenhagen. He can be heard regularly on National Public Radio’s Day to Day and on the National Lampoon Radio Hour. He is currently at work on his second book, Happiness Is Overrated, a collection of essays dedicated to that proposition. In addition to being a monologist and a dot-com wage slave, Daisey has held many other jobs, including stints as a security officer, web-porn sniffer, high-school teacher, blood-plasma seller, archivist, telemarketer, roofer, cow-innard remover, law-firm receptionist, cold-caller, rape counselor, DJ, freelance writer, accountant and night janitor in a home for the violently mentally ill. Jean-Michele Gregory works with solo performers and writers to create works based on biographical material, and since 1998 has served as constant collaborator, dramaturg and co-conspirator on all of Mike Daisey’s monologues. She directed 21 Dog Years from its inception in the garages of Seattle to its appearances Off Broadway, in London and Edinburgh and at Berkeley Rep, Intiman Theatre and Portland Center Stage. She continues to work closely with Daisey in the development and shaping of new shows, including I Miss the Cold War, Wasting Your Breath, Monopoly! and the ongoing series All Stories Are Fiction. This winter she’ll be teaching a course on storytelling and solo performance at Colby College. A contributing writer for the New York Sun, Gregory is currently penning a memoir about her grandmother’s life in pre-war Poland and the fantastic series of events that led her family to Texas. Tickets to The Ugly American are priced from $15 to $35. There will be one discounted preview performance on Saturday, July 23, priced at $15. Regular performances begin Sunday, July 24 and continue through Saturday, August 13. Performances on Wednesdays and Sundays are at 7 PM and are priced at $30; 8 PM shows on Thursdays are also $30; and 8 PM performances on Fridays and Saturdays are $35. The workshop of Monopoly! on Sunday, August 14 costs only $5. Discounts are available for groups of 11 or more: contact Emily Fleisher, Berkeley Rep’s group services coordinator, at 510.647.2918 or groups@berkeleyrep.org. Berkeley Rep’s Thrust Stage and its box office are located at 2025 Addison Street, one block from Berkeley’s downtown BART station and close to AC Transit bus lines. The theatre is accessible to the handicapped, offering wheelchair seating and special services for those with hearing- or vision-impairment. For tickets or information, call 510.647.2949 or toll-free at 1.888.4BRTTix—or simply click berkeleyrep.org. Founded in 1968, the Tony Award-winning Berkeley Repertory Theatre has established a national reputation for its ambitious programming and dynamic productions. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Tony Taccone and Managing Director Susan Medak, Berkeley Rep seeks to engage its audience in an ongoing dialogue of ideas. Through its bold choice of material and vivid style of production, Berkeley Rep reflects a commitment to diversity, excitement and quality. The company is especially well known for its presentations of important new dramatic voices and its fresh adaptations of seldom-seen classics. In 2001, Berkeley Rep opened The Roda Theatre, a 600-seat proscenium theatre that complements the 400-seat Thrust Stage, and the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, housed in the Nevo Education Center. The addition of these two buildings has transformed what was once a single stage into a vital and versatile performing arts complex. THE UGLY AMERICAN WHO created and performed by Mike Daisey directed by Jean-Michele Gregory WHAT The Ugly American, a solo show about one man’s misadventures as an exchange student in London WHERE Berkeley Rep’s Thrust Stage / 2025 Addison Street / Berkeley WHEN July 23–August 13, 2005 (press opening: July 24) • Wednesdays and Sundays, 7 PM (no performance on July 27) • Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 PM And on Sunday, August 14 at 7 PM… See a special workshop of Mike Daisey’s Monopoly! for only $5.00 TICKET PRICES Special workshop of Monopoly! on August 14, 7PM $5.00 Preview on Saturday, July 23, 8PM $15.00 Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays 8PM $30.00 Fridays and Saturdays 8PM $35.00 For group discounts, contact 510.647.2918 or groups@berkeleyrep.org. TICKET INFO 510.647.2949 or 1.888.4BRTTix (toll free) or www.berkeleyrep.org For photos, interviews, etc. contact: Terence Keane, Director of Public Relations 510.647.2917, tkeane@berkeleyrep.org BACK TO TOP