CONTINENTAL DIVIDE SHIFTS CONTINENTS: GROUNDBREAKING U.S. WORLD PREMIERE BY DAVID EDGAR TRAVELS TO ENGLAND Tony Award-Winning Playwright’s Two-Play Cycle Invited to Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Barbican Theatre ASHLAND, OR / BERKELEY CA, OCTOBER 28, 2003 David Edgar’s Continental Divide, a co-production by Berkeley Repertory Theatre and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) has been invited to Birmingham Repertory Theatre from March 6—13, 2004 and to London’s Barbican Theatre as part of BITE:04 (Barbican International Theatre Events) March 20—April 4, 2004. This will mark the first international tour in either company’s history. Directed by Berkeley Rep Artistic Director Tony Taccone, the two plays, Mothers Against and Daughters of the Revolution, will be presented in repertory at each theatre with the current cast and design scheme. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to direct Continental Divide in England,” commented Taccone. “Since these plays are an exploration of American politics approached from a European theatrical tradition, it seems only fitting to conclude this wild journey that David Edgar, Libby Appel and I embarked upon more than three years ago by bringing Continental Divide back to David’s homeland.” “Following what will surely be two successful runs in the United States, England is absolutely the proper destination for these plays,” OSF Artistic Director Libby Appel said. “David can then enjoy the fruits of his labors in his own country, and we can share this absorbing new political work with our English compatriots.” Continental Divide was jointly commissioned by Berkeley Rep and OSF in 2001. It premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in March and ran through July 2003, and will be performed at Berkeley Rep November 6—December 28. With Continental Divide, internationally acclaimed British playwright David Edgar turns his rigorous intellectual focus on American politics. The plays, which focus on a fictional gubernatorial campaign, explore the revolutionary fervor that took hold of both the Right and the Left in the 1960s, and how it continues to resonate through multiple generations. The two interconnected plays can be seen in either order, with the viewer’s understanding of each play changing, depending on the order in which the plays are seen. Mothers Against centers on Sheldon Vine, the Republican candidate in a gubernatorial election, as he gathers with his key advisors over a weekend to prepare for a debate. Vine’s own leanings are distinctly libertarian, but to reveal his true beliefs and run a forthright campaign risks alienating the voters. Daughters of the Revolution follows Michael Bern, a community college dean who discovers years later that the political collective of which he was a member in the ‘60s had been betrayed to the FBI by one of their own. As he sets out on a journey to find the traitor, he must come to terms with the man he has become and the relative success, or failure, of his political ideals. Continental Divide garnered high praise nationally and internationally. Time magazine found it to be “six hours of dense, unruly, sometimes maddening, always engrossing drama,” and in Britain, The Times found the work “hugely impressive” and The Guardian called it a “tremendous achievement.” The current Continental Divide cast will travel to England with the production. The Mothers Against cast includes the eight actors who originated their roles at OSF: Tony De Bruno, Michael Elich, Bill Geisslinger, Robynn Rodriguez, Susannah Schulman, Vilma Silva, Derrick Lee Weeden and Christine Williams. In Daughters of the Revolution they are joined by: Michelle Duffy, Marielle Heller, Lorri Holt, Terry Layman, Craig W. Marker, Jacob Ming-Trent and Melissa Smith. The designers for Continental Divide in England include the original team from the OSF and Berkeley Rep productions: Scenic Designer William Bloodgood; Costume Designer Deborah M. Dryden; Lighting and Video Designer Alexander V. Nichols; and Sound Designer Jeremy J. Lee. The international tour of Continental Divide is made possible in part by Production Sponsor Vodafone-US Foundation. “As a longtime supporter of Berkeley Rep, Vodafone-US Foundation is proud to be a lead sponsor of this exciting production of Continental Divide,” said Foundation President Mark Hickey. “We are particularly delighted to be playing a role in helping to bring the production to the UK given the Foundation’s affiliation with British based Vodafone Group, Plc, one of the world’s largest wireless telecommunications companies. We look forward to the many opportunities that Continental Divide will provide to spur lively discussions on both sides of the Atlantic.” For more information about the Barbican’s BITE Festival go to www.barbican.org.uk/bite. For information on Birmingham Repertory Theatre, go to www.birmingham-rep.co.uk. Details about Continental Divide will be available on Birmingham Repertory Theatre’s web site in late November. More information about the production and tour is available at www.osfashland.org and www.berkeleyrep.org. David Edgar was born and still lives in Birmingham, England. His adaptations include Mary Barnes (premiered at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre), The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs (RSC), Albert Speer (National Theatre) and a Tony award-winning adaptation of Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby (RSC in London, New York and Los Angeles). His original plays for the theatre include Death Story, That Summer, Entertaining Strangers and The Shape of the Table. His original plays for the RSC include Destiny, Maydays, The Prisoner’s Dilemma and Pentecost (revived by Tony Taccone at OSF and Berkeley Rep in 1997). David Edgar has also written for television and radio. He founded and directed Britain’s first post-graduate course in playwriting at the University of Birmingham from 1989 to 1999; he was appointed professor there in 1995. Director Tony Taccone has staged more than 20 productions at Berkeley Rep, including most recently Sarah Jones’ Surface Transit, Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine and Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul. In addition to directing Continental Divide for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, his credits there include Othello, Pentecost, Coriolanus and the American premiere of Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy. In 1992 he co-directed the world premiere of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Parts I & II at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. From 1981 to 1987, he served as Artistic Director of the Eureka Theatre. He was Associate Artistic Director at Berkeley Rep for eight years prior to his appointment to Artistic Director in 1997. ABOUT BERKELEY REPERTORY THEATRE Founded in 1968, the Tony Award-winning Berkeley Repertory Theatre is now one of the largest performing arts organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area and has established a national reputation for the quality of its productions and the innovation of its programming. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Tony Taccone and Managing Director Susan Medak, Berkeley Rep’s choice of material and bold, vivid style of production reflect a commitment to diversity, excitement and quality. In March 2001, Berkeley Rep opened The Roda Theatre, a 600-seat proscenium theatre that complements the existing 400-seat Thrust Stage. In December 2001, the company opened an accompanying theatre school housed next door in the Nevo Education Center, offering classes and activities for youth and adults. The addition of these two buildings transformed what was once a single stage into a vital and versatile performing arts complex. ABOUT OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL The Tony Award-winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival, located in Ashland, Oregon, was established in 1935 and is the oldest and largest professional regional repertory theatre company in the United States. Since 1995 Artistic Director Libby Appel and Executive Director Paul Nicholson have continued the OSF tradition of commitment to artistic excellence and fiscal health, leading OSF to highly lauded seasons in the last few years. The 2004 season will run from February 20 through October 31, and OSF will stage 784 performances of 11 plays—four by Shakespeare and seven by classic and contemporary playwrights—in rotating repertory in three theatres: the outdoor Elizabethan Stage (seating 1,190), the Angus Bowmer Theatre (seating 601) and the intimate New Theatre (seating 260-350, depending on audience seating configuration). OSF employs approximately 450 theatre professionals including more than 70 actors and operates on a budget of more than $20 million, 77 percent of which is realized through earned income. In 2003, OSF was rated among the top five regional theatres in the country by Time magazine. BACK TO TOP