The moment you've been waiting for is finally here! Tonight the San Francisco Olympians Festival V: The Monster Ball will present the first plays of the festival! And they continue all week! These are all the plays happening this week:
##Wednesday November 5: Nymphs! Nymphs! Nymphs! - WHICH IS TONIGHT!
###ASTERIAE or KING SISYPHUS by Bridgette Dutta Portman, directed by Valerie Fachman
When you’re trying to cheat death, it helps to have an immortal star-nymph as a wife. Or does it? A play in verse about the trickster Sisyphus and his wife, the Pleiad Merope.
###DRYADS or THE DRYAD OF SUBURBIA by Marissa Skudlarek, directed by Valerie Fachman
In a suburban neighborhood blighted by both conformity and drought, Tom and Heidi’s daughter is convinced that she’s a tree spirit. Is this an innocent childhood game or a harmful delusion?
###LAMPADES or LAMP RITUAL by Sam Bertken, Scott Baker
What is your greatest fear? Darkness? Madness? Losing a loved one? The reading of Lamp Ritual profiles an experiential piece that seeks to conquer your darkest nightmares.
###NAIADS by Jennifer Roberts, directed by Valerie Fachman
When the CEO of Archon Energy, the world’s most powerful utility company, tries to greenwash away responsibility for dumping toxins into a dying river, a Naiad tries to inspire her to reconsider, but who will pay the ultimate price?
###NEPHELE by Siyu Song, directed by Scott Baker
Watch Zeus take to the latest trend in online dating as he Catfishes an unsuspecting human – what happens at 6:34 of this play will ASTOUND you.
###NEREIDS or THE WEAVERS by Sam Hurwitt, directed by Scott Baker
Odysseus is gone again, and Penelope isn’t waiting around anymore. Looking up all her husband’s old girlfriends, she finds the sea nymph Calypso spoiling for a fight.
###OCEANIDS or THE DAUGHTERS OF OCEAN by Carol Lashof, directed by Valerie Fachman
In the war to restore Paganism, Prometheus has been taken captive by the ruling Christian Theocratic party. His wife, the sea nymph Hesione, is desperate to rescue him, but to reach his side she must cross a terrifying human city crowded with air-breathers, highways, and big box stores.
###OREADS or POWER FORWARD by Leah Halper, directed by Scott Baker
Chelone, a mountain nymph and protector of tortoises, is the only immortal to stand up to Zeus on the matter of his coerced marriage to Hera–but her defiance may be contagious in this Silicon Valley re-conception of the myth that explained why tortoises have shells.
##Thursday November 6: Half-Men
###CENTAURS or THE HORSE’S ASS by Megan Cohen, directed by Ellery Schaar
A postmodern vaudeville comedy for two hilarious women, who spend a fleet forty minutes taking turns being the butt of the joke. Writer Megan Cohen (SF’s most-produced female playwright, Theatre Bay Area “Keep An Eye On” Emerging Artist Honoree, Neo-Futurist) saddles up history’s greatest half-human half-equine metaphor for a ride through power dynamics, carrots, and sticks.
###SATYRS or SATYR NIGHT FEVER by Annette Roman and Bryant Turnage, directed by Greg Young
Since when did “horny as a goat” become a bad thing? A satyr who’s lost his mojo hires a modern-day pick-up artist as a dating coach in this bawdy romantic comedy exploring dating taboos past and present, real and mythic.
##Friday November 7: Winged Wonder
###PEGASUS or PEGASUS: THE MOVIE (THE PLAY) by Kirk Shimano, directed by Sam Tillis
The story of the myth-makers of today, as a ragtag visual effect company scrambles to create an all-digital creature without destroying themselves in the process.
##Saturday November 8: The Lord of The Beasts
###PAN or PANDEMONIUM by Stuart Bousel, directed by Stuart Bousel
In a first for the festival, Stuart Bousel adapts six stories by E.M. Forster into a sprawling epic about a group of travelers whose lives are forever changed by a shared afternoon in the hills of Italy.
ALL shows are at the Exit Theatre located in downtown San Francisco (Google Map of the Exit).
Tickets for all shows are $10 at the door, CASH ONLY!
And all shows start at 8pm!