Our 5th annual Canciones del Mar concert was a dream!

"THE SACRED RADIANCE OF THE SUN"

- King Lear

Our 5th annual Canciones del Mar concert was a dream. Thank you dancers, listeners, and stellar musicians! 

Photos: ACT OUT Photography, Jim Norrena

A standing ovation for the jaw-dropping sunset streaking resplendent colors across the sky, melting everything into liquid gold, and slipping off into violet clouds. 

Big thanks to our friends at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and to the warm wooden embrace of ferryboatEureka. We'll be back! 

Meantime, the songs of el pulpo (the octopus) y el calamar (the squid), of sailboats and canoes and the teasing love affair of the waves against the sand, murmur in our memories...

Photo: Lauren Matley

Mother Lear starts this weekend with private home performances in SF and San Anselmo!

On opening weekend you can find mama Lear on the roof of a dramatic SOMA warehouse, surrounded by the urban jungle, as well as amongst live oaks upon a golden hilltop. 

Be sure to catch We Players' trademark exterior open space performances of Mother Lear in the South Bay at Montalvo Arts Center, and in San Francisco at the beautifully expansiveMcLaren Park. Find unique intimate performances under The Sukkah at The Jewish Community Center East Bay, and at other spectacular private residences around the Bay Area.

Mother Lear draws ever near

"YOU ARE WELCOME HITHER"

- King Lear

We are thrilled to announce our next production!

MOTHER LEAR

An irascible scholar with dementia communicates with her caretaker daughter using only the text of Shakespeare's King Lear, as the two struggle with aging, love, and their own balance of power. 

A facilitated conversation on the themes of death and dying immediately follows each performance.

Join us at unique and intimate venues around San Francisco Bay this autumn to experience this powerful two-person distillation of one of the Bard's greatest works.

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Synopsis of Shakespeare's King Lear

The story opens in ancient Britain, where the elderly King Lear is dividing his realm amongst his three daughters: Cordelia, Regan and Goneril. Lear plans to give the largest piece to his favorite, Cordelia, and has devised a public ceremony to assure the loyalty of the various factions. Of the three, Cordelia refuses to engage in Lear’s game. Enraged, Lear disowns Cordelia completely and banishes his dear friend Kent when he intercedes on her behalf. The loyal Kent then disguises himself and returns as a servant who will follow Lear to the end.

Cordelia leaves the court to marry the King of France. Lear and his hundred knights, his beloved fool, and the disguised Kent, go to live with Goneril. This proves disastrous and in a rage Lear abandons Goneril and goes to Regan’s house. Meanwhile, Regan and her husband Cornwall have gone to stay with Gloucester to avoid hosting Lear. It is not long before the two sisters begin plotting to kill their father. Gloucester discovers the cruel plan and rushes to find the King and send him to Dover for protection. Gloucester’s kindness discovered, Regan and Cornwall gouge out Gloucester’s eyes in revenge, then throw him out of his own house to wander blind in the wilderness. Edgar, Gloucester’s son, now disguised as “poor mad Tom”, finds his father and protects him.

Meanwhile, Cordelia has raised an army of French troops to avenge her father and has landed at Dover. Regan and Goneril ready their troops and a battle ensues. Cordelia loses and she and the King are captured. They are sent to jail, but Edmund, Gloucester’s bastard son, has privately sent an order that they be murdered.

Goneril and Regan are both in love with the conniving Edmund. Ferociously jealous, Goneril poisons Regan. But when Goneril discovers that Edmund has been fatally wounded by Edgar, she kills herself as well. As Edmund takes his last breath he repents and the order to execute Cordelia is reversed. But the reversal comes too late and Cordelia is hanged. Lear appears, carrying the body of Cordelia in his arms. Lear’s great suffering is finally relieved, as he too takes his final breath. Kent declares that he will follow his master into the afterlife and Edgar reluctantly receives the crown and the weight of rule.

King Fool Artist Statement

Every one of us will die, and we will all witness the death of loved ones. We lose things; we lose friends and opportunities all our lives. How we approach loss–and death is the ultimate loss–can make the difference between fear and acceptance.

This is an Everyman Lear. In our play, Cordelia finds her father, Lear, who has wandered off to a remote place. In his disjointed state, he mostly doesn’t recognize her; he imagines all the others around him. They go through the old hurts one more time, fighting, cursing, scheming, then giving in, weeping and laughing. He is the king of his story, as we all are. His caretaker daughter is his fool and a host of other voices, but at last he recognizes her fully as she conducts him to his last breath.

This two-person, one-hour distillation of King Lear is designed to invite conversations about the meaning and experience of death. Each performance will be followed by a conversation with the artists, special guests –  including those whose life’s work involves the dying, and audience members who wish to participate.

— Ava Roy & John Hadden

Al Blank: The Adventure of King Fool at Battery Wallace

First, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome We Players to the Marin Headlands. Having had the opportunity of working with this great group of actors during their performance of Hamlet on Alcatraz (in 2010), I can say without any hesitation, that the Marin Headlands is in for some very special and unique performances.

During the month of September, We Players will be presenting King Fool at Battery Wallace located in the Marin Headlands. The concept is unique as is the location.

Battery Wallace first constructed during the first World War and reconstructed as the United States entered World War II, stands as part of America’s determination to defend the coast of this country…in other words, to defend life!

We look at the term ‘death’. We talk about it as someone we know passes on. We see death in performances in the theatre, television and movies. We read about it in books. Death is final. What is unique in this process is that We Players is staging a story about death in a place that was created to preserve life: Battery Wallace! What makes this entire location more unique is that across the road from where this production will take place is a deactivated Nike Missile Site. This site was the epitome of attempting to stay alive when nuclear missiles were set to fire at Soviet planes during the Cold War. This history of life and death and how we deal with it is well served by having We Players perform their site-integrated production of King Fool in our park, this time at Battery Wallace.

We Players brings to all of us a new concept in art. A concept that allows us to become a part of living theatre and create a unique interpretive connection to the site in which they integrate their theatre. I am looking forward to the adventure!!

Al Blank started working for the NPS about about 13 years ago. Since then, he has worked on Alcatraz Island, at Fort Mason, Muir Woods National Monument and at the Marin Headlands. Originally from New York City, Al has spent most of his life working and traveling internationally. Al is collaborating with We Players on our site-integrated production of King Fool at Battery Wallace. 

Befriending King Lear

Edmund slices through the air with his double headed axe and the disguised Edgar parries with his spear. The old wooden floor of this 1878 opera house creaks under the combatants’ feet and our fight captain carefully adjusts the choreography for safety and precision. I’m observing fight call prior to our evening rehearsal of King Lear, a production for which I am serving as co-director as well as playing the roles of Cordelia and the Fool.

Photo by John Sutton

This project at Hubbard Hall in Cambridge, New York, is a very different artistic adventure for me. A few differences:

It’s my first time working in an indoor theatre space in over a decade.

I met the actors for the first time at our opening read through just weeks ago! Since founding We Players in 2000, I’ve had the privilege of hand selecting the actors I work with. Those actors have either worked with me previously, experienced my work as an audience member or participated in We Players’ intensive workshop style audition process.

We’re working in “the round”, with audience on all sides of us, and they are seated in chairs, quite unlike the on-your-feet, physical adventure of attending a We Players site-integrated production.

All of this is challenging me to stretch my practice, to adapt my sensibilities to the needs of this space, this group of people.

It’s also an opportunity to deepen my collaboration with long time friend and creative confidant, John Hadden. For the past several years we’ve brought John to California to join We Players, and he’ll be joining us again this spring for our remount of Macbeth at Fort Point. John and I have a collection of new and experimental projects cooking on the back burner. Projects that live in the shadowy territory of the imagination. One of these visions is a two person production of King Lear. In our “King Fool”, the King and his fool wander through time and space, telling old stories, playing all the parts, reliving their miseries and seeking humor in the face of horror.

For me, this King Lear at Hubbard Hall in Cambridge NY is the beginning of a long term relationship with the play. We are beginning to unpack the text and discover the characters – their relationships, their fears, their loves and losses. As a director, I often feel so lucky that I am present at each rehearsal and can share in the discoveries at every step along the way. The days are long. Before and after 10+ hour rehearsals at Hubbard Hall, I play the role of Artistic Director for We Players from afar, keeping operations smooth and continuing to further our mission.

The exhaustion is well worth it. This King Lear is allowing me to stretch myself as a director, to deepen my work with John, and to shed light into the labyrinthine corridors of Shakespeare’s massive epic. The play is becoming my friend and I look forward to finding it’s home in California, where I may someday soon bring a full-scale site-integrated King Lear to the Bay with We Players.

For the moment, the King and the Fool are packing their bags with new insights and wonder…

-Ava Roy

Photo by John Sutton

King Lear
The Theater Company at Hubbard Hall presents King Lear by William Shakespeare, directed by John Hadden.

Shakespeare’s universal epic. A dying king, chaos in nature and among the people, family blood feuds, madness and the heroic will to love and understand.

February 27, Pay-what-you-will Open Rehearsal at 8:00pm
Opening Night Dinner – Friday, February 28
Fridays at 8pm: February 28, March 7, 14, 21
Saturdays at 8pm: March 1, 8, 15, 22
Sundays at 2pm: March 2, 9, 16, 23
Hubbard Hall Mainstage

Tickets: $25 general admission / $22 members / $15 students / $0 subscribers
To purchase tickets and to learn more about this production, click here.

Ava & John to Direct King Lear for John’s Theatre Company at Hubbard Hall!

Shakespeare’s universal epic. A dying king, chaos in nature and among the people, family blood feuds, madness and the heroic will to love and understand.

Playing with Lear & Cordelia

You fen-suck’d fogs, drawn by the powerful sun…