A Look Back at 2017

We in your Words

With Mother Lear, you told us that you experienced:

“A powerful sense of Love.”
“The universality of the loss of control in the face of aging, death, and grief.”
“A passion in the text that I never knew was there.”
Loss, grief, fear, life, humor, family
“Beautiful, tiny moments of familial love.”
“Immediate and visceral humanity”

 
And you shared personal discoveries:
“I feel like I could talk about this for 20 hours.”
“It’s not one conversation, you talk about this your whole life.”
“I felt everyone stop and be still like the trees around us.”
“You don’t have to be suffering from Alzheimer’s to be speaking your own language and not be understood.”



Earlier this year, you couldn’t get enough of our very sexy and silly romp in the woods!

You told us that Midsummer of Love made you feel:
          "Amused, intrigued, alive"
                 "Delighted, transported, charmed, enchanted, amused, and amazed"
                                                             "Excited, curious and enthralled"
                                       “Transported”
          “Uplifted"
                           "Grateful for such talented and innovative theater.”
             “Amazed, invigorated.”
                                                 “Reaffirmed my love of my favorite play”


Our collaboration with Rova quartet and ink Boat in BEOWULF inspired lyrical and poetic reactions:

  “Hauntingly well-hewn. Led me... into the chilling folds of my subconscious fears and our collective monstrosities.”  

“At the end of the work I was born from the darkness of the Mead Hall into the crisp night with newfound caution for our times, empathy for our monsters, and a sense of belonging in the ancient cycle of forgetting, fearing, fighting, mourning, and forgetting again.” 

                       “The haunting sounds enveloped my innards at their core, leaving me wanting for more.”

“I felt like we were collectively mourning for our country, mourning for our fallen humanity that has departed from nature, from instinct, from listening.”

                                 “A musical score like none any of us has likely ever heard nor will long forget.”


Thanks for your enthusiastic words and for your support of our work in 2017! Can’t wait to see you in 2018!

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

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

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 Players - Mother Lear 2017 - 750px.jpg

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.