Productions

Berkeley Dance Project 2020

Directed by Lisa Wymore February 20–29, 2020 The Playhouse at Zellerbach Hall Running Time: 80 minutes (no intermission) Description

Exploring the intersections of dance and community, the annual TDPS dance concert poses critical questions for our divisive times: How can dance create inclusive exchanges between audiences and performers? How can dance making be a form of community making? How do communities use dance performance to bring forth new narratives and framings of the world? The program...

Snowflakes, or Rare White People

By Dustin Chinn Directed by Mina Morita May 1–10, 2020 * Online Audio Play Running Time: 80 minutes (no intermission) * Live performances scheduled for April 24–May 3 were cancelled due to COVID-19. Description

Stories and creative energy can be a balm to the soul in this moment, and with that spirit director Mina Morita and our resilient company of students have transformed Dustin Chinn's cuttingly smart satire from a stage production into an online audio play.

Delivered...

Beckett / Fornés / Pinter: Student-Directed One Acts

Directed by Benjamin Arsenault, Gabriela Pool, and Marie Shelton March 14–17, 2019 Durham Studio Theater Running Time: 90 minutes (no intermission) Description

This student-directed showcase of unconventional, modernist plays explores how we try (and fail) to make sense of the world. The showcase features Footfalls (1976) by Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, Silence (1969) by British playwright Harold Pinter, and Springtime (1989) by Cuban American playwright María Irene...

The House of the Spirits

By Caridad Svich Based on the novel by Isabel Allende Directed by Michael Socrates Moran April 26 – May 5, 2019 The Playhouse at Zellerbach Hall Running Time: 135 minutes (with one 10-minute intermission) Description

The House of the Spirits follows three generations of the Trueba family — their loves, their ambitions, their spiritual quests, and their place in the post-colonial social and political turmoil embroiling South America. This darkly poetic adaptation...

70 Scenes of Halloween

By Jeffrey M. Jones
Directed by Christopher Herold October 11–14, 2018 The Playhouse at Zellerbach Hall Running Time: 90 minutes (no intermission) Description

70 Scenes of Halloween is a spooky, scrambled, and sly comedy that transforms the unraveling of a marriage into a frighteningly funny romp. A young couple seems set to spend Halloween on their couch in a state of mild boredom. But dark forces emerge and they must contend with ghosts and witches banging on windows and...

The Arsonists

By Max Frisch Translated by Alistair Beaton Directed by Patrick Russell March 12–13, 2020 * Durham Studio Theater Running Time: 95 minutes (no intermission) * Performances scheduled for March 14–15 were cancelled due to COVID-19. Description

In a nameless town. At an unknown time. A community is on edge as arsonists wreak havoc in the night, going door to door, setting homes ablaze. When the self-assured businessman Biedermann finds himself with the arsonists on...

The Caucasian Chalk Circle

By Bertolt Brecht Translated by Alistair Beaton Directed by Christine Nicholson November 15–24, 2019 The Playhouse at Zellerbach Hall Running Time: 140 minutes (with one 10-minute intermission) Description

This captivating play within a play tells the corresponding stories of an agrarian land dispute and a young servant who sacrifices her own well-being to raise an abandoned child. Bertolt Brecht masterfully employs historification and distancing to reveal the hidden...

Who Shot La Miguelito?

Written & Directed by Sean San José
October 17–20, 2019
The Playhouse at Zellerbach Hall Running Time: 70 minutes (no intermission) Description

This dynamic performance piece parallels the murder of a young street artist in San Francisco’s Mission District with the death of immigrant, working-class neighborhoods. Mapping the Mission in murals, tags, stickers, stencils, and socio-political protest art, the piece invites the audience to see, hear, and move with refugees,...

Expansive 'Berkeley Dance Project' marks 50th anniversary of UC Berkeley’s dance program

January 21, 2019
UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies presents Berkeley Dance Project 2019: the body remembers, featuring original works by choreographers Joe Goode, Cherie Hill, Rulan Tangen, Latanya Tigner, and UC Berkeley student Katie O’Connor. Berkeley Dance Project (BDP) opens Thursday, Feb. 21 and continues through Saturday, March 2 in Zellerbach Playhouse on the UC Berkeley campus. Tickets are $13–20 and can be purchased online through the TDPS Box Office or at the door.

TDPS presents '70 Scenes of Halloween,' a sly, surreal comedy by Jeffrey M Jones

September 4, 2018

UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) opens its 2018-19 season with 70 Scenes of Halloween, a spooky, scrambled, and sly comedy that transforms the unraveling of a marriage into a frighteningly funny and fantastical romp. Written by experimental playwright Jeffrey M Jones, this fast-moving scuffle will be presented in an intimate configuration on the Zellerbach Playhouse stage on the UC Berkeley campus. Directed by Christopher Herold, 70 Scenes of Halloween runs October 11–14....