2017 Season

Winter

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Written by Julie Jensen
Directed by Gary Graves
Produced in: 2017

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World Premiere #56: a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere
inspired by ROBECK in ENDING LIFE: Ethics & The Way We Die
by Margaret Pabst Battin © 2005 Oxford University Press

A beautiful, empowering story about a woman whose once-brilliant mind is now diminishing. Her decline is troubling not only to herself, but to her family, who each have different ideas about what’s right for her. Meanwhile she’s ready to take matters into her own hands. Funny, touching, and very topical, WINTER is a thought-provoking look at our right to die.

August 19,2017: Post-show discussion with renowned bioethicist Margaret Pabst Battin, PhD, author of the story which inspired WINTER, joined by Lonny Shavelson, MD,  director Bay Area End of Life Options, and Guy Micco, MD, hospice/palliative care physician and co-director of the UCB Program for the Medical Humanities.

Production Sponsors: Will & Linda Schieber, Tom White & the Leslie Scalapino O-Books Funds

 

WINTER was a Theatre Bay Area Awards recommended show!

SF Chronicle “Theater Pick!”

 

WINTER was produced at Central Works as part of a NNPN Rolling World Premiere. Other partnering theatres are Salt Lake Acting Company (Utah) and Rivendell Theatre Exchange (Illinois). For more information please visit nnpn.org

Actors
Steve Budd
Julie Kuwabara
John Patrick Moore*
Phoebe Moyer*
Randall Nakano*

Stage Management: Vanessa Ramos
Costume design: Tammy Berlin
Lighting design: Gary Graves
Prop design: Debbie Shelley
Sound Design: Gregory Scharpen

*member AEA

 


Julie Jensen
(playwright) has been writing plays for over 30 years.  She has won a dozen awards, among them The Joseph Jefferson Award in Chicago for best new work, the LA Weekly Award for best new play, and The David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award.  She has been commissioned by a dozen theatres including Kennedy Center (twice) and Actors Theatre of Louisville (twice) and Salt Lake Acting Company (twice).  She has received grants from NEA, TCG, Pew Charitable Trusts, among others.  Her work has been produced in NYC, London, and theatres nationwide, from Arizona to Alaska, from Michigan to Massachusetts, California to Connecticut.  Her work is published by Dramatists Play Service, Dramatic Publishing, and Smith and Krause.  She is gratified to have spent her life in the theatre, never to have lost interest in its potential, and counts herself lucky to have benefitted from the talent and skill of the extraordinary people she has worked with.

Annis (Phoebe Moyer* ), is waiting for her husband
(Randall Nakano*) to fulfill their pact in
Julie Jensen’s Winter, a funny, touching and
thought-provoking look at our right to die.

Photo by Jim Norrena

Roebeck (Randall Nakano*) feels he still has
work to complete; Annis believes her work is done.

Photo by Jim Norrena

John Patrick Moore* as Annis’ son Roddy
fears she is “a danger to herself.”

Photo by J. Norrena

All photos: ACT OUT Photography by Jim Norrena

* member AEA

Evan (Steve Budd) and his niece, LD (Julie Kuwabara) ease
the holiday tension by smoking a bowl of “majestic” weed.

Photo by Jim Norrena

SF Chronicle “Theater Pick!”

Theatre Bay Area Awards recommended!

“A thought-provoking picture of a family facing a crisis…well worth watching closely-Theatrius

“Under Graves’ strong direction, Phoebe Moyer is terrific” -SF Examiner

Winter has been directed with loving care by Gary Graves…Randall Nakano, John Patrick Moore, Steve Budd, and Julie Kuwabara do commendable work in supporting roles…and Phoebe Moyer does an excellent job…” -Huffington Post

“Gary Graves gives the play a brisk 75-minute staging with a generally strong cast” -SJ Mercury News

“Jensen’s illuminating and powerful script finds the humor in the universal questions posed” -Salt Lake Tribune

More about playwright Julie Jensen

Bioethicist Margaret Battin, whose story inspired the play Winter, was interviewed on FRESH AIR.