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MACBETH (A Modern Ecstasy)
Presented by Center for New Theater (CNT) at CalArts
At REDCAT November 24-December 12, 2004

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Los Angeles, CA-A radical re-imagination of Shakespeare's MACBETH will open the first Center for New Theater (CNT) at CalArts season. MACBETH (A Modern Ecstasy) will be performed by award-winning British stage and screen actor Stephen Dillane and directed by Artistic Director Travis Preston.

Dillane performs the entire text of MACBETH accompanied by a silent chorus of boys, video projections and a trio of musicians led by jazz luminary Vinny Golia. In Preston's vision, the stage becomes a nocturnal landscape with Dillane as magician of the unconscious, conjuring Shakespeare's tragic masterpiece from the recesses of the mind. Both medium and shaman, Dillane undergoes continual transformation possessed by the myriad characters and ulterior forces of this starkly powerful work. Dillane haunts the stage, an eerie environment of sand and water designed by Christopher Barreca to create an elemental intimacy, doomed to inhabit the tormented visions of Macbeth's consciousness.

Acknowledged as one of the finest actors of his generation, Stephen Dillane is known for his award winning performances in London and on Broadway. He is the recipient of the 2000 Tony Award for Best Actor in The Real Thing. His extraordinary film performances include: the role of Horatio in Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet opposite Mel Gibson, Welcome to Sarajevo with Woody Harrelson, and the role of Leonard Woolf in The Hours opposite Nicole Kidman. Dillane's stage work has been called "ineffably charismatic.extraordinarily subtle (and) deeply humane" by Charles Isherwood and the Sunday Times of London praised his "tense, edgy, thrilling performance" as Hamlet. "Mr. Dillane is." writes Ben Brantley in The New York Times, "never less than captivating."

In MACBETH (A Modern Ecstasy), Preston continues his work on Shakespeare that was first seen by Los Angeles audiences in his groundbreaking site-specific production of KING LEAR at the Brewery Arts Complex, praised by The Los Angeles Times as an "audacious...revelatory modern-dress King Lear (that) delivers one artful surprise after another. It's King Lear reconceived as a living movie or hallucinatory theme-park ride, and it's thrilling."

MACBETH (A Modern Ecstasy) was developed at the 2004 Sundance Institute Theater Lab and represents the collaboration of three members of the California Institute of the Arts faculty, Preston (Head of Directing), Christopher Barreca (Head of Design), Vinny Golia (School of Music) and Ellen McCartney (Head of Costume Design).

All performances 8:30 pm

Macbeth (A Modern Ecstasy) is made possible by an Anonymous donation.

The 2004/2005 REDCAT season programming is generously supported by The Herb Alpert Foundation; American Center Foundation; Anonymous; Asian Cultural Council; Canada Council for the Arts; Hyon Chough; CNMAT; CONACULTA; The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., Performing Ensembles Program; Cultural Contact, the U.S.-Mexico Foundation for Culture; Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Consulates in Los Angeles and San Francisco, Robert B. Egelston; Étant Donnés, The French-American Fund for the Performing Arts; Factory Signage & Graphics; French-American Fund for Contemporary Music, a program of FACE; The J. Paul Getty Trust; Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater; The James Irvine Foundation; The Japan Foundation; The Korea Art & Culture Foundation; Korea Art Foundation of America; Korea Foundation; The JL Foundation; The Sharon D. Lund Foundation; National Dance Project; National Endowment for the Arts; Wendy Keys and Donald A. Pels; Lee and Lawrence J. Ramer; Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation; Shiseido Co., Ltd.; The Skirball Foundation, SRE/Consulate of Mexico; Yamaha Corporation of America; and The Walt Disney Company.

Season sponsors include KCRW, Official Public Radio Sponsor, LA Weekly, Exclusive Alternative Weekly, Print Media Sponsor; The Standard, Official Hotel. Additional media sponsorship is from journals Afterall and Black Clock.

The Center for New Theater at CalArts was established in 1999 as a forum for the creation of groundbreaking theatrical performance. Productions include Chen Shi-Zheng's Peach Blossom Fan at REDCAT, nominated for three Ovation Awards; King Lear at the Brewery Arts Center and Frictions Festival in Dijon, France; and Richard Foreman's Bad Behavior. Seminal artists from around the world are brought to the CNT to develop work that expands the language, discourse, and boundaries of contemporary theater. The Center supports a producing model that is artist and project specific, giving priority to performance that cannot be easily produced in other circumstances. The avant-garde aesthetic of the California Institute of the Arts provides the ideal context for rigorous collaborations between significant guest artists and the CalArts community. CNT operates under the leadership of Travis Preston (Artistic Director), Carol Bixler (Producing Director) and Jon Gottlieb (Acting Dean, School of Theater at CalArts). California Institute of the Arts, CalArts, the first U.S. higher educational institution to integrate the visual and performing arts under one roof, is recognized as the nation's leading laboratory for the arts. Housing six schools-Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music and Theater-CalArts embraces creative cross-pollination among diverse art forms and traditions, and strongly encourages each artist to pursue his or her vision within a broad context of social and cultural understanding.

Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, REDCAT, is an interdisciplinary arts center that introduces diverse audiences, students and artists to the most influential developments in the performing, visual and media arts from around the world, and gives artists and future artists in this region the production opportunities and creative support they need to achieve national and international stature.

Stephen Dillane (Actor)'s fearless and widely praised work has spanned the stages of London and Broadway, television and film in the U.S. and U.K. Leading roles at the National Theatre include Gerry Evans in Dancing at Lughnasa, Edmund Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night and Prior Walter in Angels in America. He earned the Richard Burton Shakespeare Globe Award for the title role in Hamlet under Peter Hall's direction. His performance in the title role of Uncle Vanya for the Royal Shakespeare Company was praised by the Financial Times as "marvellous, the best Uncle Vanya I have ever seen onstage."

He was awarded Best Actor by the Evening Standard for his portrayal of Henry in Stoppard's The Real Thing in London and was nominated for an Olivier Award for the same performance. On Broadway he won the Best Actor Tony Award, Best Actor Drama Desk Award and Theatre World Award for his work in the production of The Real Thing at the Barrymore Theater.

His television work is well known in the U.K. and Australia and earned him an Australian Film Industry Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Significant roles in film include, most recently, the role of Leonard Woolf opposite Nicole Kidman in The Hours; Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet, opposite Mel Gibson; the role of Merlin in King Arthur, directed by Antoine Fuqua; Firelight opposite Sophi Marceau; Welcome to Sarajevo directed by Michael Winterbottom opposite Woody Harrelson; Ordinary Decent Criminal opposite Kevin Spacey and The Parole Officer with Steve Coogan.

Travis Preston (Director) is an internationally celebrated director of theater and opera. Recent projects include: King Lear produced by the Center for New Theater at the Brewery Arts Complex and at the Frictions Festival 2003 in Dijon, France; Boris Godounov and a highly controversial production of Luigi Nono's Al Gran Sole Carico D'Amore--both at the Hamburg State Opera. In the U.S. he has directed the world premiers of Democracy in America and Terra Nova at the Yale Repertory Theater. Upcoming projects include Hysteria II, a piece he is creating for Lelabo in Paris. Preston is Artistic Director of the Center for New Theater and Head of the Directing Program at CalArts.

Vinny Golia (Composer) has presented his music to concert audiences in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan and the United States in ensembles varying dramatically in size and instrumentation. Mr. Golia has won numerous awards as a composer, including grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, The Lila Wallace Commissioning Program, The California Arts Council, Funds for U.S. Artists and the American Composers Forum. In 1982 he created the ongoing 32-piece Vinny Golia Large Ensemble to perform his compositions for chamber group and jazz orchestra. In 1990 he was the winner of the Jazz Times TDWR award for Bass Saxophone. In 1998 he ranked 1st in the Cadence Magazine Writers & Readers Poll and has continually placed in the Downbeat Critic's Poll for TDWR on Baritone Saxophone. In 1999 Vinny won the LA Weekly's Award for "Best Jazz Musician". He has also been named one of the 100 people who have influenced the course of jazz in our century by Jazziz Magazine. Golia has also contributed original compositions and scores to ballet and modern dance works, video, theatrical productions, and film. He currently teaches at Art Center College of Design. In 1998 Golia was appointed Regent's Lecturer at the University of California at San Diego. Golia has been a featured performer with Anthony Braxton, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Joelle Leandre, Leo Smith, Horace Tapscott, John Zorn, Tim Berne, Bertram Turetzky, George Lewis, Barre Phillips, The Rova Saxophone Quartet, Patti Smith, Harry "the Hipster" Gibson, Eugene Chadburne, Kevin Ayers, Peter Kowald, and the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band amongst many others. He is a faculty member of the School of Music at the California Institute of the Arts.

Christopher Barreca (Scenic Designer) 150 productions internationally including CNT's Peach Blossom Fan for Chen Shi-Zheng at REDCAT, King Lear at the Brewery in Los Angeles and the Frictions festival in France. Broadway: Marie Christine and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold (American Theater Wing Award), Our Country's Good, Search and Destroy (Drama-logue Award) and The Violet Hour by Richard Greenberg. Off-Broadway credits include Three Days of Rain (Drama Desk Nomination) and Everett Beekin at Lincoln Center, Roberto Zucco, Burning Patience, Nebraska, In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe. He has created work with artists such as Culture Clash, the Karamazov Brothers, Charles Ludlum, Eric Ehn, and Anna Deavere-Smith and with multiple leading directors and regional theaters. Opera: Munchener Biennale Germany, Wole Soyenka's Scourge of Hyacinths (BMW award nomination). Dance: Susan Marshall's Solo, Roman Oller's Good Night Paradise and Tears for Violeta. Barreca is Head of Design at CalArts.

Ellen McCartney (Costume Designer) Recent work includes: The Pearl Fishers (Opera Theatre of St. Louis), A Month in the Country (Guthrie), Semiramide (Minnesota Opera), Jetlag (Builder's Association, NY). In New York: Fish Story, The Hairy Ape (Wooster Group), Artificial Changeling (an interactive film project by media artist Toni Dove), Imperial Motel, Faust (Builder's Association/Theatre Neumarkt performed at Threadwaxing Space). Broadway: A Walk in the Woods (subsequent productions at La Jolla Playhouse, Pushkin Theater, Moscow, Drama Theatre of Vilnius, Lithuania). Her work has also been seen in NY: Second Stage, Circle Repertory Theatre, Playwright's Horizons, Manhattan Theatre; Regional: Seattle Repertory Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Folger Shakespeare Theatre, Portland Stage Company; International: Bunkamura, The Kaaitheatre, Brussels, The Hebbel Theatre, Berlin, The Wiener Festwochen, Vienna and the LIFT Festival, London.

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