A comedy about a young couple facing the challenge of organizing their new apartment – and their new relationship. But how do they make decisions when so much is at stake – and when the landlady gives them unwanted furniture, not to mention her unwanted company? From the author of Noises Off, Here is a play of sharp comic dialogue echoing Stoppard, Pinter, and Mamet.
“Director Stephen Drewes focuses shrewdly on the lovers’ familiar yet guarded, playful yet worrying dialogue charmingly rendered with understated emotional precision by Sarah Eismann and Aaron Murphy” – Robert Avila, Talkin’ Broadway
“The staging and acting on the small space … are very well arranged … the development between the couple is infused with a sense of human relationship, highly developed in this production.” – Albert Goodwin, San Francisco Bay Times
| Playwright | Michael Frayn |
| Venue | Exit Theatre |
| Address | 156 Eddy Street, San Francisco |
| Director | Stephen Drewes |
| Cast | Aaron Murphy Sarah Eismann Annie Larson |
| Other Credits | Whitney Gafford, Assistant to the Director Ted Hlavac, Stage Manager / Board Operator Mary Samson, Marketing / Costumes Peter Teaff, Associate Producer / Graphic Designer Chris Early, Crew |
| January 16 – February 7, 2009 |
MIchael Frayn (Playwright) British playwright, novelist, and translator whose work is often compared to that of Anton Chekhov for its focus on humorous family situations and its insights into society. Frayn is best known for his long-running, internationally successful stage farce Noises Off (1982; 1992 film). Frayn graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1957 and worked as a newspaper reporter, columnist, and critic for the Manchester Guardian and The Observer. A wide-ranging and prolific author, Frayn wrote novels, plays, documentary films, and teleplays. He also translated and adapted several plays by Chekhov. Other plays by Frayn include Alphabetical Order (1976), Make and Break (1980), Donkey’s Years (1977), Benefactors (1984), Copenhagen (1998), Democracy (2003), and Afterlife (2008).
Stephen Drewes (Director) a fifth-generation San Franciscan, accepted his first directing assignment in 1975 for The People’s Theatre in Cambridge, MA. He has since directed more than 85 productions in every genre from children’s theatre to grand opera. He has been a member of the faculty at Middlebury College, Boston University, and Colgate, and taught at CCSF for twenty years. He was Artistic Director of the Publick Theatre in Cambridge MA, where three of his productions won Boston Critics Awards for Direction. He was also resident stage Director for Pocket Opera. He co-founded Spare Stage in 2008, and won a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for his direction of THE UNEXPECTED MAN in 2009.
Spare Stage 