• 2023-10-08

PEERLESS by Jiehae Park | West Coast Premiere

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 31, 2017

MARIN THEATRE COMPANY PRODUCES
THE WEST COAST PREMIERE OF
peerless
by Jiehae Park

Production Dates: March 14 - April 2, 2017
Opening Night: Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Dark Comic Re-telling of the Scottish Play Comes to MTC

MILL VALLEY, CA—Marin Theatre Company stirs the stage this season with the West Coast Premiere of peerless by Jiehae Park, a new dark comedy riff on Shakespeare’s classic cursed tale Macbeth. Twin sisters “M” and “L” resort to desperate measures when their academic dreams of success are dashed most unexpectedly. With unwavering loyalty to each other—and themselves—they craft a plan to manipulate their destiny by any means necessary. Fresh off a critically acclaimed World Premiere production at Yale Repertory in 2015, MTC is excited to bring this sinister, sisterly twist on the Scottish Play to the West Coast under the direction of Margot Bordelon, who also directed the play’s World Premiere.

Margot Bordelon to Direct West Coast Premiere

Marin Theatre Company is ecstatic to have Margot Bordelon, a New York based theatre director, returning to direct peerless’ second production here at MTC. Margot moved to the East Coast after spending six years in Chicago working as a director, writer and performer. She is a founding member of Theatre Seven of Chicago, where she conceived and directed We Live Here; Lies & Liars; and Yes, This Really Happened to Me. Margot spent four seasons working at Lookingglass Theatre, where she served as Literary Manager and Company Dramaturg. In Chicago she also worked for Collaboraction, Timeline, Pavement Group, Live Bait, Around the Coyote, Bailiwick, Hell in a Handbag, and Steppenwolf Theatre Company where she assistant directed for both Tina Landau and Austin Pendleton. She spent three years as a storyteller for 2nd Story, and her autobiographical work has been seen numerous times on the Victory Gardens stage, including her one-woman show You Are Here.

In New York Margot has developed new plays with Ars Nova, Atlantic Theatre, The Bushwick Starr, Cherry Lane, Clubbed Thumb, Dodo, Juilliard, The Lark, NYTW, Primary Stages, Rattlestick, Roundabout Underground, SPACE at Ryder Farm, Target Margin, and Theater Masters, among others. In 2013, she graduated from the Yale School of Drama with an MFA in theater directing. Work at YSD includes: Sagittarius Ponderosa by MJ Kaufman; Cloud Nine by Caryl Churchill; This. by Mary Laws; The Secret in the Wings by Mary Zimmerman; Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra; A Duck On A Bike by Amelia Roper; and Game Room by Justin Taylor.

More About Award-Winning Playwright Jiehae Park

Ms. Park has been produced or developed through the Cherry Lane Mentor Project, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep’s W/D Lab, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, the Public’s 2015 Emerging Writers Group, New York Theater Workshop, Dramatists Guild Fellowship, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 52nd Street Project, 24 Hour Plays on Broadway, & the amazing Ma-Yi Writers Lab. Her plays have won the Leah Ryan Prize & Princess Grace Award, and have been included in two years of the Kilroys List for best female playwright. Commissions include: Playwrights Horizons, Actors Theater of Louisville/Humana. Residencies: MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and McCarter/Sallie B. Goodman. As a performer: La Jolla Playhouse, NYTW, Studio Theatre, Tiny Little Band (Prelude and Cloud City), and REDCAT. She received her Bachelor's degree in Theatre at Amherst College and her MFA in acting at the University of California, San Diego.

The West Coast Welcomes Ms. Park in 2017!

Another of Ms. Park’s plays, Hannah and the Dread Gazebo, won the Princess Grace Award, the Leah Ryan Prize, landed on the first annual Kilroys List, and will receive its World Premiere in March 2017 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. To celebrate both OSF’s Hannah and MTC’s peerless opening very near the same time, MTC is offering a special, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for interested students of all ages to read and watch both plays, meet the playwright and artists in each play’s company and, of course, travel to OSF together!

Interested participants are invited to join MTC Artistic Director Jasson Minadakis for a unique perspective on playwright Jiehae Park. Students will begin by exploring the relationships between the two plays with a two-part class at MTC led by Mr. Minadakis and other MTC artistic staff. Later, as part of MTC’s annual trip to OSF, students will have the opportunity to see Hannah and analyze both plays. For more information on this class and trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, visit MTC’s website today!

UrbanSitter at MTC Has You Covered

MTC is pleased to continue to partner with UrbanSitter, a website and app that helps busy parents find trusted babysitters and nannies, to enable the numerous young families in the Bay Area to attend live theater more easily.  Make it a Spring matinee with UrbanSitter who will provide babysitters for MTC’s Sitter Saturday event for peerless  on Saturday, March 18, at 2:00 pm. Read David Templeton’s feature about this partnership in the North Bay Stage and Screen here.

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CALENDAR LISTING
Theatre/Performing Arts/Entertainment

WHAT
peerless

WHO
By Jiehae Park
Directed by Margot Bordelon

FEATURING
Rinabeth Apostol, Tiffany Villarin, Cameron Matthews, Jeremy Kahn, Rosie Hallet

WHEN
March 9 - April 2, 2017
OPENING NIGHT: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 at 7:30pm

Evening Performances
Tuesdays - Sundays 7:30pm

Matinee Performances Sun (Preview) March 12, 4:00pm
Thu (Perspectives) March 23, 2:00pm
Sat March 18 & April 1, 2:00pm
Sun March 19, 26 & April 2, 2:00pm

WHERE
Marin Theatre Company | 397 Miller Ave | Mill Valley, CA 94941

ABOUT
Twin sisters “M” and “L” care about two things in this world: academic ambition, and each other. When M’s supposed shoo-in slot at a prestigious university is given to someone else, the sisters begin to strategize how to secure their success by any means necessary. Egged on by a weird but seemingly-psychic classmate, the sisters take a page from a certain Scottish tragedy and decide that good old-fashioned murder might just be the extracurricular activity that will take them to the top. Jiehae Park’s dark comedy-riff on Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a savage satire on academia, teenagers and race, and made The Kilroys’ 2015 List of the best new plays by female playwrights.

TICKETS
$22 - $60

Discounts available for seniors, teens, military families, Bay Area teachers and groups of 7 or more. Contact the Box Office for more details.
marintheatre.org | (415) 388-5208 | boxoffice@marintheatre.org

MTC ENGAGED SPECIAL EVENTS

• Pre-Show Discussions: Join members of MTC’s artistic staff and cast of the show to discuss the play, playwright and play’s themes on Wednesdays before the 7:30pm performances.

• After Words: Join a member of MTC’s artistic staff (often with one or more members of the cast) for a Q&A talkback after every performance, except Saturday evenings and Opening and Closing Nights.

• Sitter Saturday: MTC is pleased to continue to partner with UrbanSitter, a website and app that helps busy parents find trusted babysitters and nannies, to enable the numerous young families in the Bay Area to attend live theater more easily. We are beyond thrilled to continue our partnership with UrbanSitter this season, who will provide babysitters for the matinee performance of peerless on Saturday, March 18 at 2:00pm.

• Perspectives: The third Thursday of each show is the Perspectives matinee performance which includes a pre-show topical lecture. For peerless, the Perspectives matinee is scheduled for Thursday, March 23, with the pre-show lecture beginning at 12:30pm, and the performance beginning at 1:00pm.

• MTC After Hours: Following the Saturday, March 25 at 7:30pm performance, join members of the audience and cast in the lobby to continue the conversation. Featuring music and drink specials.

ACCESS
Marin Theatre Company is proud to partner with the Theatre Development Fund's Open Captioning Initiative to provide open captioned performances of each of the plays in our mainstage series on the Thursday matinee. The open captioned performance for peerless will be Thursday, March 23, at 1:00pm.

For visually impaired patrons, Large Print playbills are available with one week’s advance notice. To request a Large Print playbill, call MTC’s Box Office, (415) 388-5208, or use the California Telecommunications Relay Service by dialing “711.” For hearing impaired patrons, amplified sound

Assistive Listening Devices are available.

CONTACT
marintheatre.org | (415) 388-5208 | boxoffice@marintheatre.org

ABOUT MTC Marin Theatre Company is the Bay Area’s premier mid-sized theater and the leading professional theater in the North Bay. We produce a six-show season focused on new American plays, and a four-show Family Series. We are committed to the development and production of new plays, with a comprehensive New Play Program that includes productions of world premieres, two nationally recognized annual playwriting awards and readings and workshops by the nation’s best emerging and established playwrights. Our numerous education programs serve more than 12,000+ students from over 40 Bay Area schools each year.  MTC strives to create intimate, powerful and emotional experiences that engage audiences to discuss new ideas and adopt a broader point of view. We believe in taking risks and inspiring people to participate in live theater, regardless of personal means.  MTC celebrates the intellectual curiosity of our community, and we believe that theater is an important tool to help build empathy. MTC was founded in 1966 and is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

PRESS CONTACT
Sara Waugh, Marketing Director
(415) 322-6022 | saraw@marintheatre.org

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Jiehae Park’s ‘peerless’ to World Premiere at the Yale Repertory Theatre

Behind the Scenes of peerless at Yale Rep (video)

Trailer for peerless at Yale Rep (video)