San Francisco Chronicle Article

San Francisco Chronicle Article

Doing a little catch up on the blog today.  We’ve had some great coverage for our production of The Merchant of Venice.  Starting with this article in our paper of record, The San Francisco Chronicle:

“Bousel notes that while the famous “quality of mercy” speech is one of the most articulate arguments for common decency ever written, the irony of the play is that common decency is noticeably lacking from beginning to end, which is perhaps why directors tend to shy away from producing it.”

Read the whole article here!

 

A Stuey ™ for The Effect of Gamma Rays!

A Stuey ™ for The Effect of Gamma Rays!

Director Stuart Bousel (M. Butterfly, The Merchant of Venice) has been giving his own year-end awards for two seasons now.  As he rightfully says, all awards go the people you know, so yes he knows everyone, and works for some of them, but his opinion is just as valid as anyone else’s.

We couldn’t agree more, and not just because he named our The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds Best Overall Production.  Here’s from the Facebook article:

 BEST OVERALL PRODUCTION

“The Affect of Gamma Rays on Man In The Moon Marigolds” (Custom Made Theater Company)

Custom Made seems to have had a great 2011 and it ended with what was, for me, the best over-all show I saw this year. Paul Zindel’s classive about growing up lower middle class in suburbia is still very very poignant and relevant and Katja Rivera’s production brought gold out of her excellent cast. Custom Made has made some excellent staff changes in the last year and so their technical aspects have grown stronger, making for some solid hits in this production, including some musical scoring that some people didn’t care for but I thought worked beautifully to highlight Zindel’s optimism as it runs just below his tawdry surfaces. Michelle Jasso proved she could step outside of the diva roles to play an embittered, pathetic woman whose hateful world view would be repulsive were it not completely understandable, and the decision to have both the teenage girl roles played by actual teenargers was rewarded by having the two best teenage girl actresses I’ve ever seen in the Bay Area knock their respective roles out of the park. AJ Davenport was tragically sympathetic in a silent role. All in all, a good example of everything working together go bring you the best evening possible.

Read about all the other Stuey ™ winners here:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/stuart-bousel/the-stuart-excellence-in-bay-area-theater-awards-for-2011/10151102326035077