©2009 Backwards Ensemble Theatre Company

09/10 season

• PIECES
• Not a Genuine Black Man
• The Shape of Things
• The Virgin Playwrights

2009/2010

the virgin playwrights | Every 2 months

Aimed at fostering community by giving new playwrights the chance to further their artists process, the Virgin Playwrights program will provide actors, a director, a space, and an audience for the purpose of producing a one-night staged reading of a new playwright’s work.

pieces

the author’s voice & salome | December 4 - 21

By Richard Greenberg & Chuck Mee

Directed by Zac Eckstein and Tina Meyers

Presented at TPS’ Theatre 4

In The Author’s Voice a pretty young editor accompanies a handsome young writer back to his apartment to celebrate a recent book deal. While the writer’s books are of spectacular quality, it soon becomes clear that the man himself is quite mundane and hardly verbose. Add to that a mysterious locked door emitting a strange and repugnant smell, and it’s hard not to wonder if something dark can be found lurking beneath this writer’s attractive facade...

Salome is a solo, with dance and text, that takes the Biblical Salome into a modern world of sexual transgression and murder, incorporating texts taken from, or inspired by Catherine Millet, Gustave Flaubert, Camille Paglia, Annie Sprinkle, Colette, and various other texts posted on the Internet.

not a genuine black man  | February 11 - 14

By Brian Copeland (link)

(co-production)

Presented at Theatre Off Jackson

The longest running solo play in San Francisco Theatrical History comes to Seattle for a very special limited engagement!

In 1971, San Leandro, Ca. was named one of the most racist suburbs in America. Congressional hearings were held. The next year, the then eight-year-old Brian Copeland and his African-American family moved to San Leandro. In a monologue that's both funny and poignant, Brian explores how surroundings make us who we are. Join us for an evening of laughter tears and sociology.

“With agility, Copeland plays over 20 characters in the two-hour show including himself, himself as an 8-year-old, his mother, his sister, his grandmother, his son, his father, his landlord, 3 policemen, 2 lawyers, his father, a waitress, a pastor of an all-white church, a hate-letter writer, two white teenaged racists and several irate neighbors.” - Examiner

the shape of things  | April/May 2010

By Neil LaBute

Directed by Zac Eckstein

Is there a connection between art and love? Can art BE love?

Through one of Neil LaBute’s most compelling stories, BETC will examine how the shape of things in the 21st century can have a profound effect on how we view ourselves and how we live our lives.