By Ignacio Zulueta
Directed by Hugo E. Carbajal
with dramaturgy by Scott Horstein
Starring: Federico Andrade, Robert Ernst*, Nick Garcia, SaBah Leilee, Jack Nicolaus, Carla Pauli, Kyle Stoner
Production: Wiljago Cook, Eva Herndon, Norman Kern, Alicia Lerner, Laura Millar, Adam Roy
Armed with J.R.R. Tolkien as a peculiar moral compass, a misfit in a rural community sets out on a quest to find a friend. Can a deranged fire chief, homophobia, or a wild bear hopped up on crystal meth stop him?
Performs June 18th through July 13th
The Fellowship
World premiere
The Cast & Crew
was born in Manila, studied in Providence, and writes in Oakland. His stage and radio plays have been seen and heard throughout the Bay Area, as well as in Ashland, New York, Minneapolis, Kalamazoo, and on KUSF 90.3FM and KPFA 94.1FM. He’s a five-year member of San Francisco PlayGround, the Bay Area’s largest new plays developmental organization, and a 2012 winner of their Emerging Writer award. Ignacio has been a part of NewWorks Incubator Asian-American Theatre Company from 2010 to the present. He was a semifinalist for the Global Age Project at Aurora Theatre and the ReOrient Festival at Golden Thread Productions. Ignacio developed The Fellowship for AlterTheater in San Rafael as part of their inaugural AlterLab residency program.
Hugo E. Carbajal
is a proud recipient of the 2013 Theatre Bay Area Titan Actor award. He has an MFA in Physical Theatre from Naropa University, and studied at the London International School of Performing Arts. He is an actor, director, mover, mask-maker, and teacher. He moved to the Bay Area from Colorado six years ago and has had the pleasure of working with companies such as San Francisco Mime Troupe, Teatrovision, Impact Theatre, Climate Theatre, Shotgun Players, and Cuttingball Theatre. With AlterTheater, he appeared as Gabe in the world premier commission A Man, his Wife, and his Hat by Lauren Yee. Also a director, he is excited to be directing the premiere of The Fellowship by Ignacio Zulueta. Hugo is a proud member of the Bay Area Latino Theatre Artists Network (BALTAN).
Federico Andrade
graduated from Santa Clara University with a B.S. in Finance. Past theatre productions include Footloose, Playwrights Festival, and Life of an American at Santa Clara University as well as A Message with Arabian Shakespeare Festival. Films include Spent, Inside FIFA: A Flopping Story, Which Craft, On the Rocks, and Goodbye Havana. He has been auditing theatre classes at Santa Clara University as well as studying at Film Acting Bay Area this past year in hopes of getting into graduate school for an MFA program.
Robert Ernst
is a co-founder of Berkeley’s Blake Street Hawkeyes. As an actor, Ernst has appeared in film, television, and onstage, performing in a critically acclaimed production of People’s Temple at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and William Saroyoan’s Time Of Your Life, a tri-production sponsored by The Steppenwolf Theatre of Chicago, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and American Conservatory Theater of San Francisco, and directed by Tina Landau. His performance in the Sam Shepard play Eyes for Consuela was picked by the Bay Guardian as one of the year’s best in 1999. Ernst has performed on every major, and most small, theater stages in the San Francisco Bay Area. Film/tv credits include Surefire, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Burglar, Metro, Escape from Alcatraz, Nash Bridges and Hill Street Blues. Ernst also writes songs for, and is a member of, the band Smooth Toad. With AlterTheater, Ernst developed The Changer, which received a First Look workshop production in 2011. AlterTheater also developed and premiered Catherine’s Care, nominated for a Critic’s Circle Award for Best New Play.
Nick Garcia
is thrilled to be returning to AlterTheater for The Fellowship. He was last seen playing Moises in AlterTheater’s recent critically acclaimed production of The River Bride. Nick has worked extensively across the country as a teacher, actor, director, and designer. He was recently the Artistic Director of Children’s Theatre Programming for the George Daily Auditorium, where he designed and oversaw the curriculum for the drama school. He has performed, directed, and designed for venues such as the National Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco, Pella Shakespeare Festival in Iowa, The Miner’s Union Theatre in Silverton Colorado, The George Daily Auditorium in Oskaloosa Iowa, and both the Iowa New Play and Fringe Festivals. He is currently the Chair of the Department of Dramatic Arts at Los Medanos College.
SaBah Leilee
makes her professional theatrical debut. Born and raised in Morocco, SaBah traveled the world, learning to sing gospel from sharecroppers while working on a farm in Georgia, performing daily in the dining hall. After a nomadic life that included brief stints in British Columbia, Olympia, Italy, and a life-changing 9 months in India, SaBah went back to school, in the hopes of building a consistent relationship that could be progressive. SaBah studied at Santa Monica Community College before transferring to UC Berkeley in 2009. A double major in political science and theater and performance studies, SaBah became interested in the theory that everyone is always performing, in that our expressions are not completely free but informed by socioeconomic mores. Entering that conversation from the point of view as “deviant”, SaBah is excited by the possibility to represent additional realities in the professional theater.
Jack Nicolaus
is proud to be making his AlterTheater debut. An actor, director, teaching artist, and clown, Jack is pleased to have worked all over the country, including with the Kennedy Center, Berkeley Repertory Theater, and the Geffen Playhouse. Other Bay Area credits include Twelfth Night at North Bay Shakespeare. New York credits include Macbeth (Red Tail Theater Co) and Platanov (dir. Sina Heiss). TV: Rescue Me (FX).
Carla Pauli
is thrilled to return to AlterTheater for The Fellowship. Other AlterTheater credits include The River Bride and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot. Ms. Pauli has had the opportunity to work with other theatre companies including Marin Shakespeare Company (All’s Well That Ends Well), Porchlight Theatre (Scapino!), The Pear Avenue Theatre (The Real Thing), The Cutting Ball Theatre (Pelleas and Melisande), OpenTab Productions (Enron, Farragut North, Fishing), Golden Thread Productions (Rumi X7), The Eugene O’Neill Foundation and Brava, among others. Carla studied drama at American Conservatory Theatre Studio. She is a teaching artists and soon to be a Drama Therapy student at CIIS. She is a company member at AlterTheater Ensemble and a winner of the 2012 TBA Titan Award.
Kyle Stoner
marks his AlterTheater debut having appeared with various companies since his start in spring of 2010 including Shakespeare Napa Valley, Marin Shakespeare Company, Lamplighters, Berkeley Playhouse, 42nd Street Moon, Diablo Theatre Company, Ray of Light, Cinnabar Theatre, and most recently as revolutionary in Sierra Repertory Theatre's regional production of Les Misérables. Favorite roles include Yvan (ART), Jack (Into the Woods), Jesus (Jesus Christ Superstar), Jean-Michele (La Cage au Folles), and as himself/Austin Tichenor sub in the world premiere of the Reduced Shakespeare Company's The Ultimate Christmas Show (abridged)."
Scott Horstein
Freelance dramaturgy credits include foolsFURY, Denver Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Rep, and the Old Globe, where he dramaturged for Arthur Miller on his penultimate play Resurrection Blues. He was formerly Manager of Play Development for Cornerstone Theater Company and Literary Director for the Black Dahlia Theater in Los Angeles. He has dramaturged productions for leading playwrights, including Sheila Callaghan, Sarah Ruhl, Octavio Solis, David Edgar, Austin Pendleton, and James Still, and for leading directors, including Bill Rauch, Mark Lamos, and Kyle Donnelly. He has directed at Native Voices, East West Players, and the West Coast Ensemble. He is based in San Rafael and currently serves as Assistant Professor of Contemporary Theatre and Dramaturgy at Sonoma State University, where he teaches dramaturgy, playwriting, theater history, and dramatic literature. Scott is a proud and active member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA). He holds an MFA in Dramaturgy from UCSD.
Alicia Lerner
is thrilled to return to AlterTheater after Stage Managing their 2012 production of References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot. She recently completed a two-season run at Berkeley Playhouse working on The Pirates of Penzance, The Sound of Music, Guys and Dolls, The Wiz, A Little Princess, The Music Man and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Other stage management credits include 1776 (A.C.T.), The Train Driver, Shirley Valentine, Agnes Under the Big Top (Long Wharf Theatre), Annie Get Your Gun, Radio Girl (Goodspeed Musicals), The 2007 – 2009 Shakespeare Festivals, Dancing in the Dark, Working (The Old Globe) and Much Ado About Nothing (La Jolla Playhouse/Aquila Theatre Company). She holds a BFA in Media-Film Studies from The University of California, San Diego and in the Fall of this year, she will be re-joining the A.C.T. family as a Stage Management Fellow.
Norman Kern
is a multi-award winning theatre artist working in the entertainment industry for 30 years. As a sound designer, Norman has the sophisticated approach to the heart of the story and collaborates with directors, actors and the design team to create a unique storytelling experience. A multi-instrumentalist with recording engineer training by the legendary Dr. Richie Moore (Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, etc). Norman’s cinematic approach to sound design creates images, and places the audience in the center of the story. His credits include three independent feature films (starring Hill Harper, Brock Peters, etc.) and over 100 live theatre productions. Norman is very excited about returning to AlterTheater, where previous designs include Summerland, After The Fall, Sex Parasite, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, and the world premieres of BABA, The Dead Girl and A Man, His Wife, and A Hat.
Eva Herndon
Eva Herndon recently graduated from Beloit College in Beloit Wisconsin, making this production her first show out in the real world. She is excited to be back and working on this play after assisting costume designer Courtney Flores on AlterTheater's The River Bride. She is very grateful to her friends and mentors from school as well as from the California Shakespeare Theatre for helping her get here.