by BWW News Desk | Jan. 16, 2019
San Francisco Playhouse announced casting for their first Sandbox Series production of 2019 – the world premiere of A White Girl’s Guide to International Terrorism, written by Chelsea Marcantel. Morgan Green will direct. The play was commissioned by San Francisco Playhouse.
Blaze is angry, and with good reason. She’s getting kicked out of her mom’s trailer park in the drug addled Gulf Coast of Louisiana, where part time work at the Dairy Freeze is the most she has to look forward to. That is, until her YouTube channel attracts a mysterious commenter whose words point to a brighter alternative, one that is a dangerous Google search away from unfathomable consequences. A White Girl’s Guide to International Terrorism is the fictionalized epic of a hidden reality in post 9/11 America, where poverty is the battle and misinformation is the weapon.
“After seeing Ms. Marcantel’s play Airness at the Humana Festival in 2017, we immediately wanted to bring her unique voice to San Francisco,” said Artistic Director Bill English. “A White Girl’s Guide to International Terrorism is the first play in our 5- year, 20-play commission program to reach production, and is a milestone we are very proud of.”
The cast of A White Girl’s Guide to International Terrorism features Arwen Anderson*, Isabel Langen, Davied Morales, Neiry Rojo, Mohammad Shehata*, and Liz Sklar*.
San Francisco Playhouse’s production of A White Girl’s Girl to International Terrorism is made possible by executive producer Rowland Weinstein; producers Valerie Barth and The Tournesol Project; associate producer Anne Maxwell, and underwriters for the commission Steven and Karin Chase.
Chelsea Marcantel (Playwright) is an LA-based writer, director, and collaborator. Reared by Cajuns in southwest Louisiana, Chelsea has lived and made theatre among the tribes of the Midwest, Appalachia, the Mid-Atlantic, and now the West Coast. In 2016, she completed a Lila Acheson Wallace American PlaywrightsFellowship at The Juilliard School. Her plays, which have been produced across the US and Canada, include Airness, Everything is Wonderful, Tiny Houses, Ladyish, and Devour. She is currently a member of the inaugural Writers’ Room playwrights’ unit at Geffen Playhouse. Current commissions: San Francisco Playhouse & Delaware Theatre Company. Chelsea has been entrusted with teaching young minds at Virginia Intermont College and Emory & Henry College, and loved every minute of it. As a writer, Chelsea is extremely interested in humans as small-group primates, and what happens when the rules and value systems of our chosen groups cease to serve us. She reads a lot of books, watches a lot of documentaries, and listens to a lot of podcasts. Chelsea is an avid self-producer, an enthusiastic member of The Writers Guild of America and The Dramatists Guild, and is definitely working on something amazing right this very minute. www.ChelseaMarcantel.com
Morgan Green (Director) is a New York based theater director and co-founder of New Saloon (newsaloon.org). Her recent work includes the west coast premiere of The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe (Marin Theatre Company), Cute Activist by Milo Cramer (The Bushwick Starr), MINOR CHARACTER (The Public Theater), The Music Man (The Sharon Playhouse), and Far Away by Caryl Churchill (The Sharon Playhouse). She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist, an alumni of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab and Williamstown Theater Festival Directing Core, and a 2014-2015 Bob Moss Directing Resident at Playwrights Horizons. Morgan was the Associate Director for Pam MacKinnon on Amelie, a new musical on Broadway. She is the recipient of the 2016 New York Innovative Theater’s Outstanding Director Award for Six Translations of Uncle Vanya. She graduated from Bard College with a B.A. in Human Rights and Theater and the Ana Itelman prize for directing. Morgan is a proud member of SDC. MorganClaireGreen.com
The Sandbox Series is San Francisco Playhouse’s new works program. The Playhouse’s commitment to new works in the Sandbox Series has been honored by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Theatre Wing. Designed to bridge the gap between staged readings and Mainstage productions, the program combines top-notch directors and actors with limited design elements, allowing new voices in American theater to be heard while reducing the theatre’s financial risk for full production at this stage of a play’s development. The series has achieved significant critical and commercial milestones: Sandbox plays have won two Will Glickman Awards in the past three years; the Sandbox smash hit Ideation recently completed a successful Off-Broadway engagement in New York City; and George Brant‘s Grounded went on to international acclaim after its Sandbox premiere.
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers.
