Jan. 27, 2016 MEDIA CONTACT: Mark Maltby, 858-822-3152, mmaltby@ucsd.edu UC San Diego MFA Students Move, Shake Their Way onto the Stage

The University of California, Department of Theatre and Dance is presenting,

“Movers + Shakers,” as part of its winter quarter 2015/2016 Season. This new play

created by Deborah Stein, playwright and theatre department faculty member, and Suli

Holum, performer, playwright, director and choreographer based in Brooklyn, N.Y.,

explores how technology has melted the borders between good and bad behavior and

encouraged exhibitionism in our most private behaviors—within the context of a political

campaign stop. Opening night is Feb. 19, 7:30 p.m., in UC San Diego’s Mandell Weiss

Forum Theatre.

“Movers + Shakers is funny, uncomfortable, fast-paced, sharp, sometimes

ridiculous, but most importantly, it’s surprisingly and unexpectedly touching,” said Stein.

A devised work four years in the making, “Movers + Shakers,” uses song and

farce to explore the virtual mating habits of our 21st-century political elite. The script is

inspired by Anthony Weiner’s problems with texting and Sarah Palin’s aggressively

unapologetic retrograde femininity, and adapted for the UC San Diego MFA theatre and

music students.

“The music reveals the crude, crass and heartbreakingly sad nature of these

political scandals,” said Stein.

Stein and Holum studied transcripts from Facebook and AOL conversations

involved in political sex scandals, and set the dialogue to music, which Stein states,

“unlocked something very moving and very human.”

With elections around the corner and our ever-growing attachment to our phones,

Movers + Shakers reveals the humanity in the uniquely public and private relationship

we share with technology. By the end of every performance, Stein hopes to inspire each

audience member to ask, “What is it about the online community? What am I seeking?”

Movers + Shakers is created by Stein | Holum Projects in collaboration with UC

San Diego MFA students in the Dept. of Theatre & Dance.

About the Collaborators Deborah Stein is a co-artist director of Stein | Holum Projects (SHP), a laboratory for creating new theatre works. She has written and co-directed (with creative partner Suli Holum) Chimera (created in residence at HERE, where it premiered in the 2012 Under the Radar Festival; subsequently nominated for a Drama Desk Award; upcoming at the Gate in London) and The Wholehearted (premiere at ArtsEmerson in April 2014; upcoming at the Kelly Strayhorn in Pittsburgh). SHP has workshopped new works at Philadelphia FringeArts, Kelly Strayhorn, Playwrights’ Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, and at Perry-Mansfield. Other plays include God Save Gertrude, Wallflower, Heist!, The Aerodynamics of Accident, and Natasha and the Coat. Deborah has also worked collaboratively with Joseph Chaikin, Dominique Serrand, Lear deBessonet, and most frequently the Pig Iron Theatre Company, with whom she collaborated since 2000 on six original works. Her work has been produced and developed nationally at Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, the Theatre @ Boston Court, the Guthrie, Seattle Rep, Stages Rep, the Women’s Project, and the Wilma Theatre, among others; and internationally in Poland, Ireland, Edinburgh (the Traverse) and Prague. Her writing has been published in Theatre Forum, Play: A Journal of Plays, and The Best American Poetry of 1996, Vice, and Hanging Loose. Deborah has taught writing and theatrical collaboration at Yale School of Drama, NYU/Tisch, Princeton, Northeastern, St. Olaf, Parsons, and received her MFA from Brown University, where she studied with Paula Vogel. She has received the NYSCA, the Bush Artist Fellowship, two Jerome Fellowships and a McKnight Advancement Grant at the Playwrights’ Center, and is a proud alumna of New Dramatists. Suli Holum is a performer, playwright, director, and choreographer based in Brooklyn, NY. She is a founder and former Co-Artistic Director of Pig Iron Theatre Company where she established herself as a collaborative playmaker. With diverse training that includes Lecoq, Viewpoints, puppetry and various dance forms, Holum creates work that is highly physical and transformative. Her first original solo show, The Lollipop Project, was developed through an Independence Foundation Individual Artist Fellowship and a Shell Fellowship in Drama from the National Institute of Education in Singapore. She partnered with collaborator Deborah Stein to create the solo work Chimera, which premiered at part of the Public Theatre’s Under the Radar Festival in partnership with HERE. Playwriting commissions include 1 Beach Road, created with Redcape Theatre (UK) and Fighting For Democracy at The National Constitution Center. She wrote and co-directed Wandering Alice with Nichole Canuso Dance Company, and adapted Oedipus at Colonus for Emmanuelle Delpech’s skate park site-specific Oedipus At FDR.

Selected acting credits: Off-Broadway: Hot ‘n’ Throbbing, Courting Vampires, Live Girls, Lebensraum (Drama Desk Award); Regional: Arena Stage: Born Yesterday (Helen Hayes Nomination); Humana Festival: At the Vanishing Point, Phoenix; and work with The Talking Band and The Theatre of a Two Headed Calf. Holum’s original work has received development support from the Workhaus Collective, Swarthmore Project, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, The Orchard Project, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, The Playlabs Festival at the Playwrights Center, NACL, Perry Mansfield New Works Festival and Actors Theatre of Louisville, and the Creativity Fund at New Dramatists. She is an alumna of the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) and a recipient of a 2010 TCG Fox Resident Actor Fellowship. UC San Diego's Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Program in Theatre was created in 1974. Several years later the Department of Theatre and Dance began offering its PhD in Theatre and Drama, a joint program with UC Irvine. Currently, the MFA program offers degrees in acting, dance, directing, design (costume, lighting, scenic, sound), stage management and playwriting. UC San Diego's Theatre & Dance department is consistently ranked among the top graduate theatre training programs in the country. Scholars in the department are in the forefront of their respective fields and the work of faculty artists is seen regularly in New York, at major American regional theatres, in Europe and elsewhere around the world. The department's faculty features artists and scholars with national and international profiles whose research and professional work is integral to their work as teachers. In 1985, a unique professional relationship with the La Jolla Playhouse was established, and that relationship grows stronger each year. The La Jolla Playhouse (Tony Award winner for Outstanding Regional Theatre) is in residence at UC San Diego in our shared facilities, the Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts, and they produce some of the most vital and nervy theatre in this country. Coming This Season… 2015/2016

La Bête The Venetian Twins Feb 20 – Feb 27 March 5 – March 12 Theodore & Adele Shank Theatre Mandell Weiss Theatre

winterWorks Rocks in Her Pocket

March 10 – March 12 March 9 – March 12 Dance Studio 3 Arthur Wagner Theatre

The Wagner New Play Festival GradWorks May 3 – May 14 April 21 – April 23 Jacobs Theatre District Dance Studio 3

New Directions Underground New Play Festival June 2 – June 4 TBD Sheila & Hughes Potiker Theatre Arthur Wagner Theatre

Fact Sheet for Movers + Shakers Book by Deborah Stein Music by James Sugg and Daniel Kluger Lyrics by Deborah Stein and James Sugg Directed by Suli Holum Performance Times Saturday February 13th 7:00p Preview Wednesday February 17th 7:00p Preview Friday February 19th 7:30p Opening Saturday February 20th 7:30p Sunday February 21st 2:00p Closing Tickets General Admission $20 UCSD Faculty/Staff $15 UCSD Students/Alumni $10 Seniors (over 62) $15 Advance tickets are available Monday-Friday, noon to 6 pm by calling the Box Office at (858)-534-4574 or in person at the Theatre District’s Central Box Office at the Sheila & Hughes Potiker Theatre. At-the-Door tickets, if available, can be purchased one hour before show time at the performing theatre’s box office at Mandell Weiss Theatre. Location The Mandell Weiss Forum Theatre 2910 La Jolla Village Drive La Jolla, CA 92037 Parking Information Parking Passes Required Monday through Friday. Weeknight passes are $2 per vehicle from the vending machines located in the UC San Diego Theatre District/La Jolla Playhouse parking lots and entry display case. Please remember your parking space number. You will need it to purchase your parking pass. Cars without permits Monday through Friday are subject to ticketing by UC San Diego Campus Police. The Theatre & Dance Department does not have the authority to waive parking tickets. Note: Machines require EXACT cash and accept all major credit cards (except Discover). http://theatre.ucsd.edu/places/parking.html For more information, please visit the Department of Theatre & Dance website.

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University of California, San DiegoDepartment of Theatre and Dance9500 Gilman Drive MC0344La Jolla, CA 92093

Conceived and Created by Stein | Holum ProjectsIn collaboration with MFA Students from UC San Diego Theatre & Dance

Book by Deborah Stein

Music by James Sugg and Daniel KlugerLyrics by Deborah Stein and James Sugg

Directed by Suli Holum

Using song and farce, Movers + Shakers explores the virtual mating habits of our 21st century political elite. During a routine campaign stop, Congressman Darren Finn and his hardworking campaign staff spin damage control after he’s caught trading dirty texts with his Belarusian girlfriend. A collaboration between faculty member Deborah Stein’s award-winning theatre company Stein | Holum Projects and MFA students. Featuring Zora Howard, Sean McIntyre, Emily Shain, Caroline Siewert, Luis Vega, and Keith Wallace.

Image created by: Dana e McQueen

$20 General Admission$15 UCSD Affiliate/Senior$10 Student Admission

Previews: February 13 + 17 7:00 pmPerformances: February 19 + 20 7:30 pm February 21 2:00 pm

A Play With Songs

Set Designer Charlie Jicha Costume Designer Danae McQueenLighting Designer Anthony Jannuzzi Sound Designer Steven Leffue Musical Director Kyle Adam Blair Choreographer Erin Tracy Assistant Director Emilie Whelan Production Stage Manager Morgan Zupanski

Quinn Martin Endowment Production