Ten Red Hen Productions Presents CLOWN BIBLE
Created by Maya Gurantz, Dave Malloy and the Ensemble Music and Lyrics by Dave Malloy Willard Metalshop Theater March 22-April 12 2007

With the loyal you show yourself loyal;
with the blameless you show yourself blameless;
with the pure you show yourself pure,
and with the crooked you show yourself perverse.

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"...there managed to be a lot of halfway-decent theater in the East Bay this year, sometimes even all-the-way decent, and every now and then there was something amazing. Here are ten productions that made it all seem worthwhile:

1. Clown Bible, Ten Red Hen. There was a whole lot more to this musical clown show of Bible stories by composer Dave Malloy and director Maya Gurantz than just slapping red noses on the prophets. Packed with slyly subversive takes on familiar stories and infectiously memorable songs, this bare-bones production in a middle school metal shop was something sublime.

Best Music: Dave Malloy, because it was impossible to come away from Clown Bible not singing, 'I'm Saaamson, I'm craaaazy.'"
-Sam Hurwitt, East Bay Express (top ten shows of 2007)

"Hilarious, haunting, and unexpectedly challenging...the show plays fast and loose with Scripture, but it creates some thought-provoking connections in the process. The songs by Dave Malloy, who leads the band on piano and later doubles as Job and Judas, are often darned catchy. The magic of the show lies less in any great spectacle of circus arts than in the way it can turn from funny to devastating in an instant, and how it makes you look at these old stories in a new way."
-Sam Hurwitt, East Bay Express (original review)

"A theatrical event of real magnitude...with a bright little orchestra (under the baton of composer Dave Malloy) cooking away alongside the familiar tableaux of the recalcitrantly naughty generations of our race, and both persons of the godhead played with brilliant intensity, physical and vocal, by the divine Jane Chen. The ensemble itself is due full, heartfelt praise, as is Ten Red Hen founder Maya Gurantz, for a truly collaborative show that brings out each red-schnozzed player polyphonically, contributing to the unique style and flavor of this bravura piece. Clown Bible doesn't degrade scripture, but elevates the quietly sad or manically grinning countenance of the clown, spotlighting in bold onstage little, quirky details, until spasms of laughter are replaced by a smile of wonder at the ineffability of the ordinary."
-Ken Bullock, Berkeley Daily Planet

 

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