Winner
of the 2008 Will Glickman Award!
PICKED
AS "BEST OF 2008" BY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Winner of the East
Bay Express Best
Theatrical Production of the Year award & Sam Hurwitt's
#1
Top Ten Best Plays of the East Bay
Dave Malloy receives
2009 Jonathan Larson Grant for Beowulf! Playbill.com
"exhilaratingly
eclectic and comic Banana-Shotgun Players world premiere,
a two-hour creative deconstruction and celebration ... with
a terrific, eclectic score" - Robert Hurwitt, San
Francisco Chronicle
"That was fucking awesome...the
most thoroughly enjoyable theatrical display I've seen yet
this year." - East
Bay Express
"the group's gut-gripping
new rock opera ... rages with an anarchic energy" -
SF
Weekly
"the most wildly anticipated
theatrical collaboration of the season" - SF
Bay Guardian.
"Banana Bag and Bodice's brilliantly funny, muscular,
and plain irresistible "songplay" is like the
Bay Area landing of some marauding East Coast tribe of masterful
miscreants." - Robert Avila, SFBG
"hilarious...clever...has
the makings of a cult fave." - Dennis Harvey, Variety
"Part funky rock opera, part tart Brechtian parable,
the thoroughly visceral ... rambunctious epic is soaked
in mead and blood, steeped in critical exegesis." -
Karen D'Souza, San
Jose Mercury News
"unlike so many new musicals,
it features music you actively want to listen to ... the
brisk pace and the constantly changing palate (played out
on a set designed by Banana Bag & Bodice and lit by
Miranda Hardy) make those two hours as full as they could
be." - Chad Jones, www.theaterdogs.net
"Equal parts opera and
musical, Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage
is quirky mixed bag." - Arielle Little, The
Daily Californian
"Shotgun Players and
Banana Bag and Bodice ensemble have ... turned the bloody,
dreaded hunk of text into a rock opera." - sfist.com
"Some claim that Grendel
was descended from Cain and all 3,183 lines are Christian
in origin and pagan only in context; others have said that's
hogwash, twaddle, clap, and trap, and the poem was clearly
passed down through recitation using oral-formulaic composition.
In any case, there's a lot of wiggle room, which will be
wiggled in by Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage,
a song-play written by the singular Jason Craig of Banana
Bag & Bodice." - By Silke Tudor, SF
Weekly
"Five of us came and we all really enjoyed it a lot!
One of my friends said it was the best play she's seen in
several years. The thing that struck me most about it was
how young and fresh it felt. Most of the theater I have
seen hasn't seemed so in tune with what is going on culturally,
artistically (and in this case, musically)....It had a lot
of momentum and energy... It was great to have a specifically
fun night at the theater." - Audience Member, 5/14
I am not typically a fan of music theatre but these voices
were perfect for the parts! I see a lot of theatre in the
Bay Area and am not easily impressed. Shotgun is ALWAYS
more than a fun night out....tonight was a performance triumph!
- yelp.com
reviewer KJ P.
"This production visualizes the whole expanse of messy
life hidden inside the clear-cut lines; the novel is brought
back into the poem."
- tribe.net
reviewer Si
"It’s a refreshingly
grotesque and poignant comedic retelling of Beowulf."
- culturebot.org
comment by George
"the aesthetic sensibilities
of New York's underground darlings, Banana Bag and Bodice
... to the East Bay's rebel yell, Shotgun Players"
- http://penny.zingzang.net/
"Jessica Jelliffe is
outstanding ... Cameron Galloway ... is fantastic ... Jason
Craig is tremendous ... Anna Ishida and Shaye Troha ...
exuberant in their dance moves ... Rod Hipskind has directed
a wonderful, zany version of this Nordic classic."
- Richard Connema, Talking
Broadway
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