PHOTO: LAURIE GALLANT
Christina Augello as Boxcar Bertha
Boxcar Bertha is a one-women play with musical backdrop based on the legendary depression era hobo, feminist, and anarchist Bertha Thompson featuring Christina Augello. This depression era saga follows Bertha, a rugged hard living woman who rode the rails in the 1930s, on a journey from hobo to grifter, from prostitute to activist. Boxcar Bertha received its first staged reading at the DIVAfest 2003. Christina's last one-woman show, Last of the Red Hot Dadas -- the true story of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Dada's unsung heroine -- recently toured through the United States, Canada, and Europe.
Boxcar Bertha's original music and accompaniment by Jack "Applejack" Walroth shapes a simpatico musical backdrop to resonate with Bertha's alternate universe of boxcars, soapboxes, and bordellos. A veteran freelance San Francisco singer, musician, songwriter, and music publisher, Applejack's recent credits include co-authoring lyrics on two songs on Boz Scaggs CD "Dig"; harmonica on "Quicksand: Songs of Kermit Lynch" CD, featuring Alvin Youngblood Hart, and Jon Cleary, plus several stints with the Boz Scaggs Rhythm and Blues tour.
Boxcar Bertha
by Kerry Reid in collaboration with Christina
Augello & John Warren
starring Christina Augello
Original music and accompaniment by Jack "Applejack" Walroth
Some of the dialogue in this play is adapted from Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha, by Dr. Ben L. Reitman, ©2002 Nabat/AK
FOR MORE INFORMATION OR BOOKING CONTACT:
Christina Augello
415.931.1094
PHOTO: SCOTT PALMER
Jack " Applejack" Walroth
Directed by John Warren
Lighting Design Amanda Ortmayer
Sound Design Jack "Applejack Walroth
Costume Support Kathryn Wood
Production Assistant Tony Santos
Light Board Operator Ted Crimy
Boxcar Bertha Performance Dates:
May 31, 2003 reading EXIT Cafe, San Francisco
February 12, 2004 reading EXIT Stage Left, San Francisco
May 20 - May 29, 2004 World Premiere at DIVAfest, San Francisco
July 8 - 10, 2004 LaborFest 2004, EXIT Theatre, San Francisco
July 14 - 26, 2004 Winnipeg Fringe Festival, Winnipeg, Canada
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FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Christina Augello
415.931.1094
BOX OFFICE 415.673.3847
mail@sffringe.org
BIOGRAPHIES
Christina is the founder and artistic director of EXIT Theatre. She has been an actress, producer and director in the Bay Area for over 30 years. Her solo performance career began at DIVAfest 2002 with the premiere of Kerry Reid's LAST OF THE RED HOT DADA,S also directed by John Warren. RED HOT, which has toured internationally for over 70 perofmrances will travel to the Prague Fringe Festival June 1-6. BOXCAR BERTHA is Christina's first professional playwrighting credit and she would like to thank both Kerry and John for being her collaborators on this very exciting and inspirational project. BOXCAR began with in a first draft reading at DIVAfest 2003 and continues it's journey here at DIVAfest 2004 and then again as part of Laborfest at the EXIT Café July 8,9,10th and then on to the Winnipeg Fringe Festival July 12-26. The added dimension of Applejack's original musical backdrop has as Bertha says "showed me a light into a different world."
Jack "Applejack" Walroth (Soundscape, Music & Accompaniment)
http://homepage.mac.com/jackwalrothmusic
Applejack is a veteran freelance San Francisco singer, musician, songwriter, and music publisher, whose career has remained somewhat below the radar, even though it has included longstanding associations with many better known musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Recent credits: Co-authored lyrics on two songs on Boz Scaggs CD, "Dig".
Played harmonica on "Quicksand: Songs of Kermit Lynch" CD, featuring
Alvin Youngblood Hart, and Jon Cleary, plus several stints with the Boz
Scaggs Rhythm and Blues tour.
Within the past two years, has developed an expandable solo /duo / trio
ensemble to play local venues in an acoustic or semi-acoustic format, featuring
a diverse repertory of originals, jazz, eclectic, and alternative sounds.
Appljack spent his formative years in Chicago, came of age during an
exciting era and plunged deeply into the amazing blues world existing there
due to the ongoing mass migration of talented southern blues musicians to
Chicago, especially after World War II. This milieu provided him a rich
and irreplaceable firsthand experience.
He is a founding member of the Blues Power band, heard weekly at the
Saloon in San Francisco. He has shared stage and / or recording studio with
Bonnie Raitt, Earl King, Annie Samson, Zigaboo Modeliste, Jules Broussard,
Ned Boynton, Merle Saunders, Sam Lay, Luther Tucker, Michael Bloomfield,
Elvin Bishop, B.B. King, Barry Goldberg, Nick Gravenites, Steve Freund,
and Harvey Mandel, among others.
Theatrical Biography:
As an avid fiction, film and theater buff, Applejack has been drawn ever
closer to the realm of creating musical support and soundscapes for stage
and screen - he "has ears" for everyone from Kurt Weil and Eubie
Blake to Ry Cooder, Brian Eno, Moby, and Moricone. He has ventured into
soundtracks using home recording studio (with an eye towards the current
flowering of low budget digital independent films) and although theatrical
music is a new endeavor for him, has always felt the over-arching kinship
between all of the performing arts.
On attending an early reading Boxcar Bertha, Applejack became enthused with
the concept of shaping a simpatico musical backdrop
to resonate with Bertha's alternate universe of boxcars, soapboxes, and
bordellos, and successfully auditioned for the role of supporting guitarist
(Hope that you enjoy the results!).
A journalist, critic, and playwright based in Chicago, Kerry's pieces
appear frequently in the Chicago Reader and Chicago Tribune, and her plays
and solo performance pieces have been produced in Chicago, San Francisco,
and Seattle. Her last collaboration with Christina and John, Last of
the Red Hot Dadas, toured the Canadian Fringe circuit last summer and
also appeared in the 2003 Edinburgh Festival
Fringe. Kerry's upcoming plans include collaborating on a new adaptation
of Flann O'Brien's comic masterpiece The Poor Mouth for a production next
season in Chicago.
John is the founding Co-Director of Unconditional Theatre, for which he has directed such shows as The Baltimore Waltz, Lonely Planet, and the west coast premiere of Greensboro: A Requiem. Current freelance projects include Cracking the Safe with Soapstone Theater (developing personal narratives with former perpetrators and survivors of violence) and Vaulting the Median with Tamalpais High School/Marin Theatre Company (creating a documentary play on social protest in Mill Valley). Favorite past productions include Problem Child for Exit Theatre, Dutchman for Bare Bones Theatre, and Patterns of Interference: The John Walker Lindh Project for Tam High/MTC. Local directing credits also include Shotgun Players, Lunatique Fantastique, S.F. Shakespeare Festival, Alchemy Works, and Bay Area Playwrights Festival. He is the author of numerous plays, including Next in Line, The Flag Project: A Response to 9-11, and Groping for Justice: The Bob Packwood Story (a Humana Festival finalist). John is currently a Program Director at Intersection for the Arts, and worked previously as General Manager of the Magic Theatre. He wishes to thank Christina for her ongoing trust, as an artist and as a friend.
Tony Santos (Production Assistant)
Theatre audiences are probably more familiar with Tony as the man in the EXIT Theatre box office. After a 20-year hiatus from stage acting and directing on California's Central Coast, he worked as the assistant director for a SF Fringe production in 2001. Tony soon made himself very much at home as a volunteer at the EXIT. Since then, folks at the EXIT haven't been able to get rid of him. The SF Volunteer Center named Tony as one of the city's outstanding volunteers for performing arts organization in 2003.
Amanda Ortmayer (Lighting Design)
Until recently, Amanda was a theatre student at Sonoma State University where she worked on several different shows as either a light designer, costume designer, stage manager, scenic artist, or just emotional/technical support. She has also worked for several years at Cinnabar Theatre and SRT in Petaluma and Santa Rosa. Some of her favorite productions include Top Girls, Chemistry of Change, 12th Night, Angels in America, Flight of the Heart, Prufrock and all of the Shakespeare productions with the remarkable and charming Debbie Eubanks. Amanda is proud to be a new resident of San Francisco and more than excited to be one of the newest members of the Exit family. She is hoping to stick around the Exit for many years to come.
Kathryn has been active in Bay Area theatre for almost 15 years. She can often be found at the EXIT Theatre playing a varied assortment of queens, mothers and vamps. She is a frequent conspirator with playwright/performer extraordinaire Sean Owens, and was last seen in his play Tincture at the EXIT. Kathryn was honored to design the Baroness' costume for Last of the Red Hot Dadas and thrilled to assist Bertha by distressing her traveling bag.