Best of the Fringe
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Exit Sign: A Rock Opera |
By Carrie Baum or make a reservation by calling 415-673-3847 |
Hot off the heels of its sold-out June premiere, this rock-n-roll musical adventure follows a father and daughter as they travel through experiences of time, mortality, death and love. "Inspired by the fallout from her father's death, Baum's light take on a heavy topic is no joke - and neither are the expert harmonies." (Bay Guardian). "The poignant story, juxtaposed against catchy ditties like "I Want It" and "Sex and Ice Cream," will make you alternate between head-bobbing and the sniffles." (SF Weekly) Merging humor, irony, and kick-ass ensemble vocals, Exit Sign celebrates both the greatness and absurdity of our humanity.
http://www.myspace.com/exitsignrockopera
About the Cast:
Carrie Baum (Composer/Director/Guitar) has been a musician for 26 years,
creating music for bands, dance, theater, and film. As a founding member
of the bands Soul Divine & Kindness, she has played just about every
major and minor rock club in San Francisco. She was musical director for
the wildly-popular underground phenomenon, Crash Cabaret: Where Queers Collide
and Heterosexuals are Encouraged to Apply. Currently she co-captains Dreamboat,
Where Are You?, featured as a Flaming Creator in the San Francisco Bay Guardian's
2007 Pride issue.
Jamie Ben-Azay (Daughter/Lead Vocals) As a founding member of The Woodyz
and WOOD, San Francisco's Live Drag Musical Reviews, Jamie has performed
nationally at Gay Pride festivals, the grand opening of the Gay and Lesbian
Community Center, the 25th Anniversary of the Rainbow Flag, and San Francisco's
Annual Drag King Contest. Jamie also spent five years singing with the a
cappella ensemble Samsara. Jamie has spent a number of years acting and
dancing in local performance ensembles and was an artist in residence at
The Jon Sims Center for Performing Arts with the modern dance troupe Thicket.
Steffanos X (Father/Lead Vocals) For the past nine years Steffanos has been
lead vocalist of the highly acclaimed Tom Jones tribute band Tom Jonesing.
His acting career has found him in such various roles as Lucky the cat in
Lovesick: The Cat Allergy Musical, Lazarus the dog in the musical Emperor
Norton, Colonel Mustard in Clue, the villainous Ramses in the Darkroom Theater's
production of The Ten Commandments, and Kramer in a Seinfeld based Twilight
Zone episode.
Blue Buddha (Lead Ensemble Vocals) is a singer/songwriter/activist. He has
a unique voice with great range, power and emotion. Blue was the Producer
of the Soul of Pride African American Stage and Village in 2003, 2004 and
2006. He has performed at such benefits as Critical Resistance, NORML, Amnesty
International, St. James Infirmary 4yr Anniversary (clinic for sex workers)
and Radical Performance Festival (benefiting inner city kids in leadership
and the arts). He has worked extensively with people with developmental
disabilities, drug addiction and mental health issues. Blue currently does
research in the HIV/AIDS community and volunteers as an HIV Counselor.
Susan Appe (Lead Ensemble Vocals) is a teacher, activist, organizer and
visual artist. She was a founder of the women's revolutionary a cappella
group Samsara, the chorus teacher at The Community School in Oakland, the
founder of the annual Women's Voices Rise Up benefit concert, a teacher
at Art in Action youth summer camp, a puppet-builder with Art and Revolution,
a worker-owner of Rainbow Grocery Cooperative and a member of the Board
of Directors of the People's Grocery project in West Oakland. Her work in
arts-activism is featured in the film "Art as Revolution" by Forward
Films.
Dean Mermell (Keyboards/Video Direction-Editing) has been keyboardist for
the highly acclaimed Tom Jones tribute band Tom Jonesing. and the now extinct
groove contraption, Kundalini Kombo. When he was 17 he began creating the
music and sound effects for a theater group. These days he's a filmmaker
and film editor in San Francisco: www.storyfarm.com. His films, which he
writes, directs, edits, and scores, have won awards from the SF Int'l Film
Festival, the California Independent Film Festival, and the Moondance Film
Festival, and have also screened at the Mill Valley Film Festival, among
others.
James Paulino aka Cedar Woods (Bass Guitar/Recording Production) has been
involved in the San Francisco scene as a musician/songwriter/producer/engineer
for over 15 years. Having worked for Hyde St. Studios & as well as 5
years with Bill Graham Presents, Cedar has had the chance to work with many
major touring acts including U2, The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead,
Pearl Jam, Green Day & Jane's Addiction. Cedar has played bass in a
variety of bands/projects such as The Free Thinkers of The Universe, Japanese
recording artist Pak Poe Band, and the ethnic trance didgeridoo ensemble
Pele's Tears.
Erik Gross (Drums) has been playing music in San Francisco for 15 years.
Erik has performed audio visual presentations at the Journeys show series
(a performance art showcase), as well as co-writing and performing songs
with various artists in the San Francisco Bay Area. Erik was co-member/creator
of the band The Free Thinkers of The Universe and his current projects include
the band Grasshopper as well as Exit Sign: A Rock Opera.
Exit Sign Press:
"Rock 'n' roll operas will never die. But everyone else will. If that's a bummer (and, hey, it kind of is), it's also fuel for an ecstatic journey into some vital territory in longtime Bay Area rock-guitarist Carrie Baum's backbeat driver of an opera. In Exit Sign, a father and his queer daughter set off on a TV-told-me-to family car ride/quest to save humanity from itself, only to encounter some wicked turns in the road. Inspired by the fallout from her father's death, Baum's light take on a heavy topic is no joke - and neither are the expert harmonies." (Robert Avila, SF Bay Guardian, June 2008)
"While lots of theatrical-minded musicians catapult themselves off
the cliff of the credible in their attempts to rock really hard, Exit Sign:
A Rock Opera opts for primal guitar licks and stirring dialogue. Composed
and directed by Carrie Baum (who also helms popular punk-pop duo Dreamboat,
Where Are You?), the show is an Odyssey-like examination of love and death
that follows a father/daughter team on a mission to bring the inchoate "IT"
back to a culture rendered dumb and numb by pop culture. The mission is
stymied when Dad dies, leaving his daughter to continue the journey solo,
with a few detours of her own. Baum, who created the piece in the aftermath
of her own father's death, describes it as her attempt to share her story
with others who have similarly suffered the loss of a loved one. The poignant
story, juxtaposed against catchy ditties like "I Want It" and
"Sex and Ice Cream," will make you alternate between head-bobbing
and the sniffles. Filmmaker Dean Mermell also!
spins a bewitching parallel story with his video clips of It's a Wonderful
Life, which serve to shed light on how saccharine representations of death
clash with our own experiences." (Nirmala Nataraj, SF Weekly, June
2008)