Aurora Theatre Company Presents the World Premiere of FATHER/DAUGHTER By Kait Kerrigan

Aurora Theatre Company continues its 30th season with the World Premiere of Kait Kerrigan's FATHER/DAUGHTER, a recipient of the 2021 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. Bay Area theatre artist M. Graham Smith directs William Thomas Hodgson and Sam Jackson (The Bluest Eye, Exit Strategy, Splendour) in this beautifully innovative play about love, family, and relationships.

FATHER/DAUGHTER will be presented in-person on Aurora's mainstage from November 12 - December 12 (Opens: November 18).

Aurora will also offer a week of streaming FATHER/DAUGHTER performances for audiences to enjoy in their homes. Streaming performances will run concurrently with in-person performances, from December 7-12.

Said Artistic Director Josh Costello: "In FATHER/DAUGHTER, playwright Kait Kerrigan does something extraordinary. She intertwines two rich and complicated love stories 30 years apart with stunning theatricality. M. Graham Smith is making his Aurora season directorial debut, following many years leading The Global Age Project, Aurora's new play discovery program -- I'm thrilled for Graham to direct the world premiere of this remarkable play. FATHER/DAUGHTER marks our return to in-person audiences for the first time since early 2020, and I can't wait to welcome everyone back to share this intimate and powerful story in our space."

In its world premiere, FATHER/DAUGHTER, by playwright Kait Kerrigan, is a beautifully written contemporary romance. Two actors play both pairs of lovers in this structurally inventive play that asks how our relationships with our parents and children impact our romantic lives. In parallel stories told 23 years apart, Baldwin is Miranda's 30-year-old divorced father who is trying to forge a new relationship with a beguiling woman, and Miranda is Baldwin's 30-year-old daughter, who has found herself in her first serious relationship. What can we learn from the relationships we choose in order to repair the relationships we inherit? Kerrigan is an award winning playwright, librettist, and lyricist (We Have to Hold Hands, Mad Ones). Presented live in our space if health conditions allow, otherwise streamed to your home on video.

"Kait Kerrigan's writing is insightful, audacious, and liable to make you either laugh or cry when you least expect it," said Costello.

Kait Kerrigan (she/her) is an award-winning lyricist, book writer, and playwright. Her plays include Father/Daughter, Disaster Relief, Imaginary Love, Transit, and We Have to Hold Hands. Her plays and musicals have been developed by the Kennedy Center, Goodspeed, La Jolla Playhouse, Theatreworks/Silicon Valley, Chautauqua Theatre Company, Lark Play Development, Primary Stages, Weston Playhouse, and others. Kerrigan's Off-Broadway work include The Mad Ones and Henry and Mudge. Other musicals include The Bad Years, an immersive house party, and Republic, a sung-through musical set in Northern Ireland and based on Shakespeare's Henry IV.

Kerrigan has won the Kleban, Jonathan Larson, and Theater Hall of Fame most Promising Lyricist awards. She is an alumna of Page 73's Interstate 73, the Dramatists Guild Fellowship, and the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. Kerrigan is a member of the Dramatists' Guild and ASCAP, and a founding member of digital sheet music start-up NewMusicalTheatre.com.

M. Graham Smith (he/him) is a San Francisco-based director, educator, and producer. He spent five years as Producer of Aurora's former new play discovery program and festival The Global Age Project. Smith has directed in New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Portland Oregon, Washington DC, and the San Francisco bay area. He is an O'Neill/NNPN National Directing Fellow, an Oregon Shakespeare Festival FAIR Fellow, and a Resident Artist at San Francisco's Crowded Fire Theater. He directed the West Coast Premiere of Jerry Springer: The Opera at Ray of Light Theatre in San Francisco, and Truffaldino Says No at Shotgun Players, winning Best Director from the Bay Area Critics' Circle. Recent productions include the World Premiere of Obie winner Christopher Chen's Home Invasion; Kevin Rolston's Deal With The Dragon (A.C.T.'s Costume Shop, Edinburgh Fringe); Mia Chung's You For Me For You (Crowded Fire); and James Ijames' White (Shotgun Players). In April 2021 he directed his first full length film, a hip-hop musical adaptation of As You Like It, with music and lyrics by Ryan Nicole Austin produced by A.C.T. Father/Daughter is the first first full production that Smith will direct at Aurora.

"I'm so looking forward to returning to in-person performance with Kait's intimate play about how we learn to love and to forgive, featuring two outrageously talented actors," Smith said.

Smith has assembled an all-star cast for FATHER/DAUGHTER.

William Thomas Hodgson (he/his) makes his Aurora debut. Hodgson is an acting company member at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where his acting credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, How to Catch Creation, Romeo and Juliet, and Love's Labor's Lost. Locally he has been seen in It Can't Happen Here (Berkeley Rep); As You Like It (California Shakespeare Theater); Thomas and Sally (Marin Theatre Company), I Am My Own Wife (Ubuntu Theater Project); Calligraphy (TheatreWorks); and Seussical the Musical (Berkeley Playhouse). Regional credits include Mixed Blood Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego Repertory Theatre, PCPA (Pacific Conservatory Theatre), UCSD, and Santa Fe University of Art and Design. Hodgson is the co-founder of Ubuntu Theater Project, and was awarded the BroadwayWorld Award for Best Actor and a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and Outstanding Direction. He has an MFA in Acting from UCSD and has trained with SFUAD and PCPA.

Sam Jackson (she/her) returns to Aurora where she previously appeared in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (2021), Exit Strategy (2019), and Splendour (2017). She is a San Francisco-based actor, vocalist, and teaching artist. Her recent acting credits include: Vinegar Tom (Shotgun Players), Kings (Shotgun Players), and Kill The Debbie Downers! Kill Them! Kill Them! Kill Them Off!! (Shotgun Players). Jackson is also a company member of Nice Tan Comedy, a queer WOC-led sketch comedy group based in San Francisco.

The creative team for FATHER/DAUGHTER includes Cheryle Honerlah--Stage Manager; Emma Buechner--Assistant Stage Manager; Kate Boyd--Scenic; David K. H. Elliott--Lighting; Courtney Flores--Costume; Cliff Caruthers--Sound; Natalie Greene--Intimacy & Movement.

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