Aurora Theatre Company Will Present a Return Special Limited Engagement of TELL TALE HEARTS

Aurora Theatre Company presents the return special limited engagement TELL TALE HEARTS: An Evening of Hip Hop Theatre Featuring Carlos Aguirre and The Bay Area Theatre Cypher, three evenings of hip hop theatre and spoken word. Carlos Aguirre and The Bay Area Theatre Cypher return to Aurora following sold-out shows last December.

TELL TALE HEARTS runs February 13-15.

Featuring an eclectic mixture of actors, rappers, poets, and hip hop theatre artists of all descriptions, the Bay Area Theatre Cypher is a freestyle rap collective joined on stage at Aurora by Carlos Aguirre (AKA Infinite) for an evening of intelligent, politically-conscious, locally-sourced, community-minded rap, slam poetry, beatboxing, and hip-hop theatre. Each performance will feature Aguirre's rap and beatbox adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart along with a unique blend of improvised freestyle rap and original compositions. Aurora Theatre Company is thrilled to present this performance that takes its stand at the crossroads of theatre, hip-hop, and community.

"Aurora's Tell Tale Hearts [is] on the pulse of theater as an art form...it felt like an event, like a party, and it's wonderful to see the Aurora forging a different model of what programming might look like, rethinking how it might allocate its resources of space and time.

ARTISTS:

Carlos Aguirre, a.k.a. Infinite (actor, musician, vocal percussionist, educator), has been performing both as an actor and hip hop artist in the Bay Area for over 19 years. He has shared the stage with The Roots, Erykah Badu, Black Eyed Peas, Mary J. Blige, Jam Master Jay, L.L. Cool J, Macy Gray, and George Clinton, among others. He is currently producing his original rap and beatbox adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell Tale Heart. Carlos shares his experience by teaching at various schools and at-risk environments throughout the Bay Area.

Aguirre is joined by Bay Area Theatre Cypher (BATC), a new ongoing hip hop theatre project created by Bay Area artists Phil Wong and Dan Wolf. BATC is a collective of local artists operating at the intersection of hip hop & theatre who use rap cyphers as a forum to rhythmically discuss topical issues urgent to the Bay Area theatre community. In their words: "We share space, we spit truth, we bring the fire."

Phil Wong is an actor, director, comedian, musician, teaching artist, and rapper born and raised in the Bay Area. He's a resident artist with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, and his influences range from MF DOOM to Guo Maoqian, Slim Shady to Stephen Sondheim. Wong's recent stage credits include Cutting Ball Theatre, Shotgun Players, Word for Word, Killing My Lobster, Ray of Light, and TheatreWorks.

Dan Wolf is a rapper, playwright, director, actor, and teacher. His work crosses artistic and cultural borders to combine theatrical performance with the themes, language, music, history, politics, and aesthetics reflected in the hip hop generation. He recently featured on the Undercover Presents tribute album to A Tribe Called Quest's "Midnight Marauders". As part of the Resident Playwrights Initiative at the Playwright Foundation, Wolf is developing Curren$y - a theatrical rap show inspired by Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. As the Artistic Director of Sound in the Silence, Wolf works with an international group of partners, artists, students, and participants to create immersive performance experiences at locations such as memorial sites and community centers.

SHOWS

Thursday, 2/13; Friday, 2/14; & Saturday, 2/15 at 8 p.m.

WHERE

Harry's UpStage Aurora Theatre Company | 2081 Addison Street | Berkeley, CA

TICKETS

$30/$27 for subscribers. The public can call (510) 843-4822 or visit www.auroratheatre.org.

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