- 2023-10-08
The Catastrophist Extended Due to Popular Demand!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS CONTACT:
Marin Theatre Company Kevin Kopjak, 415.296.0677 kevink@charleszukow.com
“In Ms. Gunderson’s hands, The Catastrophist sheds compassionate light on the all-too- human tendency to ignore catastrophe until it is too late. There’s no risk, and plenty of reward, in watching this essential lesson" — The Economist
“A marriage of art and life. Fascinating” — PBS NewsHour "Deeply affecting...sensorial...warmly comical. Readymade for this historical moment”
— San Francisco Examiner
DUE TO POPULAR TICKET DEMAND, MARIN THEATRE COMPANY AND ROUND HOUSE THEATRE ANNOUNCE EXTENSION OF THE WORLD PREMIERE DIGITAL CO-PRODUCTION
THE CATASTROPHIST BY LAUREN M. GUNDERSON
TICKETS ON-SALE NOW THROUGH JULY 25, 2021
SAN FRANCISCO (February 23, 2021)—Due to popular ticket demand, Marin Theatre Company and Round House Theatre announced the extension of Lauren M. Gunderson’s The Catastrophist, the hit world premiere digital co-production based on the life and work of award-winning “virus hunter” Nathan Wolfe. Filmed on stage at Marin’s Boyer Theatre, The Catastrophist is presented entirely digitally and available for on-demand viewing now through Sunday, July 25, 2021. Tickets ($30) are available by calling 415-388-5208 or online at marintheatre.org. If ticket buyers have questions, they can reach Marin Theatre Company Box Office associates Monday through Friday between 12–5 p.m. PST by calling 415-388-5208 or emailing boxoffice@marintheatre.org.
Lauren M. Gunderson, America's most produced playwright and Marin Theatre Company’s Playwright in Residence, has written a story for this moment in time about Dr. Nathan Wolfe, the award-winning virologist who proposed a plan to protect the economy from pandemics years before the COVID-19 outbreak. He also happens to be Lauren’s husband. Commissioned by Marin Theatre Company and directed by Marin’s Artistic Director Jasson Minadakis, the one-person show starring William DeMeritt (Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole World, HBO's The Normal Heart) explores Nathan’s work combatting epidemics like Ebola and swine flu, his life as a loving father and son, and Tikkun Olam, the Jewish concept of healing at the center of it all.
DeMeritt is joined by a creative team that includes director of photography and editor Peter Ruocco, producer Nakissa Etemad, dramaturg Martine Kei Green-Rogers, costume designer Sarah Smith, lighting designer Wen-Ling Liao, composer and sound designer Chris Houston/Implied Music, assistant director Christina Hogan, and COVID compliance officer Liz Matos.
The Catastrophist had its world premiere on Tuesday, January 26, 2021 and has since been viewed by thousands of patrons from across the United States and countries worldwide. The production was the subject of a recent PBS NewsHour feature, and has been covered in major publications and broadcasts throughout the United States and in Australia and the United Kingdom.
For additional information on The Catastrophist, visit marintheatre.org/productions/the-catastrophist. ###
ABOUT THE ARTISTS Lauren M. Gunderson (Playwright) has been one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015, topping the list twice including in 2019-2020. She is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for I and You and The Book of Will, the winner of the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and John Gassner Award for Playwriting, and a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Residency with Marin Theatre Company. She studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University and Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School, where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. She co-authored the Miss Bennet plays with Margot Melcon, and her play The Half-Life of Marie Curie is available on Audible.com. Her work is published at Playscripts (I and You; Exit, Pursued By A Bear; The Taming; and Toil and Trouble), Dramatists Play Service (The Revolutionists; The Book of Will; Silent Sky; Bauer; Natural Shocks; The Wickhams; and Miss Bennet), and Samuel French (Emilie). Her picture book Dr. Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon is available on Amazon. She is currently developing musicals with Ari Afsar; Dave Stewart and Joss Stone; and Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk. LaurenGunderson.com
Nathan Wolfe (Subject and Scientific Consultant) is the Founder and Chair of Metabiota, which provides a unique data analytics platform for epidemic risk. Wolfe received his doctorate in Immunology and Infectious Diseases from Harvard in 1998. He has been honored with a Fulbright fellowship and the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award. He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer. Wolfe has published over 100 scientific publications, and his work has been published in or covered by Nature, Science, The New York Times, The Economist, NPR, The New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes, among others. His critically acclaimed book, The Viral Storm, has been published in six languages and was shortlisted in 2012 for the Royal Society’s Winton Prize. In 2011, he was named as one of the hundred most influential people in the world by Time magazine; Rolling Stone named him one of the “100 Agents of Change” in 2009; and Popular Science recognized him as one of their “Brilliant 10” in 2006.
William DeMeritt (Nathan) is an actor, writer, director, theatre educator, and dialect coach making his MTC and Round House debuts. Off-Broadway credits include The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World AKA the Negro Book of the Dead at Signature Theatre Company; Liz Swados' Violence Project at LaMaMa ETC.; and Mom, How Did You Meet the Beatles? at The Public
Theatre. International credits include Hamlet at the Bridge Lane Theater (London) and October in the Chair & Other Fragile Things at the Amsterdam International Fringe Festival. Regional credits include Will in Shakespeare in Love (U.S. premiere), Fenton in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Sholem Asch in Indecent at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Orsino in Twelfth Night at Yale Rep; We, The Invisibles at the Humana Festival of New American Plays, Actors Theatre of Louisville; writer and co-creator of the one- man show Origin Story (winner, New York Innovative Theatre Award, Best Solo Performance); Sense and Sensibility at Dallas Theatre Center; and The Slam Jam at the Upright Citizens’ Brigade Theatre. Film credits include The Normal Heart; The Lennon Report; The Surrogate; What’s Up, Lovely?; and Bad Luck Dandelion. Television credits include The Flight Attendant (HBOMax), NCIS: New Orleans, Person of Interest, Law & Order: SVU, One Life to Live, The Outs (Vimeo), and Guiding Light. Additional credits include the audiobooks Underground Airlines (AUDIE nomination, Earphones award winner), The Mortifications, Snapshot, The Wild Ones trilogy, The Resisters, and the Isaiah Coleridge series; and Featured Narrator for The New Yorker and The New York Times on the AUDM app (streaming service for narrated long-form journalism). William has a BFA from Marymount Manhattan and an MFA from Yale School of Drama. WilliamDemeritt.com, @demeritt
ABOUT MARIN THEATRE COMPANY
Marin Theatre Company is the Bay Area’s premier mid-sized theatre and the leading professional theatre in the North Bay, producing a six-show season focused on new American plays. MTC is committed to the development and production of new plays, with a comprehensive New Play Program that includes productions of world premieres, readings and workshops by the nation’s best emerging and established playwrights. MTC’s numerous education programs serve more than 4,500 students from over 40 Bay Area schools each year. MTC strives to create intimate, powerful and emotional experiences that engage audiences to discuss new ideas and adopt a broader point of view. Marin Theatre Company believes in taking risks and inspiring people to participate in live theatre, regardless of personal means. MTC celebrates the intellectual curiosity of our community and believes that theatre is an important tool to help build empathy. MTC was founded in 1966 and is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
ABOUT ROUND HOUSE THEATRE
Round House Theatre is one of the leading professional theatres in the Washington, DC area, producing a season of new plays, modern classics, and musicals for more than 40,000 patrons each year at our theatre in Bethesda. Round House has been nominated for 197 Helen Hayes Awards and has won 37, including four Outstanding Resident Play Awards and the Charles MacArthur Award for Original New Play in 2016. Round House’s lifelong learning and education programs serve more than 5,000 students each year at its Education Center in Silver Spring, in schools throughout Montgomery County, and at our Bethesda theatre. Cornerstone programs include Free Play, which provides free tickets for students age 13-college, the Teen Performance Company, which culminates in the student-produced Sarah Metzger Memorial Play, Summer Camp for students in grades K-12, and a full slate of classes for adults and youth.
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