Z Space presents

A Good Neighbor

September 26 - October 6, 2018 at Z Below
Written by Kate E. Ryan | Directed by Morgan Green

What’s the opposite of the opposite side of the world?
It’s where you are.
What’s the opposite of where you are?
It’s where someone else is.

Dani’s daughter really wants to take piano lessons. Heidi is new in town and happens to teach piano. Dani is thrilled to have found a teacher, until she learns more about Heidi’s…politics. A Good Neighbor is a startling new play that confronts deeply conflicting ideologies in a distinctly apolitical space: the home. Amidst music lessons, potlucks, and a gossiping Greek chorus, the entire neighborhood must re-examine how kindness can exist inside of fear.

A Good Neighbor was written by local playwright Kate E. Ryan, commissioned and developed by Z Space in San Francisco, and fueled by group discussions with women from the Bay Area. The commissioning and production of this new work is made possible by Gerbode-Hewlett Foundations 2015 Theater Commissioning Awards initiative.

The show runs 75 minutes with no intermission.

Special Events

Thursday, 9/27 - An opening reception after the show with a Champagne toast.
Friday, 9/28 - A talkback after the show with the playwright, actors and director. Led by dramaturg Sarah Rose Leonard.
Friday, 10/5 - A talkback after the show with the playwright, actors and director. Led by dramaturg Sarah Rose Leonard

Photos by Lorenzo Fernandez-Kopec

Cast

Liz – Nicole Apostol Bruno*
Dani – Fontana Butterfield
Heidi – Meredith Terry
Melissa – Michelle Talgarow
Dusty – Neiry Rojo
Adele – Patricia Silver*

Understudy for Liz - Kaitlyn Ortega

Designers

Lighting Designer - Beth Hersh
Sound Designer - Carlie Mari
Design Associate - Marisa Ramos
Scenic and Costume Design - Morgan Green and Kate E. Ryan
Additional Sound Recording (Piano) - Eric Lencher / Professor Sludge Music Academy

Production

Stage Manager - Marie Shell*
Dramaturg - Sarah Rose Leonard
Producer - Rose Oser
Production Manager - Colm McNally
Production Assistant - Brittany Searles
Production Assistant - Rebecca Capper

*Member, Actors Equity

Morgan Green is a Bay Area born theater director and co-founder of the Brooklyn-based company New Saloon. Most recently she directed the west coast premiere of The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe (Marin Theatre Company), Cute Activist by Milo Cramer (The Bushwick Starr), MINOR CHARACTER (The Public Theater), The Music Man (The Sharon Playhouse), and Far Away by Caryl Churchill (The Sharon Playhouse). She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist, an alumni of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab and Williamstown Theater Festival Directing Core, and a 2014-2015 Bob Moss Directing Resident at Playwrights Horizons. Morgan was the Associate Director for Pam Mackinnon on Amelie the musical on Broadway. MorganClaireGreen.com

Kate E. Ryan is a Bay Area-based playwright. She’s a member of the OBIE-winning playwrights collective 13P and an Affiliated Artist with Clubbed Thumb (NYC). Locally, her work has been developed or produced by The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, Crowded Fire, Playwrights Foundation, Just Theater, and Z Space. Her plays include Card and Gift (produced by Clubbed Thumb), Women of Trachis (an adaptation of Sophocles’ play, produced by Target Margin and others), Dot (developed by The Vineyard and Soho Rep, produced by Clubbed Thumb and others), Design Your Kitchen (produced by The Flea and Clubbed Thumb), and Mark Smith (developed by Soho Rep and Crowded Fire, produced by 13P). She wrote the book for the world premiere of Hundred Days (2014 Theatre Bay Area Award for Outstanding New Musical), produced by Z Space. She is former Co-Curator of the OBIE-winning performance series Little Theatre at Tonic and former Co-Chair of the Soho Rep Writer-Director Lab (NYC). Her career has received support from sources including the Gerbode-Hewlett Foundations and California’s Creative Capacity Fund. She has an MFA from Mac Wellman's program at Brooklyn College, where she received a MacArthur Graduate Scholarship.