Dave Eggers' Sacrament!

Intersection’s Resident Theater Company Campo Santo develops and produces new plays written specifically for the company and its audience by some of America’s most exciting playwrights. This Open Process Series event of Sacrament!, the first play by world renowned writer, editor, and educator Dave Eggers scheduled to premiere here in June 2004, provides an opportunity for audiences to participate in the process of bringing a brand new play to life. Our Open Process Series are more than readings – they are open rehearsals, design discussions, and interactive forums. This Open Process will feature sections of the play as well as other materials and writings by Eggers used to create the play Sacrament!, featuring actors Margo Hall, Sean San José and Danny Wolohan and director Kent Nicholson.




Date & Time: Monday February 9, 2004 at 7:30 PM


Event: Intersection + Campo Santo present
Open Process Series: Sacrament! by DAVE EGGERS & other writings of Dave Eggers


Location: Intersection for the Arts, 446 Valencia (btwn 15/16) Mission District, San Francisco


Cost: $5 - $15 (your choice) sliding scale


Info: (415) 626-2787, http://www.theintersection.org




“Eggers is a wonderful writer, bold and inventive, with the technique of a magic realist.” - Salon 2003




INTERSECTION FOR THE ARTS and our Resident Theater Company CAMPO SANTO are proud to present the third season of our Open Process Series on Monday February 9, 2004 at 7:30 PM. Designed to provide Campo Santo + Intersection audiences the opportunity to participate in the process of bringing a brand new play to life, these readings are presented months before rehearsals even begin, with a new work being heard for the first time. The public is invited to experience the full cast reading and working through the project and to help imagine the world of the play as it is being envisioned by the playwright and the creative team of designers, directors, and actors. These events are more than readings - they are open rehearsals, design discussions, and interactive forums. We want to share a process that is designed to allow our community to participate with the artists in the creation of new plays from the initial idea through to the world premiere production. This Open Process presentation will feature, along with sections of the play, selections from Eggers diverse library of writing from his novel, literary journals, and short stories used to create this exciting and original new play.

“Unlike most small theater companies, in which actors and directors work with existing texts and have little or no contact with the author, the members of San Francisco's Campo Santo theater company prefer to partner with writers, working hand-in-hand with them to develop scripts and stage productions.”
From the KQED SPARK Segment on Campo Santo, 2003

Sacrament! is the first play by internationally heralded memoirist, novelist, and publisher Dave Eggers. In much the same way that Eggers and his literary journal McSweeney’s attempt to shatter literary constructs, this piece takes off from Egger’s’ novels You Shall Know Our Velocity and the recently revised version of the book entitled Sacrament! and further activates Egger’s bold exploration of self-conscious narration and revisionist memory by bringing the characters and their stories to life on stage. It has been created by Eggers, Campo Santo, and Kent Nicholson through workshops focusing on material from the books, new writing and an exploration into questions about whether or not we can re-write our pasts. We are interested in how a live theatrical interaction can take Eggers’ work to a new level by making us complicit in his attempt to revise not only his characters’ history but his own history as the writer. Sacrament! is simultaneously an uneasy satire on American ignorance and cultural consumerism and a very personal probe into loss, guilt and memory. The story follows two young Americans as they travel around the world in an attempt to relieve their entitled guilt by randomly giving away money. The world trip is supposed to disconnect them from unbearable memories - but the memories they hold onto are fabricated, fantastical, and fluid. Campo Santo and Intersection have been working with Eggers, McSweeney’s ,and his non-profit youth center – 826 Valencia Street – to develop this play and reach out to a broad range of people interested in his work. Sacrament! furthers Campo Santo + Intersection’s unique relationship with Dave Eggers whose inventive and original voice has crossed all genres. Previous collaborations have included readings with 826 students and their works, and the ongoing publication of Denis Johnson’s Campo Santo plays through McSweeney’s.

DAVE EGGERS is the Founding Editor of Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, which focuses on long form prose, experimental fiction, and illustration, the Literary Quarterly The Believer, and previously Might Magazine. He also founded 826 Valencia, a non profit educational center that teaches free writing classes to students in all genres and mediums. The success and integrity of 826 Valencia has spread across the country and an 826 Valencia store model will open in New York City in 2004. Eggers success and ambition as a writer spreads far and wide; his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, broke the mold for memoirs and later was a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and spent months on the New York Times Bestseller List among the highlights of its many accolades. The book is well regaled as a hybrid piece of memoir and fiction, a postmodern examination of everything: life, death, big brotherhood, parenting, and the state of American literature. His first novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity, too gained great attention, including being named on the New York Times Notable Books for 2002. Dave Eggers is well regarded for his inventive approach to reaching audiences with his work and recently was awarded the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. McSweeneys in addition to publishing exciting new works also publishes and its own publications, including Eggers’ novel, which was sold in its original hardback form entirely through independent booksellers. Most recently McSweeneys published the seven volume collection on violence by William T. Vollman. In addition to the numerous publications he has created and founded, he is well known for his multi media presentations and highly entertaining collaborations. Through Mcweeneys, 826 Valencia and on his own Eggers has collaborated with David Byrne, Michael Chabon, Nick Hornby, JT Leroy, Zadie Smith, Stephen King, They Might Be Giants, and countless other major writers. Eggers performed with Denis Johnson for the Benefit evening for Denis Johnson’s play Soul of a Whore in 2003.

CAMPO SANTO, Spanish for graveyard or sacred ground, was founded in 1996. Campo Santo produces new and recent work simply and directly, letting the words of the playwright tell the story. They have produced more than 22 critically acclaimed productions, 17 World Premieres, including Soul of a Whore, i feel love, and 17 reasons (why), and won numerous awards including the Glickman Award for Best New Play Premiere.

INTERSECTION FOR THE ARTS, San Francisco’s oldest alternative arts organization, has long been presenting the best new literature, theatre, visual art, and music. For 38 years, Intersection’s theatre has been critical to the development of ground-breaking experimental work by some of the country’s best playwrights, directors, actors & designers including Rhodessa Jones, Joe Goode, Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, Naomi Iizuka, Keith Josef Adkins, Kenn Watt, Margo Hall, and Erin Cressida Wilson.