A year and a day since its theatrical debut, Emily Keeler’s Dark Days and a Black Dog returns to Bird & Beckett tonight, with live music.

A solo turn by actor Andrea Snow, directed by Jael Weisman, Emily’s piece unspools seven heart-wrenching years in an intensely personal, darkly comic and breathtakingly recognizable theatrical experience. This time around, Andrea delivers Emily’s words with the expansive dimension of Randy Craig’s piano accompaniment.

https://www.darkdaysandablackdog.com/fromthepiece

Emily Keeler has been a dancer in San Francisco since 1974. She was a principal dancer for The Moving Company, Cliff Kuter’s New Dance Company, and Joe Goode Performance Group. She choreographed for numerous dance companies both ballet and contemporary including SF Dance Theater, Chrysalis, The Moving Company, DanceArt, Oakland Ballet, and Joffrey Dancers, and was a four time recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Choreographic Fellowship. She and has been an educator and artist in residence in many schools, colleges, and other settings, and has served as a movement consultant to a wide variety of small and large opera, theater and circus companies including ACT, George Coates Performance Works, Magic Theater, StageGroup, Make-a-Circus, and The Pickle Family Circus. She has been the Artistic Director of San Francisco Arts Education Project, a 53 year old organization that connects mid-career artists with young people, since 1986. She began her writing studies at California College of the Arts and earned her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State. Dark Days and a Black Dog is her second book. Her first is What is Fiction.

Jael Weisman is a founding member of the Dell’Arte Players Company of Northern California. He has received many awards for his directing with Dell’Arte, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and other groups. His production of the Dragon Lady’s Revenge for the Mime Troupe won an Obie award after its long run In New York City. He has collaborated on various projects with the Berkeley and Santa Cruz Symphony Orchestras, the San Diego Repertory Company, Human Nature, Carlo Mazzoni-Clementi, Joseph Chaikin and Robert Crumb. His production of Crumb’s Whiteman Meets Bigfoot was met with much critical acclaim. He has also worked with Brenda Wong Aoki and has staged the majority of her works, including 2 recordings that received INDIE Awards for Best Spoken Word (1990 & 1999). He is known for working collaboratively with actors, dancers and musicians in order to create original pieces for the stage. He often brings together artists from different traditions and backgrounds to create unique and diverse work. He currently is the director of Joyful Raven’s one-woman show Breed or Bust.

Andrea Snow brings to the stage a long and diverse career. A principal actor with the San Francisco Mime Troupe for many years, she played the title role in the Obie award winning Dragon Lady’s Revenge. She clowned with the Pickle Family Circus, and was a frequent writer/director for Make*A*Circus. In addition to the Mime Troupe, she’s written and directed for a variety of theater companies, solo performers, and projects, including the award winning children’s TV series, You Can Choose. Andrea has taught acting, voice and musical theater creation. She is also a speech-language pathologist, addressing speech and voice issues in children and adults. She served as a speech therapist with the West Contra Costa USD’s Early Intervention Program.

Randy Craig has composed scores, been music director and/or performed with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the Pickle Family Circus (of which he was a founding member), San Diego Rep, the Oregon Shakespearean Festival at Ashland, Berkeley Rep, San Make*A*Circus (again, a founding member), Teatro Zinzanni, the Magic Theater, the Aurora Theater, the Dellʼ Arte Theater, Intersection For The Arts, The Childrensʼ Troupe, Vaudeville Nouveau, Human Nature Theater and others he canʼt remember. He composed more than 20 musicals for the SF Arts Education Project and the Young Actorsʼ Workshop at Contra Costa College, has been Artist in Residence at Cal State Summer Arts at Humboldt State and Long Beach State and Ruth Asawa School Of The Arts High School in San Francisco. He has also “composed way too many scores” for film and theatre, work which has been heard at the Mill Valley Film Festival, The SF Jewish Film Festival and others around the world. He’s been nominated for two Bay Area Criticʼs Circle Awards for Best Original Score, one of which won, and scored an Academy Award-nominated film. He composed the score for and performed in Bill Irwinʼs adaptation of Moliereʼs “Scapin” at American Conservatory Theater, named one of the ten best of 2010 by the SF Chronicle. More of same ever since.