Welcome to the foolsFURY Theater Company legacy site.
In the first two decades of the century, foolsFURY set the standard for compelling, unexpected, and culturally provocative theater on the West Coast.
Our work centered on imagining, experimenting with, and pushing the boundaries of what live theater could be in a world increasingly dominated by recorded media – Netflix etc. – and mediated through the internet.
Founded in 1998 by Artistic Director Ben Yalom, the company soon evolved into an ensemble with many associated artists, and three main foci:
foolsFURY Three Main Foci
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Creation
We developed and performed some two dozen unique pieces of theater, emphasizing inspired use of the human body as a story-telling instrumental, as well as exquisitely crafted language. These ranged from original collaborations with brilliant writers (such as Doug Dorst and Sheila Callaghan), to translations of international texts (The Devil on All Sides), and reimagined classics.
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Training
We hosted and taught dozens of workshops with master teachers of cutting edge theater techniques, particularly that focused on body and voice that were not being taught in other schools in the region.
These included the SITI company, Mary Overlie, Stephen Wangh, Double Edge, Pig Iron, Ron Campbell, and many more.
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Presenting
Inspired by the national Network of Ensemble Theaters, we created the FURY Factory Festival of Devised and Ensemble Theater. This gloriously chaotic and chronically under-funded event offered a home to over 100 original productions by companies from around the country and abroad, from New Orleans to New York, Atlanta to Afghanistan.
“You always feel supersmart and invigorated coming out of a foolsFURY production”
— San Francisco Weekly naming fF Best Theater Company, 2008
