Dirk Alphin – Axis

Dirk Alphin’s
Axis

In Person at The Marsh SF Studio

Directed by Dirk Alphin
Performers: Erica Clark, Timothy Flanagan, Dirk Alphin, Dennis Hasty, Anneliese Stauff, Alan Brown

Online ticket sales close 2 hours before each performance,
and additional tickets may be available for purchase at the door.

July 7 – 28, 2024
Sundays at 5pm


Ticket Information

Tickets: $20 – $35 General Seating sliding scale | $50 & $100 Reserved Seating

Online ticket sales close 2 hours before each performance,
and additional tickets may be available for purchase at the door.

90 minutes | 1 Intermission | Ages 18+
Please do not bring infants to the show

Please read our
Health, Safety and COVID-19 Information
Our commitment to our patrons


About the Show

Returning to The Marsh after its successful run in April, 2024, Axis is now extended for additional performances at 5 p.m on Sundays in July 2024 (7/7, 7/14, 7/21 & 7/28) at The Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA. Tickets are available at: themarsh.org

The play Axis is a script bookended in short monologues that present Seth, an older ex-Navy man, who guides us back to the Bicentennial, Independence Day of July 4th & 5th, 1976. It is the last two days of the last family in town in a U.S.A. town that’s sinking underground. Seth takes us on his journey of self-discovery of his early twenties, coming to terms with his own closeted homosexuality. He reexamines both his own past and possible future, along with that of his single mother (Leora), and his aging grandfather (Gramps). In this extension, Alphin himself plays the role of Seth, the writer who journey’s into this past to explore the magic of personal transformation, spinning a tale to locate his axis.

In that past, the Foggs are all being evicted from their crumbling home. That home and entire town of Jessup is being swallowed up by corporate greed in the form of a nearby copper open air strip mine, which is expanding and causing all the nearby land to shift. With accompanying fireworks – this is the last year of that – and then followed by a powerful lightning storm – called in by Gramps’s belief in his mysticism – layers of the Fogg family’s lives are excavated to reveal their interwoven fates. The Foggs are both magnetically drawn to each other, and alternately polarized to push themselves apart. Ultimately they must come to some sort of strength found in their inevitable individuality. The play swings from naturalism to spiritualism as presented as magical realism confronting their fate.

In 1987, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Herb Caen (the voice and conscience of San Francisco) deemed Alphin’s production of the play AXIS a “success story.” Dennis Powers (A.C.T.’s Associate Artistic Director, dramaturg, book editor, theater critic, arts writer, and playwright predicted Alphin’s play AXIS to have “undeniable longevity and sustainable viability into future productions. . . .AXIS will be recognized as a first milestone in your (Alphin’s) canon of plays.”

Now 37 years after its original San Francisco production, The Marsh presents this playwriting milestone as a follow up to last year’s successful production of another play RECIPROCATING PUMPS, written and directed by Alphin. Stage & Cinema reviewed that production last July-August, 2023, and summarized it: “A riveting, emotional drama. There’s not a weak link in the whole cast.”


Artist Biographies

Dirk Alphin (Playwright/Director/SETH) – Acting credits include classical (Shakespeare, Greek theater) and contemporary plays (Brecht, O’Neill, Albee, Lanford Wilson, Robert Patrick, and Arthur Laurents to list a few). He has helped develop numerous new playwrights’ works and acted on Bay Area stages, in film, video and television for over forty years. He currently coaches actors. His credits in theater include director, playwright, producer, and designer. He helped create and manage two landmark performance venues: Valencia Rose Cabaret in the 1980s and Josie’s Cabaret & Juice Joint in the 1990s. More recent work includes acting in plays at the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Park Theater in Danville, CA. As playwright, he has written and has produced several full length, one-act, and solo performance pieces.

Erica Clark (LEORA) is a software engineer living in San Francisco with her pomeranian, Ziggy Stardust.This is her theatrical debut, and she is very excited to be performing alongside this talented cast and crew.

Timothy Flanagan (GRAMPS) was an active player in local theater throughout the 1980’s and ’90’s, appearing in productions at San Francisco Shakespeare in the Park, Shakespeare Santa Cruz and The Marin Shakespeare Company. He’s played major roles at The Magic Theater, The Aurora Theater, The Z Collective and Theater Rhinoceros where he played Max in their acclaimed production of BENT by Martin Sherman. He toured to Washington D.C. in the midst of the AIDS crisis in MORE THAN NAMES, a story of the making of the AIDS memorial quilt. After an extended hiatus he returned to the stage in 2023, acting in the production of RECIPROCATING PUMPS here at The Marsh, written and directed by Dirk Alphin. He is thrilled to be back at The Marsh and once again working with the multi-talented Mr. Alphin.

Dennis Hasty (GEOFFREY) – trained at the prestigious Jean Shelton Acting School, attended workshops coached by the legendary Stella Adler, studied improvisation with Skip Blass and Debbie Durst, and performed at the improv group Leftover Spaghetti.  He has played lead roles in RECIPROCATING PUMPS (Alphin), BIRDBATH (Melfi), THE DAY THE WHORES CAME OUT TO PLAY TENNIS (Kopit), and AM I BLUE (Henley), as well as supporting roles in various plays which include Terrence McNally, Joe Orton, appeared onstage at The Curran Theater in THE REAL LIVE BRADY BUNCH, and sang in musicals at The San Jose Theater Guild (THE APPLE TREE and STARTING HERE, STARTING NOW). He is a former competitive gymnast and Chippendales dancer, and is incredibly thankful to be in another brilliant work by Dirk Alphin.

Anneliese Stauff (OPAL) – began acting in 1998 in Salem, MA portraying “Bridget Bishop” in History Alive!’s production of CRY INNOCENT.  She earned a B.A in Drama from SFSU and has served as a Stage Manager for numerous Bay Area theater organizations including The Magic Theatre, Intersection for the Arts, Campo Santo, 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors and the Live Oak Theatre. She currently works full time as an Operations Specialist in Kaiser Permanente’s Educational Theatre Program and regularly performs as “Magenta” in Barely Legal’s shadow cast of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.

Alan Brown (REVEREND HARMS) is excited to be coached in acting and auditioning and now directed by Dirk Alphin in this role and in this presentation of AXIS. I have had a 4 year acting hiatus since playing Agatha Trunchbull for the Pied Piper Players in their local production of MATILDA.  Previous roles include the transmutable John in NAOMI IN THE LIVING ROOM and the dependable butler Foote in NINA IN THE MORNING, both plays directed by Mr. Alphin and written by the irrepressible Christopher Durang.  Alan is a local Bay Arean who until recent retirement worked as a caregiver for the County of San Francisco.


Trailer