News release
Theatre Extempore announced its inaugural full-length production, “Stupid ****ing Bird,” running from July 25 through Aug. 10 at The Main theater in Newhall as part of the 2025 Santa Clarita Shakespeare festival.
Written by Aaron Posner, “Stupid ****ing Bird” puts “a sharp, sexy, self-aware twist on Anton Chekhov’s groundbreaking and heartbreaking 1896 dramedy, ‘The Seagull,’” said a news release from Theatre Extempore.
“People often mistake Chekhov’s plays for being all heartbreak, no humor,” director Jeremy D. Thompson said in the release. “Nothing could be further from the truth. The laughs are in the anguish, because we all recognize it — because we’ve all been through it.”
In the play, Thompson added, “Posner leaves no doubt that this is a comedy; and a provocative, profane, uproariously irreverent one, at that. You will laugh and be shocked into the depths of inevitable tragedy, and leave the theater changed by what just went down.”
Theatre Extempore’s production brings a cast of new and familiar faces to the stage of The Main.
Brock Birkner, seen in last year’s “The Underpants,” plays the self-flagellating playwright, Con.
“I’ve loved this play ever since its title grabbed my attention from a bookstore shelf in college,” Birkner said in the release. “It’s my favorite piece of art that exists in the nanogenre of ‘Scream-into-the-Void-and-wait-to-see-what-responds.’”
The famously challenging role of Nina is portrayed by Bridgett Mistrot, seen recently as May in Heart of Heart Theatre Company’s production of Sam Shepard’s “Fool for Love,” and Natalie Valentine, who plays a different version of Nina on the heels of her performance in Steven Dietz’s “The Nina Variations” at Hollywood Fringe.
“Nina is a role I’ve always dreamed of playing, so I’m thrilled to be stepping into her shoes,” Mistrot said in the release. “Her journey is so complex, and every relationship she has is multi-layered. It’s such a rewarding experience as an actor to get to start the show and end the show in two drastically different emotional places. My cast mates are incredibly talented, and I feel so lucky and grateful to be sharing the stage with them.”
For Valentine, this return to Nina is a study in the character’s resilience.
“She keeps going, even when everything falls apart, even in despair,” Valentine said in the release. “In this play, she’s raw and exposed and trying so hard to become something, to matter, to be seen.”
Bethany Koulias, recently seen in “Bat Boy the Musical” at Open Fist Theatre Company, plays famed actress Emma Arkadina. She describes the play as “a meta-satire about pain, grief, anxiety, and how art can bring us hope to heal these shadows.”
“This production doesn’t work without complete commitment,” producer Michelle Belmont said in the release, adding the play “gives us the ultimate ‘heart-on-your-sleeves,’ everything bared in complete vulnerability experience, and because of this incredible team and their complete commitment, it works.”
The play is a co-production with the Santa Clarita Shakespeare company as part of the 2025 Summer Theatre Festival, an annual series of free Shakespeare performances, special theatrical events, and the Summer High School Apprentice Program.
“Santa Clarita Shakespeare has long been committed to reenvisioning classic works of drama,” David Stears, founder and producing director of the festival, said in the release.
He added that the production “upends an 18th century Russian masterpiece into a 21st century American metatheatrical deconstruction in a way will titillate, amuse and even shock audiences.”
Performances are scheduled 8 p.m. July 25, 26, 31 and Aug. 1, 8, and 9. Matinee performances are 2 p.m. July 27 and Aug. 2, 3 and 10. Tickets ($19.07 students/seniors, $24.34 general admission) and more information are available at www.atthemain.org.
The Main is located at 24266 Main St., Old Town Newhall.
