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Salt Lake Acting Company
News Release
PRESS CONTACT: CYNTHIA FLEMING. 801 363 7522. [email protected]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SALT LAKE ACTING COMPANY ANNOUNCES ITS 2010-2011 SEASON,
CELEBRATING THE COMPANY’S 40TH ANNIVERSARY
The Salt Lake Acting Company’s Executive Producers Keven Myhre and
Cynthia Fleming, and the Board of Trustees proudly announce an adventurous,
eclectic and thought-provoking line up of plays for the 2010/2011 Season.
Celebrating its 40th anniversary, SLAC dedicates this season to every subscriber,
playwright, actor, board member, director, donor, crew member, volunteer, and
employee of the last 40 years. The 2010/2011 Season will feature 6 plays
including the Pulitzer Prize winning Angels in America, the World Premiere of
Kathleen Cahill’s The Persian Quarter, SLAC’s annual musical satire - Saturday’s
Voyeur, and upon the success of last season’s Go, Dog. Go!, a second annual
professional production for children – If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.
The 2010/2011 Season will open with Tony Kushner’s Angels in
America: Millennium Approaches. Executive Producers Keven Myhre and
Cynthia Fleming say: “In the spirit of honoring the past, we examined SLAC’s 40
year history and asked: what is the benchmark play that epitomized SLAC? Tony
Kushner’s Angels in America is a defining, relevant play for theatre worldwide as
well as for SLAC in particular. SLAC was fortunate enough to be one of the first
regional theatres in America to produce it, to critical acclaim. Opening the
2010/2011 season with Angels in America will allow us to honor, reconnect, and
share this theatre’s history with our artists and our audiences.”
An intimate, epic play about American life in Salt Lake City and New York
City in the mid 80’s, Angels in America is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and
Tony Award for Best Drama.
Angels in America: Millennium Approaches will be directed by SLAC
Executive Producer Keven Myhre and will run October 6 – 31, 2010 in SLAC’s
Upstairs Theatre.
As an add-on to the season, SLAC will present a reading of Angels in
America: Part 2 Perestroika November 3 – 7, 2010.
Next, in SLAC’s intimate Chapel Theatre - Boom by Peter Sinn
Nachtrieb. A quirky, sci-fi, not-so-romantic comedy, Boom follows Jo, a female
journalism student, and Jules, a male marine biologist, on what appears to be an
erotic “casual encounter.” But there's nothing casual whatsoever about this
particular evening. Will meaningless sex have meaning? What's going on in the
fish tank? And who is that woman, Barbara, pulling levers in the corner?
Something is about to explode.
Boom was premiered at Ars Nova in New York and has since been
produced at Woolly Mammoth in Washington DC, Seattle Rep, and Cleveland
Public Theatre.
SLAC’s production of Boom will be directed by Robin Wilks Dunn and will
run November 3 – December 5, 2010.
For the holidays, SLAC is thrilled to produce its second annual
professional play for children, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie adapted by Jody
Davidson. Based on the children’s book by Laura Joffe Numeroff, the play
follows a small boy who turns his house upside-down trying to please one hungry
mouse.
In conjunction with the play, SLAC’s outreach efforts include seven free
performances for Title 1 schoolchildren, four discounted performances for nonTitle 1 schools, an interactive online study guide, and literary partnerships with
the Salt Lake Public Library and the King's English Bookshop.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie will be directed by Penny Caywood and will
run December 1 – 26, 2010.
In February, SLAC will proudly present the World Premiere of The
Persian Quarter by Kathleen Cahill (playwright of last season’s Charm.) The
play is both a story told on a Persian carpet and a piece of political history, set in
the United States and Iran between 1979 and 2009. In Tehran in 1980, Ann is an
American hostage and Shirin, an Iranian revolutionary student, is one of her
captors. Thirty years later their daughters, Emily and Azadeh, meet accidentally
in an empty classroom at Columbia University during the visit of the Iranian
President Ahmadinejad.
Cahill says: “I wrote the play, inspired by what is happening in Iran these
days- especially what is happening to the women, their passionate heroism, what
they've lived through and what they are willing to do in honor of their country. I
wanted to remember my life there, when I lived in Iran, more than thirty years
ago, to give meaning to my memories and to try to understand what I didn't
understand when I was a young woman living there. The play though, isn't a
memory. It's a re-evaluation. And it's a question. Actually, it's a lot of questions.”
The Persian Quarter will be directed by Andra Harbold and will run
February 2 – 27, 2011.
In the spring, SLAC presents Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie
Baker. A new play that took the New York theatre world by storm, Circle Mirror
Transformation is a beautifully-crafted comedy in which four lost New Englanders
enrolled in a community acting class open up their lives with terrific detail, clarity,
and poignancy.
Recently awarded an Obie for Best New American Play, Circle Mirror
Transformation will run April 13 – May 8, 2011 at SLAC and will be directed by
Adrianne Moore.
Closing out Salt Lake Acting Company’s 2010/2011 Season is the everpopular, political musical satire Saturday’s Voyeur, written for us, about us each
year by Allen Nevins and Nancy Borgenicht.
Saturday’s Voyeur 2011 will run June 29 – September 4, 2011.
In addition to serving its primary theatre audience, SLAC will continue its
vital and energetic outreach to new audiences, and its commitment to nurturing
and developing new artists and new works. Programs designed to form new
partnerships, reach a broader audience, and accommodate a diverse range of
income levels include:
Theatre Student Sunday Series
College and University Theatre Students from across the state come together as
a community of artists to explore professional theatre from the business to the
artistic impulse. Each performance includes a pre-play discussion with the
playwright, director, designers, actors, and stage management.
New Play Sounding Series
NPSS presents free staged readings featuring new work. The series offers
SLAC’s audience unplugged storytelling and the opportunity to participate in a
post-play discussion which serves as a vital workshop and testing ground for
playwrights as they continue to develop new projects.
Fearless Fringe Festival - going deeper into our mission of developing vital
new work
A three day theatrical adventure featuring local playwrights, actors, directors,
musicians, and dancers is presented in repertory in SLAC’s Chapel Theatre.
Free ZAP Tuesdays
Thanks to funding from ZAP, SLAC offers a free night of theatre on the first
Tuesday night performance of each play.
As always, Salt Lake Acting Company deeply thanks their many season
subscribers, without whom this 40th Season would not be possible.
Season tickets are available now and range from $56-$161.
Single tickets are available, ranging from $15-$41.
For more information call 801.363.7522 or visit www.saltlakeactingcompany.org.
SLAC was founded in 1970 and is dedicated to producing, commissioning and
developing new works and to supporting a community of professional artists.
SLAC has been nationally recognized by the Shubert Foundation, the National
Endowment for the Arts, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Edgerton
Foundation, among others. SLAC is a Constituent Member of Theatre
Communications Group, a national organization for non-profit professional
regional theatres, and the National New Play Network.