Download act ii playhouse production of ”iron kisses` comes full circle for

For Immediate Release: January 26, 2008
Press Contact: Rosemarie DeLuca, 215-431-7587 or [email protected]
ACT II PLAYHOUSE PRODUCTION OF ‘IRON KISSES’ COMES FULL CIRCLE
FOR ACTRESS KATHRYN PETERSEN, PHILADELPHIA THEATRE COMMUNITY
The first in a series of features on the journey of bringing
Iron Kisses from the page to Act II’s stage
AMBLER, PA – Act II Playhouse is set to begin rehearsals on Feb. 17 for the third show in its
10th Anniversary Season, James Still’s family-themed play, Iron Kisses. Associate Artistic
Director Harriet Power directs this highly theatrical drama, in which a brother and sister play
themselves and, at various times, both of their parents.
Iron Kisses is a heartfelt and often funny exploration of the relationships between parents and
children: how our families shape us to be both what we are and what we don't want to be. Billy
and Barbara—brother and sister—are nearing middle age, but still have trouble finding common
ground with their retired Midwestern parents.
Act II’s production—which opens for previews on March 10—will star Tony Braithwaite as Billy,
in a rare dramatic role, and Kathryn Petersen as Barbara, for whom Still originally wrote the role.
“I am so happy that Act II is doing Iron Kisses,” says Still, “and over the moon that Harriet has
cast Kathryn, who is one of my most favorite actors (and people) in the country. I wrote Barbara
with her in my head—so it is a perfect full circle that she will do the play.”
Petersen herself describes the structure of the piece as a circle and notes that she has not yet
completed the circle. “I’ve been in a relationship with Iron Kisses since 2005 and with playwright
James Still since 1996. I had the privilege of playing Barbara in an early workshop with James.
The following summer, I performed the first two of the three sections of the play in a festival [at
People’s Light & Theatre Company in Malvern, PA, where she is an Artistic Associate and
resident company member]. I need to finish telling Barbara’s story. I never got to do the last
scene, in workshop or performance.
“I love this play and the characters in it,” Petersen adds. “I think of this play as a valentine to the
complicated and hard love between adult children and their parents—the kind of love that
makes you want to move as far away as possible and stay home at the very same time.”
The play—in strikingly original fashion—tells the story of an American family: a son who made
up for being gay by being perfect; a daughter who finds she can’t help treating her own daughter
the way her mother treated her; a mother who struggles to love her two children equally; and a
father who marvels at what he and his wife couldn’t quite see.
“I relate very much to Billy’s need to please, to be perfect in his parents’ eyes,” says Braithwaite.
“I was very much a Type A personality growing up—perhaps I still am—and much of it was in an
earnest desire to make my parents proud.” Braithwaite has performed at Act II Playhouse
numerous times over the years—mostly recently in the fall 2008 Irish comedy Stones in His
Pockets by Marie Jones and in his December one-man comic remembrance, Look Mom, I’m
Swell!. Braithwaite last worked with Petersen at Act II in 2002, in Matthew Wells’ Schrodinger’s
Girlfriend.
Along with her actors, director Power has also formed a deep and personal connection to Iron
Kisses. “Still’s capacity to make Billy's and Barbara's, and their Mom's and Dad's, stories speak
for and about all of us brings me to stillness every time I re-read the play,” says Power. “The
way Still fuses form and content—giving us the living experience of how differently siblings
experience, and remember, their parents—is unlike any playtext I've encountered.
“It's funny and eerie, too, how fully he captures the reality of a brother and sister trading ‘black
sheep status’ in their family,” adds Power. “My brother – who’s 14 months older than me – and I
did this throughout our childhoods….and still do!”
Press Opening for Iron Kisses is Friday, March 13 at 8 p.m., and the show runs on the Act II
stage through April 5. For more information on the play as well as performance dates and
times, visit www.act2.org or call the Act II Box Office at (215) 654-0200.
Iron Kisses had its world premiere in 2006 at the Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, NY, three
years before Act II’s production, and has been a hit at theatres around the U.S. including
Indiana Rep, The Illusion Theatre of Minneapolis, and Portland Stage Company.
ABOUT ACT II PLAYHOUSE
Act II Playhouse, celebrating 10 years of professional theatre in the Philadelphia suburb of
Ambler, PA, is committed to creating world-class theatre in a 130-seat venue whose intimacy
draws audiences and actors into dynamic interrelation. Act II produces new, classic, and
contemporary plays and musicals under the direction of Bud Martin (Producing Artistic Director)
and Harriet Power (Associate Artistic Director).