Adobe Theater's PAINTING CHURCHES Opens Today

Adobe Theater has announced today's opening of Tina Howe's Painting Churches (Pulitzer Prize Finalist 1984), directed by Brian Hansen.

Playwright Tina Howe's career has spanned three decades and her work has also been recognized with a Tony Award Nomination for Coastal Disturbances and an Outer Critics Award for Pride's Crossing. The original production of Painting Churches starred the great Marian Seldes as Fanny Church and won an Obie Award for Donald Moffat as her poet husband, Gardner. You will want to see this important play, often described as "hilarious and sad," that ran for over 200 performances in New York.

The Churches are in the midst of packing up their Boston home for a final move when their artist daughter, Mags, comes to help with the move. More important to her, she wants to complete a portrait of her aging parents. The action takes place as the mother tries to organize the move and the daughter strives to get her and her father to sit still.

Brian Hansen directs an outstanding cast of familiar actors: Ray Orley portrays the scatterbrained poet, Becky Mayo is his whimsically determined wife, and Michelle Boehler is the daughter, Mags. Orley helps guide the theater as a member of the Board of Directors: Mayo and Boehler previously were Board members. This may be your last chance to see Becky Mayo on stage as she is planning on moving to the west coast soon.

Director Hansen, too, is familiar to NM audiences. He taught Theater classes at UNM for many years and has directed shows in a half dozen states. Between 1997 and 2002 he was visiting professor of Drama at U. C. Santa Barbara. Since his return to Albuquerque he has directed 5 plays at The Vortex and five at The Adobe including Mark Twain's comedy Is He Dead? (This Fall he will direct Nickel and Dimed also at The Adobe.

Painting Churches by Tina Howe opens at The Adobe Theater on June 20th and plays through July 13th with performances Friday and Saturday at 8:00 PM and Sun at 2:00 PM. Tickets are only $15, seniors and students $12. Reservations 505-898-9222 (weekdays) or online anytime at www.Adobetheater.org.

Photo by George A. Williams