Tangent Theatre Announces CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION As Spring Main Stage Show

Tangent Theatre Company, based in their intimate Carpenter Shop Theater in Tivoli, announces their Spring 2016 main-stage production: the award-winning Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker. Set in a small Vermont town, the story centers around a local acting class and the truths revealed as the group's time together unfolds. In addition to the featured female playwright, the show will spotlight a wide range of female talents: three acting artists, the director, producer, set and lighting designers, wardrobe supervisor and house manager are all established women in the field.

Writer Annie Baker was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her play The Flick in 2014. Other works include Body Awareness, The Aliens and John, which recently appeared Off-Broadway. Baker teaches playwriting at New York University, Barnard College and in the MFA program at SUNY Stony Brook Southampton. She is on the faculty of the Rita and Burton Goldberg MFA in Playwriting program at Hunter College. Baker was selected to participate in the 2008 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab and in 2011 she was named a Fellow of United States Artists. In 2013 she received The Steinberg Playwright Award and is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, Creative Arts Drama & Performance Art. She is also a New York Public Library 2015 Cullman Center and MacDowell Colony Fellow.

Circle Mirror Transformation will run April 14 - May 8 (Thurs. - Sat. 8pm; Sun. 3pm), Tangent's seventh main-stage show since relocating from New York City to the Hudson Valley in 2009. The cast features New York-based actors Lorenzo Scott, Amie Tedesco and Jill Van Note, along with Hudson Valley-based Summer Corrie and Tangent's artistic director, actor Michael Rhodes (Scott, Tedesco, Van Note and Rhodes are members of Actors' Equity Association). Lighting Designer Daisy Long and Scenic Designer Jaclyn Meloni are NYC-based; wardrobe supervisor is Suzy Morris (Tivoli). Director is Brooklyn-based Melisa Annis. Originally from Wales, Annis is a veteran playwright and director; her play Keep Calm and Carry On closed Tangent's 2013 NEWvember New Plays Festival, and she directed two plays in last year's event. "I am thrilled to be returning to Tivoli to work with Tangent on such a wonderful play. When they invited me to direct, I jumped at the opportunity. Both because of the breath and beauty of Annie Baker's play, and to work with them on a piece that is delicately transformative, and in a village that makes me feel the same way" says Annis.

"Annie Baker is one of the most important playwrights working today" says Tangent's Artistic Director Michael Rhodes. "Following the successes of The Flick and John, we were interested to examine an early play of hers that really first connected her with audiences. The setting and subject matter of this play feels like the perfect choice for us and our unique theater space. We've brought together an incredible cast and creative team to tell this story, it should make it a very special experience for Tangent and our audiences" he adds.

Gaining wide visibility after their recent productions, including Lobby Hero (2015), The Vandal (2014), the American Premiere of Christian O'Reilly's The Good Father in 2012, and along with their trademark pub-readings, Tangent Theatre has now become a respected destination for character-driven, compelling works.

Founded in New York City in 2000 by Dutchess County natives Andrea and Michael Rhodes and Keith Teller, the company re-located to Tivoli in 2009. In addition to The Vandal, The Good Father and NEWvember, Tangent has produced such plays as Sight Unseen by Donald Margulies, John Patrick Shanley's Doubt: A Parable, The Zoo Story by Edward Albee and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION by Annie Baker; Tangent Theatre Company @ The Carpenter Shop Theater, 60 Broadway, Tivoli. April 14-May 8, 2016; Thursdays - Saturdays 8pm; Sundays 3pm); tickets $25, on sale April 1. For more info, tangent-arts.org

(Photo: Summer Corrie and Michael Rhodes in a scene from the play; courtesy Deborah Lopez Lynch)