Acorn Productions Kicks Off 2010-2011 Season With THE SECRET OF COMEDY 10/8

Acorn Productions, a non-profit organization dedicated to nurturing and developing the performing arts in Southern Maine, begins the company's 2010/11 series of performances in the Acorn Studio Theater with a production of The Secret of Comedy, by Michael Kimball, which performs from October 8 to 24, 2010.

The play is directed by Acorn's Producing Director Michael Levine, and features Naked Shakespeare actors Karen Ball, April Singley, and Randall Tuttle as an emotionally-challenged family trying to navigate through the 5 stages of grief. The piece opens when Emily's husband Dave wins the lottery, but all the money in the world can't cure her illness, despite his ongoing efforts. Sometimes laughter is the only medicine. Also in the cast are local actors and Acorn students Beth Chasse, Cynthia Eyster, and Denis Fontaine, as well as McAuley junior Monia Mukiza. Performances take place Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m. in Acorn's small, black-box theater in the Dana Warp Mill, 90 Bridge St. in Westbrook. Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 students and seniors, and may be purchased by calling 854-0065 or visiting www.acorn-productions.org.

Michael Kimball is a novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. His London Times bestseller Undone won the Fresh Talent Award in the U.K. in 1996 and was translated into 12 languages. Stage plays include Ghosts of Ocean House, nominated for the 2007 Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Michael has sold original screenplays and adaptations to movie companies and written episodes for television series. He teaches popular fiction and scriptwriting at the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing Program in Maine. He is currently adapting his novel Mouth to Mouth for the screen and writing a faux memoir. In its previous run in Portsmouth, critics lauded The Secret of Comedy, calling it, "A must-see play. Theater at its best" (Portsmouth Herald), praising its, "Scintillating humor and bare-bones humanity" (Foster's Daily Democrat), and branding it as, "A fierce breed of comedy . . . an emotional wringer of a new play . . . an intricate and wrenching study of four evolving griefs." (Portland Phoenix). Acorn is thrilled to be able to offer Portland audiences a chance to see this well-crafted script by a writer working at the top of his game.

Kimball acknowledges that The Secret of Comedy is the most personal of all of his work. "When I started writing it, the story kept coming at me from all directions-one of those high-energy projects that wants to write itself. Then, halfway through, suddenly it became very difficult work, and I found myself doing everything I could to avoid it. That's when it finally hit me, that I was dreaming up a fictionalized version of my mother's death. All the elements were there, but in costume, pretending to be a comedy. I think I was idealizing a different ending." The family of Kimball's play are intelligent people, but each has mastered the art of avoiding emotion, Emily and her daughter Carey through their opposing senses of humor, and Dave through his years of flight training, which sets him duty-bound on a course to find a cure where none exists. Carey tries to enlist her mother's help in writing a comedy routine about death. Emily has her own mission: to lead her family through the five stages of grief, from denial to acceptance, before she dies. But the Petrocellis are a family not easily led. Ultimately, they go to war.

Acorn Productions Studio Series provides a showcase for local playwrights and students from the Acorn Acting Academy. The series includes 4 plays for adults, 3 of which are by local playwrights, and 3 plays presented by the Fairy Tale Players, who offer "fractured" original adaptations of well-known fairy tales such as the Three Billy Goats Gruff. These plays are presented chamber-theater style, placing the emphasis on character and action over spectacle. Each production also features one or more professional actors, usually members of Acorn's "Naked Shakespeare" Ensemble, serving as mentors to the student actors. The Acorn Studio Theater is a 90-seat "black box" theater with a raised staged and flexible seating. Ticket prices for Acorn's Studio Series are extremely affordable, ensuring access to high-quality arts entertainment for all members of the Metro West community, regardless of economic means.

Acorn Productions is currently in its thirteenth season of nurturing and developing the performing arts in the Greater Portland community. Previously, Acorn was the in-house Production Company at the old Oak Street Theater, and later collaborated with Friends of St. Lawrence to renovate the Parish Hall Theater, which the company opened with a production of Much Ado About Nothing in May of 2001. Since that time, Acorn has focused on events that enable project directors to establish long-term relationships with performing artists and playwrights, establishing a popular and eclectic series of annual events that appeal to a broad range of the community. In the fall of 2006, the company moved into the Dana Warp Mill in Westbrook, creating Acorn Studios, a complex of rehearsal and workshop space available for rent. In addition to a season of public performances, Acorn offers acting classes for kids and adults, and a series of Friday dramatic readings of new scripts at Acorn Studios.