Capital Stage Begins New Year With IN THE NEXT ROOM 1/25-2/26

Capital Stage Company will kick-off 2012 with the Sacramento premiere of Sarah Ruhl's acclaimed Broadway comedy In the Next Room or the vibrator play, running from January 25 - February 26.

Both a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist and a 2010 Tony Nominee for Best Play, this laugh-out-loud, provocative and touching play is based on the bizarre historical fact that in the 1880s, at the dawn of the age of electricity, doctors used vibrators to treat 'hysteria' in women and some men. The idea for the play, says Ruhl, came from reading Rachel Maines' book "The Technology of org*sm," in which Maines points out that, "from the time of Hippocrates until the 1920s, massaging "hysterical" female patients to org*sm was a staple of medical practice among Western physicians." The vibrator, states Maines, "first emerged as an electromechanical medical instrument in direct response to demand from physicians who, far from enjoying the implementation of pelvic massage, sought every opportunity to substitute the services of midwives and, later, the efficiency of mechanical devices."

Performances for In the Next Room or the vibrator play will begin with three previews on Wednesday, January 25 at 7pm and Thursday & Friday January 26 & 27 at 8pm. The production will open on Saturday, January 28 at 8pm. Performances continue through February 26, 2012. Showtimes will be Wednesdays at 7pm, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 2pm.

There will be a special Valentine's Day performance on Tuesday, February 14 at 8pm. General tickets range from $20-$32. Discount tickets are available as follows: Preview Tickets are $18; Student Rush Tickets are $12; Senior Sunday Matinee Tickets are $26; and Group Rates are available for parties of 12 or more. Tickets are currently available at the Capital Stage Box Office, by phone at 916-995-5464 or online at www.capstage.org.

THE PLAY
It's the 1880's and for the wife of eminent scientist and inventor Dr. Givings, the vagaries of the medical field have never held much allure. Until now. Nominated for both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize, In the Next Room was a resounding hit when it opened on Broadway in 2009 and solidified playwright Sarah Ruhl's reputation as one of America's most exciting contemporary writers. A sensitive study of the relationship between physical connection and emotional intimacy, In the Next Room or the vibrator play is an utterly beguiling play about love, longing, science and invention.

THE PLAYWRIGHT

Sarah Ruhl
Sarah Ruhl, a Chicagoan-turned-New-Yorker, spent her childhood reading and telling stories but didn't turn to playwriting until midway through her college years at Brown University, where she completed BA and MFA degrees under the tutelage of Pulitzer-winning playwright Paula Vogel. She thought at first she would be a poet. In her writing, she is attracted to the irrationality of emotions: "I like plays that have revelations in the moment," she told The New Yorker, "where emotions transform almost inexplicably." Ruhl, who is a wife and mother in her mid-30s, is the author of, among others, The Passion Play Cycle, Eurydice, Dead Man's Cell Phone and The Clean House, which won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for best English-language play by a woman and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2006, she received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" for her "vivid and adventurous theatrical works that poignantly juxtapose the mundane aspects of daily life with mythic themes of love and war."

THE ARTISTIC TEAM

Capital Stage co-founder Peter Mohrmann (Or,, Fiction, Dinner With Friends) will direct this Sacramento premiere production, which will feature a talented line-up of performers familiar to Sacramento audiences: Greg Alexander, Victoria Alvarez-Chacon, Kirk Blackinton, Shannon Mahoney, Katie Rubin, Michael Stevenson, and Elana Wright. The design team includes Stephen C. Jones (set), Gail Russell (costumes), Les Solomon (lighting) and Jonathan Williams (sound).