ACT to Feature Pinter Festival & Represent! Multicultural Playwrights Festival this Summer!

ACT - A Contemporary Theatre's Mainstage switches from the farcical marriage comedy of Lewis Black's One Slight Hitch to the dark and haunting humor of Harold Pinter. The Hansberry Project also brings to the stage Seattle's second Multicultural Playwrights Festival. The Seagull Project presents their first in a series of Russian readings with The Great Soul of Russia, and in The Construction Zone, ACT will feature Steven Dietz and his new play, A Year Without Summer.

The following events take place in July 2012, are on sale now at www.acttheatre.org or (206) 292-7676. Listed events are available with the ACTPass – ACT's monthly membership of just $25 per month:

Pinter Festival, Multiple ACT spaces
One Slight Hitch, Falls Theatre
Represent! A Multicultural Playwrights Festival, Multiple ACT spaces
Construction Zone Eulalie Scandiuzzi Space
The Great Soul of Russia Eulalie Scandiuzzi Space

The Pinter Festival
Celebration and The Dumb Waiter double-bill kick off the festival
Directed by John Langs
July 20 – August 26
Tickets Start at: $37.50 (adults), $15 (students), 25% off (seniors), Pay-What-You-Can starts day of the show every day at 1:00pm in person. Included with the ACTPass.

Two great comedies by Harold Pinter, directed by John Langs. Celebration will feature Anne Allgood, Julie Briskman, Cheyenne Casebier, Frank Corrado, Peter Crook, Jeffrey Frace, Darragh Kennan, RAndy Moore, Mariel Neto, Benjamin Harris, and Charles Leggett. The Dumb Waiter will feature Darragh Kennan and Charles Leggett.

After the Pinter Festival opens with the double-bill, ACT will stage full productions of No Man's Land and Old Times with the same repertory of actors. Then ACT will celebrate Pinter's cinematic works , dive into the Pinter Sketch Canon to give audiences a chance to see some of his more obscure works, and host a Pinter Party Cabaret in August.

Represent! A Multicultural Playwrights Festival
The Hansberry Project presents five days of new works at ACT
July 17 – 22
Tickets: All events $5 each or pay-what-you-will at the door

The Hansberry Project, in a joint venture with eSe Teatro, SIS Productions, and Pratidhwani, will host "REPRESENT!: A Multicultural Playwrights' Festival" July 17-22. The festival will feature staged readings of four new full-length plays and will open with an evening dedicated specifically to showcasing the work of six very talented local writers.

July 17 - Local Writers Showcase

July 18 - eSe Teatro: Don Quixote: Homeless in Seattle by Rose Cano

July 19 - Pratidhwani: The Banyan Tree Trilogy by Tulika Kumar

July 20 - SIS Productions: Fight by Kimber Lee

July 21 - Hansberry Project: Paradise Blue by Dominique Morriseau

July 22 - 1:00pm eSe Teatro - Don Quixote: Homeless in Seattle

3:00pm Pratidhwani - The Banyan Tree Trilogy

5:30pm SIS Productions - Fight

7:30pm Hansberry Project - Paradise Blue

One Slight Hitch
Written by Lewis Black
Directed by Joe Grifasi
June 8-July 8| Regional Premiere
Tickets Start at: $37.50 (adults), $15 (students), 25% off (seniors), Pay-What-You-Can starts day of the show every day at 1:00pm in person. Included with the ACTPass.

Life in suburban Cincinnati circa 1981 is good for Doc and Delia Coleman on the morning they plan to throw their eldest daughter the lavish wedding they never had, until her ex shows up and begins to wreak glorious havoc on the big day. A zany, door-slamming farce from the seriously funny Lewis Black, One Slight Hitch delivers a riotous and strangely romantic ride through the deconstruction of one family's equilibrium. Featuring a Seattle cast of actors including: Katherine Grant-Suttie, Marianne Owen, Kirsten Potter, Kimberley Sustad, Shawn Telford, John Ulman, and R. Hamilton Wright.

Great Soul of Russia
The Seagul Project
July 10, 7:00pm
Tickets: $10

An evening celebrating The Golden Age of Russian Literature. A sampler of comic gems from Russia's great writers-Pushkin through Gogol, Chekhov light to the darker hilarities of Bulgakov. Poetry, plays, and prose. Come join members of The Seagull Project as we share these great Russian classics. Curated by Jean Sherrard.

The Construction Zone – A Year Without Summer
By Steven Dietz
Directed by Steven Dietz
July 30, 7:00pm
Tickets: $10

Acclaimed Playwright and director Steven Dietz brings a new script to ACT's reading series The Construction Zone. Previous Dietz and ACT collaborations include Yankee Tavern by Steven Dietz 2010, Becky's New Car by Steven Dietz 2008, Fiction by Steven Dietz 2004, The Nina Variations by Steven Dietz 1997, and Handing Down the Names by Steven Dietz (World Premiere) 1995.

Launched in 2007, The Central Heating Lab at ACT serves as an incubator and catalyst for new works. ACT cultivates, produces, and presents artists working in all performance genres and provides an artistic home for a variety of local performance groups and artists. Relationships develop daily with individual actors, performers and playwrights while established partnerships with groups such as the Contemporary Classics, 14/48, TheFilmSchool, Collektor, Pinter Fortnightly, Seattle Dance Project, and Icicle Creek Theatre Festival grow and develop. New programs are added throughout the year. With year-round programming produced by The Central Heating Lab at ACT alongside ACT's Mainstage plays, ACT offers its patrons a unique opportunity to maximize their theatre experience – the ACTPass: all you can see for only $25 per month. ACTPass Members can attend nearly all ACT produced performances throughout any given month, provided tickets are available. It is the new, more flexible, more affordable way to see more performances for one low price, and is the first of its kind in the region. ACTPass members may cancel at any time, and there is no limit to the number of times a Pass Member can attend.

About ACT: A Theatre of New Ideas - Raising Consciousness Through Theatre
Located in the heart of downtown Seattle and serving a population of curious, open-minded, and brave audiences, ACT - A Contemporary Theatre is the only theatre in Seattle dedicated to producing contemporary work with promising playwrights and local performing artists since 1965. A theatre of new ideas, ACT serves as a cultural engine that makes plays, dance, music, and film that touch us through its annual Mainstage play series and new works generated from the Young Playwrights Program, The Hansberry Project, the Central Heating Lab, and New Works for the American Stage commissioning program. Because contemporary life demands examination, ACT is driven to inspire and strengthen our diverse community through works that advance our understanding of human life. With more than 120,000 people who attend shows annually, ACT is an interactive community where artists and the public witness, contemplate, and engage in dialogue on today's thought-provoking issues, ideas and art, presented with intelligence, insight, and humor.

ACT gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our 2012 Season Sponsors: ACT Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, ArtsFund, The Eulalie Bloedel Schneider Artist Fund, The John Graham Foundation, Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, and The Shubert Foundation.