FIRST DATE, TWILIGHT ZONE: LIVE! & More Set for A Contemporary Theatre's March Season

A Contemporary Theatre (ACT) have announced their mainstage season productions are now on sale to the general public for individual ticket purchases. The first two major productions of the season are First Date, a new musical co-produced with The 5th Avenue Theatre, followed by The Pitmen Painters, a regional premiere of the acclaimed London and Broadway play.

Artistic Director Kurt Beattie is also pleased to partner with Theater Schmeater to bring their long-running show, The Twilight Zone: LIVE!, to ACT’s Central Heating Lab. The Capitol Hill theatre company will be able to offer more seating and reach new audiences through this collaboration that brings some of the most memorable Twilight Zone episodes to life.

First Date, A New Musical
Book by Austin Winsberg I Music & Lyrics by Alan Zachary & Michael Weiner
Directed by Bill Berry
Co-production with The 5th Avenue Theatre
March 10 - May 20 | WORLD PREMIERE
Tickets: Start at $55 (adults), $15 (students), 25% off (seniors), $20 (age 25 and under), or included with the ACTPass

Ever been on a date and wondered what the other person was thinking? This new musical comedy lets you peer inside the nervous and busy minds of two would-be lovebirds. SoHo artist Casey and Wall Street trader Aaron are on that all-important first date. How can they know if they’re right for each other when old boyfriends, ex-fiancées, best friends, pushy relatives, and even the waiter keep offering unsolicited advice? This relationship may just have a chance — if only they can get their inner voices to shut up!

Young Playwrights Festival
March 15-17
Tickets: $10 (adults), $5 (students/seniors/25 and younger) or included with the ACTPass

The Young Playwrights Festival returns for its 10th annual festival, showcasing plays by talented Young Playwrights Program writers. The Festival features some of the best of the Young Playwrights Program (YPP), allowing select students to see their plays come to life with the help of a professional artistic team. To prepare for the staged readings, each student playwright is partnered with a professional director, dramaturg, stage manager, and actors, and participates in nearly 20 hours of rehearsal with his or her creative team. Each play is performed twice during the three-day festival. For a list of plays and the schedule, visit www.acttheatre.org/YPF. Sponsored by Amazon.com and JP Morgan Chase & Co.

The Construction Zone: New Play Development
March 26 at 7:00 pm
Tickets: $10 (adults), $5 (students/seniors/25 and younger) or included with the ACTPass
This Month’s Play: My Before and After

In My Before and After by Michael Louis Serafin-Wells, directed by Christine Sumption, the discovery of the abandoned workshop of an elusive artist brings together Wes, his sister Olive, and old friend EJ, to catalog the artist’s work and rebuild their own fractured lives. Before and After reveals the beauty, melancholy, and wry humor of relationships rebuilt in the wake of great loss.
Co-curated by Anita Montgomery and Christine Sumption, The Construction Zone provides playwrights with opportunities to develop and share new work, while providing audiences with an intimate and meaningful exposure to the process.

Short Stories Live at Town Hall
March 4 at 4:00 pm
Tickets: $13 (Advance), $10 (Town Hall members/seniors /students); $15/$13 (at the door), or included with the ACTPass; online at www.brownpapertickets.com.
Theme: Cat Tales

Think of it as NPR’s Selected Shorts, Seattle style. Short stories are selected based on a common theme, then local actors bring the stories to life during readings at Town Hall. Join us for Cat Tales, in which three Seattle actors read stories about the remarkable, unusual, and sometimes unsettling relationships between human beings and their feline friends. Hans Altwies reads renowned science fiction writer Fritz Lieber’s Space-Time for Springers about a kitten with an I.Q. of 160 who awaits his ritual cup of coffee so that he can become human. Gretchen Krich reads Kate Atkinson’s The Cat Lover, a disquieting tale about a woman who takes in a stray cat who gradually takes over her apartment and her life. And Peter A. Jacobs reads Death of a Favorite by J.F. Powers, a cat’s-eye view of the human impulse to jockey for position. Christine Sumption directs.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle with ACT – A Contemporary Theatre. Series supported by the Thurston Charitable Foundation.

The Twilight Zone: LIVE!
April 6-28 at 8:30 pm
Tickets: $18 advance, $25 at the door (adults), $15 (students), $18 (seniors), Free (Under 18) or included with the ACTPass. Pay-What-You-Can preview on April 5 and every Thursday during the run

Theater Schmeater's The Twilight Zone: Live! features three episodes of the iconic television show created by that mid-20th century master of 22-minute storytelling, Rod Serling. Sometimes macabre, sometimes cautionary, always ironic, Serling and his small band of like minded writers, coupled with some of the best actors and directors of his time, collaborated to spin tales that still reverberate. The Twilight Zone: Live! gives the audience a chance to relive these Cold War era tales with the same intensity and immediacy of a candle lit fable told over Saltines and bottled water in a sweltering fallout shelter. The Twilight Zone: Live! is directed by Tim Moore who will also play “Rod”.

Episodes: The Howling Man by Charles Beaumont, The Jeopardy Room by Rod Serling, and A Penny For Your Thoughts by George Clayton Johnson.

The Pitmen Painters
By Lee Hall, inspired by a book by William Feaver I Directed by Kurt Beattie
April 20 - May 20| NORTHWEST PREMIERE
Tickets: Starts at $37.50 (adults), $15 (students), 25% off (seniors), Pay-What-You-Can starts day of the show at 1:00 pm in person.

A true story of friendship, aspiration, and the power of art. Who is allowed to be an artist? Can art only be appreciated by the elite? From the acclaimed writer of Billy Elliot comes the real-life story of a close-knit group of northern British miners whose lives are transformed when they unexpectedly discover their own artistic potential. The Pitmen Painters is both an exploration of the politics of art and an uplifting celebration of the creative impulse in us all.

Featured in the cast are: Daniel Brockley, Christine Marie Brown, Frank Lawler, Charles Leggett, Jason Marr, Joseph P. McCarthy, Morgan Rowe, and R. Hamilton Wright.

TheFilmSchool: Caught in the ACT Script Reading Series
April 2 at 7:00 pm
Tickets: FREE, included with the ACTPass
Screenplay: Grace O’Malley by Susan O’Malley Wade

Here’s your chance to get in on the ground floor of the filmmaking process and shape a new work. TheFilmSchool presents another year of their popular series, featuring staged screenplay readings from outstanding alumni-written scripts, directed and read by Seattle’s top professional directors and actors. The reading is followed by a Q&A session with the screenwriter, director, actors, and cast, giving everyone an opportunity to develop, refine, and improve the work of alumni.

http://www.acttheatre.org/

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