Judd Hirsch To Star In BELOW THE BELT At ACT 5/22-6/21

A Contemporary Theatre is honored to welcome acclaimed actor Judd Hirsch (Ordinary People; TV's Taxi, Numb3rs) and returning local Seattle favorites John Procaccino and R. Hamilton Wright in Below the Belt, May 22 through June 21, 2009.

A farcical and funny skewering of globalized corporate culture, Below the Belt centers on three men working at an anonymous factory where they feverishly crank out units of some unnamed product while trying to maintain some semblance of humanity and self, despite a crushingly conformist and hyper-masculine bureaucracy. Richard Dresser's surreally comic and occasionally unsettling play comments on the profound loneliness that separates men and how they work together (or don't) in the face of the rules that box them in.

The trio of characters dreams of promotion and of going home. They vie for one-upmanship in an all-too-familiar corporation that is never named. They continuously shift alliances and try to "get ahead" in a system where the predators, both real and imagined, seem to lurk around every corner. Cross the sitcom The Office with Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and the results might look something like Below the Belt: darkly funny, and disconcertingly familiar.

"I was working on a TV show in Hollywood, and as is often the case in TV writing, the most hilarious and truly entertaining things don't turn up on screen," said Playwright Dresser. "The backstage drama of this show was truly funny to me and I felt like I had to write something about it, so I started writing these characters. I became fascinated with the whole notion of how men work together, and all the ways they don't work together; the ways they sabotage each other and the ways that it becomes about one-upmanship rather than actually getting the work done."

Hirsch, who earned Tony Awards for Conversations with My Father and I'm Not Rappaport, previously starred in the 1996 off-Broadway production of Below the Belt. His extensive stage credits include Sixteen Wounded, Art, A Thousand Clowns, Talley's Folly, Chapter Two, Knock Knock, The Hotel Baltimore, and Barefoot in the Park. He is well known for his screen roles in Taxi, Dear John, Ordinary People, and Numb3rs. Joining Hirsch are long-time Seattle treasures John Procaccino and R. Hamilton Wright, both of whom have worked on virtually every Seattle stage. Procaccino most recently was seen at Intiman as Willie Stark in All the King's Men and at ACT in Bach at Leipeg, Fiction, The Night of the Iguana, and A Moon For the Misbegotten. He has appeared in Yasmina Reza's Art with both Hirsch and Wright, but not at the same time or at the same theatrE. Wright will be directing ACT's production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (April 10-May 10), and was last seen in 2008 at ACT in Intimate Exchanges and Becky's New Car, with other memorable ACT appearances including Bach at Leipzig, Born Yesterday, and Stuff Happens as George W. Bush. He was most recently seen at Seattle Repertory Theatre as Paul Sycamore in You Can't Take It With You.

ACT's extraordinary team of theatre artists are contributing to the development of Below the Belt. They include: Pam Mackinnon as Director, Matthew Smucker as Set Designer, Deb Trout as Costume Designer, Rick Paulsen as Lighting Designer, and Brendan Patrick Hogan as Sound Designer

Season subscriptions and single tickets are on sale now for Below the Belt. In addition to pre- and post-show discussions, additional presentations in conjunction with Below the Belt include three Friday nights of improv with Wing-It Productions produced by ACT's Central Heating Lab. Evening of Improv with Wing-It Productions is the perfect nightcap of whip-smart, lightning fast improvisational comedy! The masterminds behind Jet City Improv and Twisted Flicks bring to ACT their latest inventions, Twisted Flicks, This Improvised Life, and Improsia, May 29, June 5 and June 12 at 10:00 p.m in the Bullitt Cabaret. Tickets are $10, or $7 with the purchase of a Below the Belt ticket.