City Theatre Presents Different Stages' QUILLS, Now thru 1/26

Different Stages continues its 2011-2012 season with Doug Wright's Quills, playing City Theatre, 3823 Airport Blvd, Ste D, tonight, January 4 - 26, 2013.

Sex. Perversion. Violence. These are the themes of the tales that drip from the ink-laden quills of the notoriously irreverent Marquis de Sade in this Obie Award winning play. Confined to the Charenton Asylum for the Insane for the outlandish escapades he'd committed during the Napoleonic Era, the Marquis continues to pen his stories to the delight of the young seamstress, Madeleine, and to the scorn of Charenton's devout Abbe de Coulmeir. When the Abbe attempts to silence the Marquis by taking his quills, his ink, and his paper, something intriguing occurs: the Marquis still finds a way to voice his scandalous yarns. As the Abbe's religious devotion clashes with the Marquis's dedication to freedom of expression, the audience is treated to a tale of wit, irony, blasphemy, philosophy, and the struggle for power told partly as a blend of comedy of manners and Grand Guignol with a dash of grotesque exaggeration and a soupcon of gore.

Directed by Norman Blumensaadt (Is Life Worth Living?) Quills features Craig Kanne (You Can't Take it with You) as the Marquis de Sade and Jean Budney (Is Life Worth Living?) as his wife Renee Pelagie. Travis Bedard (Doctor Faustus) plays the director of Charenton Asylum. Joe Hartman (Vampire Lesbians of Sodom) plays the Abbe de Coulmier, a priest at the asylum. Melissa Vogt-Patterson (Humpty) plays the seamstress, Madeleine. Tony Salinas (You Can't Take it with You) plays the architect.

Quills runs Thursdays - Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 5:30pm. To purchase advance tickets, now on sale, go to: https://secure.buyplaytix.com/diffstages. Pick-Your-Price Tickets: $15, $20, $25, or $30. Tickets purchased by credit card online or at the theatre may be subject to a small service charge.

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