Bobbie Steinbach to Appear in Centastage's THE FAKUS - A NOIR World Premiere, 9/21-10/6

Newton's Bobbie Steinbach has been named to the role of "Mrs. Joseph Patrick Paul Costello" in the world premiere production of The Fakus – A Noir, a head-spinning romp mixing money, passion and dreams. Centastage will debut the new play by Joe Byers, directed by Joe Antoun, performing from September 21st through October 6th at the Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre, 539 Tremont Street, Boston.

A longtime member of the Boston theatre community and member of Actors' Equity Association, Steinbach recently appeared in Actors' Shakespeare Projects' Troilus and Cressida, Boston Playwrights' Theatre's Deported/a dream play in which she played a survivor of the Armenian genocide, and in New Repertory Theatre's Collected Stories, for which she received an Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Best Actress Award and an Elliot Norton Award nomination. She is an Actors' Shakespeare Project Founding Member/Resident Actor, and has appeared in a dozen plays in the Bard's canon.She has performed at many area theatres, including New Repertory Theatre, Lyric Stage Company, Huntington Theatre Company, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Boston's Symphony Hall and Tanglewood, amongst others. Steinbach was recently honored as 2012 Best Actress in Boston Magazine's Best of Boston, and has been honored withthe Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Actress. When not onstage, she offers private audition coaching.

Set in Atlantic City circa 1957, richly stylized The Fakus – A Noircaptures trust, betrayal and redemption and turns it on end through a triangle of calculating cohorts, a large sum of money and abrupt interactive visions of the Virgin Mary. Secrets present as spectacle, personalities clash, souls are exposed. "I'm intrigued with the way an audience gives its trust to a play," says Byers. "Earning that trust is an experiment. Having some fun with it leads the audience to believe the unexpected, though situations may not turn out as they'd expect."

Eccentric and elderly Mrs. Costello, an Irish Catholic mystic concocts a $100K scheme, striking up conversation with Leland and Harry, two wayward strangers who've become fast friends. A brokered deal binds the three for a week, leaving the men to share a hotel room sporting only one bed. Booze, cards and souls fuse together in a pressure cooker of unrealized secrets and dreams. Leland and Harry become entwined in each other, revealing their deepest skeletons, unexpectedly to another man. Clashing personalities and tousled souls blur betrayal and redemption, shaking convention to the core, spinning to a raucous, frantic finale.

Writer, director and actor Joe Byers has penned plays including Shakerman, winner of the Arch and Bruce Brown Playwriting Foundation Competition, TightAss: A Musical Bloodbath (based on Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus) featured in Theater Offensive's Out on The Edge Festival and Pee Shy, a finalist for The Actors Theatre of Louisville Heideman Award.

For a complete performance schedule, ticket purchase or for more information, visit www.bcaonline.org or call the BCA Plaza Theatre Box office at 617-426-5000. For more information about Centastage, call 617-536-5981 or visit www.centastage.org.

Since 1991, Centastage has been dedicated as a rare provider to the Boston region with the development and production of new works, giving a voice to New England playwrights. Centastage believes that the future of theatre is dependent on the support of new works, providing that outlet through a writing group, readings and productions. Centastage aims to nurture and promote the work of local writers, directors, designers and actors by cultivating interest in new plays, and offering an alternative to revivals and mainstream works.

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