CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION Plays At The Huntington 10/15-11/14

The Huntington Theatre Company continues its 29th season with Circle Mirror Transformation, an acclaimed new comedy by Annie Baker. Melia Bensussen directs. The ensemble cast includes Boston favorites Michael Hammond (Prelude to a Kiss at the Huntington) as James, and Jeremiah Kissel (Two Men of Florence and The Cherry Orchard at the Huntington) as Schultz, as well as Betsy Aidem as Marty, Nadia Bowers as Theresa, and Marie Polizzano as Lauren.

In Circle Mirror Transformation, four students in Marty's creative drama class experiment with harmless theatre games. Set in the Shirley, Vermont community center, hearts are quietly torn apart and tiny wars of epic proportions are waged and won in this gentle and beautifully crafted new comedy that mixes antic sadness and hilarious detail.

Annie Baker grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her full-length plays include Body Awareness (Atlantic Theater Company - Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for Best Play/Emerging Playwright), Circle Mirror Transformation (Playwrights Horizons - Obie Award for Best New American Play, Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), The Aliens (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater - Obie Award for Best New American Play), The End of the Middle Ages (commission for Soho Rep), and Nocturama. Her work has also been developed and produced at the Bush Theatre in London, New York Theatre Workshop, MCC Theater, Soho Rep, Orchard Project, Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Ars Nova, South Coast Repertory, Victory Gardens Theater, Theatre Artaud, Magic Theatre, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and The Sundance Institute Theatre Lab in Utah and Ucross, Wyoming. Ms. Baker is a member of New Dramatists, MCC's Playwrights Coalition, and Ensemble Studio Theatre, and an alumna of Youngblood, Ars Nova's Play Group, and the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. Recent honors include a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nomination, a Lilly Award, a Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship, a MacDowell Fellowship, and commissions from Center Theatre Group and Playwrights Horizons. She received her M.F.A. from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College.

Circle Mirror Transformation director Melia Bensussen is the recipient of an Obie Award for Outstanding Direction and has directed extensively around the country, including at La Jolla Playhouse, Baltimore Centerstage, Hartford Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, New York Shakespeare Festival, MCC Theater, Primary Stages, Long Wharf Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, People's Light and Theatre Company (where she received a Barrymore Award nomination for Best Direction), and many others, where she has worked on classics and collaborated with many of America's leading playwrights. She was twice given directing awards by the Princess Grace Foundation, USA, including their top honor, the Statuette Award for Sustained Excellence in Directing. She is featured in Women Stage Directors Speak by Rebecca Daniels (published by McFarland and Company), and also in Nancy Taylor's Women Direct Shakespeare (published in 2005 by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press). Ms. Bensussen is chair of the performing arts department at Emerson College in Boston.

"Circle Mirror Transformation is a wonderful play," says Bensussen. "It is a play that, in the tradition of great art, teaches you how to be a better human being with great lightness and a sense of humor. It uses an acting class as a metaphor but it's really much more than about acting. It's about being and how we can actually be more present and more fully alive in our lives. I think that's what theatre is there to teach us."

"I fell in love with the characters in these plays, and with the idea of creating a fictional New England town at the Calderwood Pavilion," says Peter DuBois, Artistic Director of the Huntington. "Each of Annie's plays stands on its own with imagination and subtle humor, and seen together they form a striking portrait of Shirley, Vermont. The same is true for this festival; each company has its own identity and audience, but together we hope to bring out the richness of a writer's vision in the creation of this fully imaged community."

ABOUT "THE SHIRLEY, VT PLAYS" FESTIVAL
Circle Mirror Transformation is the Huntington's contribution to The Shirley, VT Plays festival, a landmark local collaboration among three Boston theatre companies this fall to produce breakout writer Annie Baker's first three plays .The festival also includes Body Awareness, produced by SpeakEasy Stage Company (October 22 - November 20) and The Aliens, produced by Company One (October 22 - November 20). All set in the fictional town of Shirley, VT, the plays will run together in the first-ever festival dedicated to the work of this wryly observant young writer, which will be curated by the Huntington. More information at ShirleyVTPlays.com.

The Shirley, VT Plays festival presents a special opportunity to examine the rich and varied lives of a small town filled with humor, good intentions, unintended consequences, and accidental beauty. Audiences will experience three miniature portraits of Shirley, VT, a town not found on any map. The town of Shirley will be created in three performance venues at the Huntington-operated Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA by scenic designer Cristina Todesco and costume designer Bobby Frederick Tilley.

The plays will have staggered runs beginning October 15 and will run concurrently, providing audience members the opportunity see all three between October 22 and November 14. Special performance schedules have been designed on six days so that theatregoers can see all three productions consecutively in "marathon" format: October 23, 30, November 6, 7, 13, and 14. Special events on marathon days will be announced at a later date.

THE CAST
The cast of Circle Mirror Transformation includes:
· Betsy Aidem (The Metal Children at the Vineyard Theatre, TV's "Rescue Me") as Marty, the acting class instructor;
· Nadia Bowers (Broadway productions of The Farnsworth Invention, Doubt, and Metamorphoses) as Theresa, a former New York actress and acting class participant;
· Michael Hammond (the Huntington's Prelude to a Kiss, Broadway productions of Exit the King and Long Day's Journey into Night, many productions at Shakespeare and Company) as James, Marty's husband;
· Jeremiah Kissel (Two Men of Florence, The Cherry Orchard, Persephone, and Sonia Flew at the Huntington) as Schultz, an acting class participant;
· Marie Polizzano (She Loves Me, How Shakespeare Won the West, and Pirates! at the Huntington) as Lauren, a high school student and acting class participant.

PRODUCTION ARTISTS
The creative team for Circle Mirror Transformation includes scenic designer Cristina Todesco (A Long and Winding Road and The Atheist at the Huntington); costume designer Bobby Frederick Tilley (The Aliens at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Lizzie Borden at The Living Theatre); lighting designer Dan Kotlowitz (Nixon's Nixon and The Winter's Tale for the Huntington); and sound designer David Remedios (Prelude to a Kiss for the Huntington). Production stage manager is Kathryn Most; stage manager is Josiane M. Lemieux.

SPONSORS
The Huntington's Grand Patron is Boston University. The 2010-2011 Season Sponsor is J. David Wimberly. The production co-sponsors are Nancy and Ed Roberts. WGBH is a Media Partner.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM
"Absorbing, unblinking, and sharply funny." - The New York Times

"‘A!' Riveting! It packs a terrific punch and reminds us of our inescapable need to come together and forge human connections - it reminds us of the very power of theatre." - Entertainment Weekly

"A thoughtful new play, and a potent reminder of the impact we have on each other and that life has twists that don't follow a script. Annie Baker has an original voice, appealing quirkiness, and an astute sense of what makes people tick." - New York Daily News

ABOUT THE HUNTINGTON
The Huntington Theatre Company, in residence at Boston University, is Boston's largest professional theatre company. Under the direction of Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso, the Huntington creates seven new productions each season featuring world-class theatre artists from Boston and Broadway and the most promising new talent. The Huntington has transferred over a dozen of these productions to Broadway, including recent favorites Noël Coward's Present Laughter and Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. The Huntington also runs nationally renowned programs in education and new play development, and serves the local theatre community through its operation of the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, which the Huntington built in 2004.

The Calderwood Pavilion, which includes the 370-seat Wimberly Theatre and the 200-seat Roberts Studio Theatre, houses most of the Huntington's new works activities and complements its 890-seat, Broadway-style main stage, the Boston University Theatre. The Huntington provides the first-class facilities and audience services of the Calderwood Pavilion to dozens of organizations each year, including some of Boston's most exciting small and mid-sized theatre companies, at significantly subsidized rates.

As a national leader in the development of new plays, the Huntington has produced more than 50 New England, American, or world premieres to date, with two world premieres scheduled for the 2010-11 Season. The Huntington's acclaimed education programs have served hundreds of thousands of middle school and high school students since 1982, and bring theatre to the Deaf and blind communities, the elderly, and other underserved populations in the Greater Boston area.

The Huntington was founded in 1982 by Boston University and separately incorporated as an independent non-profit in 1986. Its two prior artistic leaders were Peter Altman, (1982-2000) and Nicholas Martin (2000-2008). For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org.