Holland Productions Set for MELANCHOLY PLAY by Sarah Ruhl, 3/12-3/20

In this whimsical celebration of sadness Tilly, an irresistibly melancholy young stranger, makes her sorrow so sexy that everyone in her life falls maddeningly in love with her. When Tilly suddenly finds happiness, this change of heart throws her whole universe off-kilter, resulting in a mystical and hilarious quest to define joy.

Holland Productions concludes their 2009-2010 season with Sarah Ruhl's Melancholy Play: A Contemporary Farce. Sarah Ruhl received the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004 for her play The Clean House, and recently received rave reviews for In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play). Variety calls her "a playwright with a unique comic voice, perspective, and sense of theater," and The New York Times writes, "Ms. Ruhl's characters always exist both on a poetic plane and a flesh-and-blood one" and has "gift for playful symbolism."

The cast includes Kate deLima as Joan; Philana Mia as Tilly; Kathryn Lynch as Frances; Michael Moran as Frank; Alex Simoes as Lorenzo. Eliot Norton nominated M. Bevin O'Gara directs.

DATES/TICKET INFORMATION:

Melancholy Play will run March 12-20 at The Factory Theatre, 791 Tremont St., South End, Boston.
Thursday-Saturday performances at 8 pm, with Sunday the 14th at 5 pm.

Tickets are $17 full price, $13 students/seniors and can be purchased online at theatermania.com. Cash only at the door.

Founded in 2006, Holland Productions believes in honest theatre; theatre that engages the heart, cultivates creativity, and dissolves boundaries. We believe that theatre is truly a collaborative process and we strive to create work where all those involved, from actor to audience, can bring individual experiences to explore. It is our goal to provide a forum for the ideas of contemporary playwrights and a channel for the female voice. Through smart, sensitive, and stimulating theatre Holland Productions is committed to embracing the complexity of reality. Holland Productions launched our first full-length season at The Factory Theatre in October of 2008 with Paula Vogel's The Baltimore Waltz, praised by reviewers as "smart, sensitive and stimulating theatre." Additional productions include; Emily Dendinger's, Swimming After Dark; local actress/playwright Philana Mia's, The Halfway House Club (2008), Naomi Iizuka's, Aloha, Say the Pretty Girls (2009), and JorDan Harrison's, Kid Simple: A Radio Play in the Flesh (2009).

For more information, visit www.hollandproductions.org

Photo of Alex Simoes, Philana Mia, Kate De Lima and Kathryn Lynch.