Chautauqua Theater Company to Launch 34th Season with NOISES OFF

Chautauqua Theater Company (CTC), under the new Artistic Direction of Andrew Borba and continued leadership of Managing Director Sarah Clare Corporandy, kicks off its 34th season with Noises Off by Michael Frayn, directed by Borba.

Noises Off runs for three weeks, June 30th - July 16th, at Bratton Theater at the Chautauqua Institution. Tickets are $35 and are currently on sale.

Michael Frayn's Noises Off is a roller-coaster, side-splittingly funny look at theatre - both onstage and off - as a hapless troupe of actors attempt to mount a dreadful, ill-fated farce of a play. From the disastrous dress rehearsal as the cast fumbles entrances, exits and bothersome props, to the final performance of missed cues and forgotten lines, Noises Off will have you roaring with laughter as the cast's collective sanity slowly unravels. New York Times critic Frank Rich called it, "the funniest play written in my lifetime."

The CTC cast includes Emily Daly, Craig Wesley Divino, Patrick Foley, Yonatan Gebeyehu, Carol Halstead, Will Harrison, Kelsey Jenison, Maggie Mason, and John Seidman.

The Creative Team includes Andrew Borba (Director), Tom Buderwitz (Scenic Design), Angela Calin (Costume Design), Scott Bolman (Lighting Design), and Rob Kaplowitz (Sound Design).

"This play is a love letter to the theater and the intrepid nature of creativity" says Noises Off Director and CTC Artistic Director, Andrew Borba. "and built like a beautiful swiss watch, it's a hysterical look at what happens when everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. "

Michael Frayn (Playwright) was born in London in 1933 and began his writing career as a reporter at The Guardian and The Observer. His subsequent plays include Alphabetical Order , Clouds , Donkeys' Years , Make and Break , Benefactors , Democracy , and Afterlife , which was developed for the Royal National Theatre in 2008. Copenhagen , first staged at the National, won the 1998 Evening Standard Award for Best Play of the Year and the 2000 Tony Award for Best Play. Mr. Frayn was awarded the Writer's Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 and received the South Bank Show Outstanding Achievement Award in 2012. In that year the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield put on The Michael Frayn Season. Noises Off , which also became a successful film, opened at the Old Vic in 2012 and transferred to the West End, picking up a Laurence Olivier Nomination for Best Revival along the way. The author of ten novels, one of which won him the 2002 Heywood Hill Literary Prize, he has also produced multiple films for BBC Television. Mr. Frayn is married to the biographer and critic Claire Tomalin.

Andrew Borba (Director) is in his second season as Artistic Director. He has served 8 seasons as CTC's Associate Artistic Director and this is his 13th summer at the Chautauqua Theater Company. This season, he is directing Noises Off and performing in Building the Wall . Andrew has directed The Taming of the Shrew, After Love by David West Read, The Comedy of Errors, The Philadelphia Story , Macbeth , Twelfth Night , Swimming Thru Abu Dhabi by Michael Gaston, and Carve by Molly Smith Metzler all at CTC as well as Symphony of Sorrowful Songs and Ellis Island with the CSO in the Amp. Andrew also conceived and directed the Chautauqua Inter-Arts work Go West! The Mythology of American Expansion. Outside of CTC, he has directed: Woyzeck (UC Irvine); Hamlet-the First Quarto (Theatre of NOTE), Satisfy Me (The Lillian Theatre); A Song of My Own (Hudson Theatre); Evolution; Skins and Bones; Right to Post -all by Ruth McKee (Chalk Rep); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Juilliard) and others. As an actor at CTC, he has appeared in Our Town, Arcadia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, The Just, All My Sons, Frankenstein and Dracula. Outside of CTC, Andrew has performed in theaters around the country, including South Coast Repertory, Pasadena Playhouse, The Globe Theatre, Berkeley Repertory, Oregon Shakespeare Festival (5 seasons), Chalk Rep., Antaeus, Theater @ Boston Court, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, Dallas Theater Center, Portland Stage Company, Long Wharf, Delaware Theatre Company and others. On film, he has appeared in small parts in big films and big parts in small films and has had recurring and guest appearances on over 30 television series. Andrew is an Assistant Professor of Acting and Shakespeare at the University of California, Irvine, a member of The National Alliance of Acting Teachers, The Antaeus Theater Company, a cum laude graduate oF Brown University and received his M.F.A. from New York University. He lives in Los Angeles.

Tickets to Noises Off are $35 and seating is reserved. Tickets can be purchased online at chq.org/theater-shows-tickets or by calling (716) 357-6250. Single event ticket is required, which also serves as a Chautauqua Institution gate pass 4 hours before and 4 hours following the start time of the performance.

Chautauqua Theater Company's 2017 Season includes Noises Off: 6/30-7/16, Detroit 67: 7/21- 7/30, Romeo and Juliet: 8/11-8/18, and the 2017 New Play Workshops, Birthday Candles: 8/1-8/4 and Building the Wall: 8/2-8/5.

Noises Off plays at the Bratton Theater located at the Chautauqua Institution. To get to the Bratton Theater from the Chautauqua Institution Main Gate go down the red brick walkway (Miller). Once at Bestor Plaza take a left on Pratt. After a few blocks, Bratton Theater will be on the left. For additional directions, visit www.ctcompany.org. For parking information, visit www.chqtickets.com.

Entering its 34th Season, Chautauqua Theater Company is the resident professional theater and Conservatory of the Chautauqua Institution. Internationally known actors, directors, designers, and writers join 20 emerging artists drawn from the nation's top training programs to form a unique company that produces a vibrant summer of work in the historic Bratton Theater. Dedicated to the next generation of theater artists, the development of new work, first-rate productions of modern and contemporary classics, and fresh insight into Shakespeare's canon, CTC produces the best of a year-round regional theater within an eight week summer season.

The pre-eminent expression of lifelong learning in the United States, Chautauqua Institution is a 140-year-old community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York State that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities.