TimeLine Theatre Company Presents 33 VARIATIONS, Now thru 10/21

TimeLine Theatre Company opens its 16th season with the Chicago premiere of 33 Variations by Moisés Kaufman, directed by Nick Bowling, tonight, August 30 – October 21, 2012 (previews August 24 - 29). Note that performances will be held at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave. Chicago. Press Opening performance is Thursday, August 30, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.

To purchase tickets or for more information, call the Stage 773 Box Office at 773.327.5252 or buy online via timelinetheatre.com.

The cast of 33 Variations features TimeLine Company Member Janet Ulrich Brooks as Dr. Katherine Brandt (the lead role played by Jane Fonda on Broadway) and TimeLine Associate Artist Terry Hamilton as Ludwig van Beethoven, with Ian Paul Custer, Jessie Fisher, TimeLine Company Member Juliet Hart, Michael Kingston and Matthew Krause. The production also features live piano accompaniment provided by George Lepauw, founder, president and artistic director of the International Beethoven Project, or pianist Igor Lipinski.

TimeLine's 2012-13 season opener is an elegant waltz between past and present, fact and speculation, a mother and daughter, and art and life. One of classical music's enduring riddles is why Ludwig van Beethoven devoted four years of his diminishing life writing 33 variations of what many scholars consider a mediocre waltz. Two hundred years later, a modern-day music scholar is driven to solve the mystery even as her own health and relationship with her daughter crumbles. The result is an extraordinary new American play - accompanied throughout by a live pianist playing the variations themselves - about passion, parenthood, and the moments of beauty that can transform a life.

"TimeLine is thrilled to bring this dynamic, lyrical and haunting play to Chicago for the first time," Artistic Director PJ Powers said. "Although we'll present it in a slightly larger venue than our home on Wellington Avenue, TimeLine's signature intimacy and immediacy remains intact. Audiences will sit just yards away from a gorgeous Steinway piano and hear Beethoven's 'Diabelli Variations' brought to life. Theatre and music aficionados alike will be transported through time to experience the beauty, mystery and enduring legacy of a master composer's work, in concert with a modern-day story that is both intensely personal and truly universal."

The play opens tonight, August 30 at 7:30 p.m. and then runs Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through October 21, 2012.

POST-SHOW DISCUSSIONS: Free post-show discussions led by a TimeLine Company Member and featuring the production dramaturg and members of the cast on Wednesday 9/5, Thursday 9/13, Sunday 9/16, Wednesday 9/19, Thursday 9/20, Thursday 9/27, Wednesday 10/3 and Sunday 10/7.

SUNDAY SCHOLARS SERIES: A free hour-long post-show panel discussion with experts on the themes and issues of the play on Sunday, September 30.

DISCUSSION WITH TIMELINE COMPANY MEMBERS: Free post-show discussion with TimeLine Company members on Sunday, September 9.

Tickets are $32 (Wednesday – Friday) or $42 (Saturday & Sunday). Student discount is $10 off the regular ticket price with valid ID. Group rates for groups of 10 or more are available. Advance purchase is recommended as performances may sell out. To purchase tickets or for more information, call the Stage 773 Box Office at 773.327.5252 or buy online via timelinetheatre.com.

33 Variations will take place at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago. Stage 773 is located one-half block west of the corner of Belmont and Racine and immediately east of Theater Wit in Chicago's Lakeview East neighborhood. The theater is accessible via the CTA El stop at Belmont (Red/Brown/Purple lines). CTA bus #77-Belmont stops at Racine. Valet parking is available for $10 and there is also limited free and metered street parking nearby. Visit timelinetheatre.com for complete directions and parking information. Stage 773 is accessible for people with disabilities.

The production staff for 33 Variations includes Brian Sidney Bembridge (Scenic Design), Alex Wren Meadows (Costume Design), Keith Parham (Lighting Design), Andrew Hansen (Sound Design), Julia Eberhardt (Properties Design), Mike Tutaj (Projections Design), Maren Robinson (Dramaturg), Ana Espinosa (Stage Manager), John Kearns (Production Manager), Lauren Sheely (Assistant Director), Eva Breneman (Dialect Coach), Caleb Charles McAndrew (Technical Director), Austin Pettinger (Assistant Costume Design/Draper), Brittainy Barattia (Production Assistant), Mac Vaughey (Master Electrician) and Dina Spoerl (Lobby Designer).

Moisés Kaufman (Playwright) is a Tony and Emmy award-nominated director and playwright. His play 33 Variations was nominated for five Tony Awards, including Best Play. Kaufman directed the Pulitzer and Tony award-winning play I Am My Own Wife (Obie Award; Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel nominations). His plays Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and The Laramie Project have been among the most performed plays in America over the last decade. Kaufman also directed the film adaptation of The Laramie Project for HBO, which was the opening night selection at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and won the National Board of Review Award, the Humanitas Prize and a Special Mention for Best First Film at the Berlin Film Festival. The film also earnEd Kaufman two Emmy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Writer. He is the Artistic Director of Tectonic Theater Project and a Guggenheim Fellow in Playwriting. Other recent directing credits include Bengal Tiger at the Bagdad Zoo (Broadway and Mark Taper Forum), Macbeth (Public Theater), This Is How It Goes (Donmar Warehouse), One Arm by Tennessee Williams (Steppenwolf Theater Company), Master Class with Rita Moreno (Berkeley Repertory Theater) and Lady Windermere's Fan (Williamstown Theater Festival).

Nick Bowling (Director) was the founding Artistic Director and is now Associate Artistic Director and a Company Member of TimeLine Theatre. He is the recipient of an Equity Jeff Award for Outstanding Direction (The History Boys at TimeLine) and four Non-Equity Jeff Awards for Outstanding Direction (Fiorello!, This Happy Breed and The Crucible at TimeLine, Another Part of the Forest at Eclipse Theatre) and also received Jeff Award nominations for The Farnsworth Invention, Hauptmann and The Lion in Winter at TimeLine and for Closer Than Ever at Porchlight Music Theatre. Recent credits at TimeLine include My Kind of Town, A Walk in the Woods, The Front Page, In Darfur, When She Danced, Not Enough Air and Fiorello!. Other Chicago credits include Porchlight Music Theatre's A Catered Affair, Writers' Theatre's Bach at Leipzig, Shattered Globe Theatre's Time of the Cuckoo and Frozen Assets, Rivendell Theatre's Factory Girls and Buffalo Theatre Ensemble's Angels in America, among others.

Janet Ulrich Brooks (Dr. Katherine Brandt) is a Company Member at TimeLine Theatre, where she has been seen in several productions, including A Walk in the Woods, All My Sons (Equity Jeff Award nomination - Actress in a Principal Role, Play), When She Danced (Equity Jeff Award nomination - Actress in a Supporting Role, Play), Not Enough Air (Equity Jeff Award nomination - Actress in a Principal Role, Play), Weekend (Equity Jeff Award nomination - Actress in a Supporting Role, Play), the one-woman show Lillian, Tesla's Letters, Paradise Lost, A Man for All Seasons and Paragon Springs. Other recent credits include South of Settling (Steppenwolf Theatre), Ten Chimneys (Northlight Theatre), The Original Grease (American Theater Co.), Pony (About Face Theatre), The Seagull and A True History of the Johnstown Flood (Goodman Theatre) and Jacob & Jack (Victory Gardens Theater). Other Chicago credits include portraying Golda Meier in Golda's Balcony (Pegasus Players, Non-Equity Jeff Award - Outstanding Solo Performance); Richard III, A Lie of the Mind and Marathon 33 (Strawdog Theatre); and Huck Finn (Steppenwolf for Young Adults); plus work with Writers' Theatre, Collaboraction and others. Film credits include Fools, Conviction, Polish Bar, I Heart Shakey and One Small Hitch. Television credits include The Chicago Code, The Playboy Club, Boss and Underemployed. Brooks was the first recipient of the Ed See Outstanding Theatre Alumnus Award from the University of Central Missouri and earned an MFA degree in Acting at Western Illinois University.

Terry Hamilton (Ludwig van Beethoven) is an Associate Artist with TimeLine Theatre, where his credits include Enron, The Front Page, To Master the Art, Frost/Nixon, This Happy Breed, Pravda, Martin Furey's Shot, Copenhagen, The General from America, Fiorello!, Widowers' Houses, Weekend, Not Enough Air and The History Boys. Other Chicago credits include Waiting for Lefty at American Blues Theater, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead at Writers' Theatre, and The Three Musketeers, The Taming of the Shrew and Timon of Athens at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Television credits include The Playboy Club, Chicago Code, Early Edition and Turks. He will appear this winter in Julius Caesar at Chicago Shakespeare. Hamilton is a three time recipient of the Non-Equity Jeff Award for was nominated for an Equity Jeff Award for Actor in a Principal Role for his portrayal of Richard M. Nixon in Frost/Nixon.

George Lepauw (Lead Pianist) began his studies at the Rachmaninov Conservatory in Paris, France, at the age of three, and soon after was accepted by Madame Aïda Barenboim as her youngest-ever student, with the exception of her son, pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim. He went on to study with Russian virtuoso Elena Varvarova, who prepared him for his first public concert at the age of 10 in Paris, performing Beethoven sonatas. Lepaux obtained his BA degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. with a double major in English Literature and History and received his Masters of Music in Piano Performance from Northwestern University in Chicago. He was the recipient of the first Earl Wild Foundation Prize, enabling him to study with the legendary pianist at his home in Columbus, Ohio. In 2007 Lepaux founded The Journal of a Musician, his magazine on culture and music; in 2008 he founded the Beethoven Project Trio (BPT) with violinist Sang Mee Lee and cellist Wendy Warner; in 2009 he founded the International Beethoven Project and performed the world premiere of a rediscovered piano trio by Beethoven (with the BPT); in 2010 he gave his New York City debut with the BPT at Lincoln Center and concurrently released his first commercial recording of three rare Beethoven trios with the BPT on Cedille Records; and in 2011 he was Artistic Director of Beethoven Festival 2011: Man and Muse. He is currently planning Beethoven Festival 2012: Politics and Revolutions, slated to run September 6-16, 2012, in Chicago. For more information, visit georgelepauw.com.

TimeLine Theatre Company, named one of the nation's top 10 emerging professional theatres (American Theatre Wing, founder of the Tony Awards), Best Theatre in Chicago (Chicago magazine, 2011) and the nation's theater "Company of the Year" (The Wall Street Journal, 2010), was founded in April 1997 with a mission to present stories inspired by history that connect with today's social and political issues. Over 15 seasons, TimeLine has presented 51 productions, including eight world premieres and 16 Chicago premieres; launched the Living History Education Program, bringing the company's mission to life for students in Chicago Public Schools; and completed each season operating in the black. Recipient of the Alford-Axelson Award for Nonprofit Managerial Excellence and the Richard Goodman Strategic Planning Award from the Association for Strategic Planning, TimeLine has received 46 Jeff Awards, including an award for Outstanding Production eight times.