Theatre Aspen Opens Sandy Rustin's THE COTTAGE Tonight, 7/24

Award-winning Theatre Aspen opens the final show of the theatre's summer repertory season on July 24th, with the regional premiere of the brand new comedy The Cottage, by Sandy Rustin, running in rep with The Full Monty and Little Women. The playwright has been in residence to work on the show before the opening performance, with a cast of Broadway veterans including Nancy Anderson, Michele Ragusa, Mark Price, Michael Kostroff, Bailey Frankenberg and Spencer Plachy.

The Cottage is a farce inspired by the works of Noel Coward and set in the 1920s English countryside. It is a tale of sex, betrayal and true love that unfolds when Sylvia Van Kipness exposes her love affair to her husband and her lover's wife. A surprising web of secrets unravels in this hilarious-and-almost-murderous-romantic comedy.

Rustin authored Rated P for Parenthood, which premiered at the West Side Theatre in New York City, and is currently playing regionally and in development for TV with ABC Studios. She has appeared on stage and screen and can regularly be seen at Upright Citizen's Brigade in "Gravid Water," (Best Improv Show - Time Out, NY). Don Stephenson, currently a member of the Broadway cast of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, directs. Stephenson has appeared in seven Broadway shows and directed a star-studded Titanic in February at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. His numerous directing credits range from Noises Off at Pittsburgh's Public Theater, to Of Mice and Manhattan at the Kennedy Center.

Theatre Aspen's season opened with The Full Monty, with a book by Terrence McNally (Ragtime, Master Class) and music and lyrics by David Yazbek (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), starring Broadway veterans Mary Stout, Michele Ragusa, Tally Sessions, Nancy Anderson and James Ludwig. Also running in repertory is Little Women, The Broadway Musical, based on the classic novel by Louisa May Alcott, with a book by Allan Knee, music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein. Alison Luff (Wicked) stars as "Jo," Joan Hess as "Marmee," and Ken Krugman as "Professor Bhaer."

Theatre Aspen (Aspen Non-Profit Business of the Year in 2012) was awarded the "Outstanding Regional Theatre" Henry Award in Denver in 2009 and Alison Luff won a Best Supporting Actress Denver Post Ovation Award for her work as Olive in Theatre Aspen's The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Recent Ovation nominees include Joan Hess, Beth Malone, Aaron Rhyne, Julia Foran and Sandy Duncan.

Theatre Aspen's summer productions take place in the Hurst Theatre in Rio Grande Park and are underwritten by season sponsor ANB Bank, with the generous support of Barbara and Franklin Carson, Liz and Jane Armstrong, Nancy Wall and Chuck Wall, Darlynn and Tom Fellman, Jessica and John Fullerton, Hays Private Client, Jim and Brenda Grusecki, The City of Aspen, Shane Aspen Real Estate, Les Dames d'Aspen, Sotheby's International Realty and The Aspen Club and Spa.

For further information contact Theatre Aspen at 970-925-9313 or visit www.theatreaspen.org.

Media sponsors include The Aspen Times, Aspen Daily News, Aspen Public Radio, KSPN/KNFO, Aspen Magazine and Aspen Sojourner.

Photo Credit: Jeremy Swanson