KC Rep's CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION Begins Previews 2/18

Previews begin tomorrow and run through February 24 for Kansas City Repertory Theatre's production of Annie Baker's Obie Award-winning play Circle Mirror Transformation, directed by Kyle Hatley. Opening Night is Friday, February 25. 

 

Baker's five-character comedy delivers an emotional punch when five people sign up for an acting class, each having his or her own expectations. Through a series of hilarious theatre games and exercises, they begin to unpeel the layers of their everyday lives and learn far more than they bargained for about each other and themselves. 

 

Baker is one of American theatre's most sought-after young playwrights. Her works have twice been lauded as Best New American Play, in 2009 for Circle Mirror Transformation, and again in 2010 for The Aliens. Circle Mirror Transformation premiered in 2009 in New York at Playwrights Horizons and immediately received outstanding reviews and top honors, including the 2010 Obie Award for Best New American Play. It also was selected one of the top ten plays of 2009 by The New York Times, Time Out New York and The New Yorker. 

 

Baker grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her full-length plays include Circle Mirror Transformation, The Aliens (Best Off-Broadway Play of 2010, OBIE Award for Best New American Play), Body Awareness (Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play/Emerging Playwright) and Nocturama. 

 

Hatley, who also serves as the Rep's associate artistic director, previously directed the theatre's productions of A Christmas Carol, Broke-ology and The Borderland, and served as assistant director of Saved-directed by Gary Griffin, Into the Woods-directed by Moisés Kaufman, and the 2009 world premiere of A Christmas Story, The Musical!-directed by the Rep's artistic director Eric Rosen. Since arriving in Kansas City in 2007, Hatley has also taken an active role in the Kansas City Fringe Festival, for which he has written and directed Head, Watering the Grave, Six and The Death of Cupid. Most recently he created and directed a new series for Chatterbox Audio Theater called The Human Experience. www.chatterboxtheater.org 

 

The cast for Circle Mirror Transformation includes Kansas City veteran actor Mark Robbins as James (A Christmas Carol, Bus Stop, A Flea in her Ear-KC Rep) and up-and-comer Izzy Baldwin, as Lauren (Saved-KC Rep, Light in the Piazza, South Pacific-Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre), along with New Yorkers Tom Aulino as Schultz (Mary Zimmerman's Candide at Chicago's Goodman Theatre; Theatre District, Take Me Out for About Face/Steppenwolf-Jefferson Award; Broadway revival of On the Town); Lee Roy Rogers as Marty (When the Rain Stops Falling-Lincoln Center; Orson's Shadow-New York's The Public Theatre/Barrow Street), the film Road to Perdition); and Kim Stauffer as Theresa (Much Ado about Nothing, Mary Stuart-New York Classical Theatre). 

 

The creative team includes Meghan Raham, Set Design (KC Rep and L.A. premieres of Venice-sets and costumes, Nathan Louis Jackson's Broke-ology and Clay-KC Rep and Lincoln Center); Megan Turek, Costume Design (Venice-assistant costume designer, A Christmas Carol-KC Rep, Grey Gardens-Unicorn Theatre); Jeffrey Cady, Lighting and Projection Design (A Christmas Carol, The Glass Menagerie, Harriet Jacobs-KC Rep, Green Day's American Idiot-Broadway production); Michael Griggs, Sound Design (Metamorphoses-KC Rep, Ghostwritten-Jefferson nomination at Goodman Theatre, Wilson Wants it All-Jeff nomination, at Chicago's House Theatre); Jess Akin, Assistant Director (Into the Woods-assistant to director Moisés Kaufman-KC Rep) and Seif Cristobal, Assistant Lighting and Projections Designer. Production Stage Manager is Mary R. Honour (Harriet Jacobs, Bus Stop, A Flea in Her Ear, Winesburg, Ohio-KC Rep). 

 

 

 

 

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