Actors' Gang Season Opens With Orwell's 1984

The Actors' Gang Theater, home to over 38 years of provocative stories, opens its 2019-20 season with a new production of 1984, written by George Orwell, adapted by Michael Gene Sullivan, and directed by The Actors' Gang Artistic Director Tim Robbins. The play will begin previews Thursday, October 10th and run through Saturday, December 7th, with an official press opening on Saturday, October 19th.

The season concludes on June 13th, 2020 with Cabaret, directed by Will Thomas McFadden, with book by Joe Masteroff, stories by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb.

The 2019-20 season also includes Dario Fo's Can't Pay? Won't Pay!, directed by Bob Turton and translated by Cam Deaver, and a workshop production of Fritz Lang's drama-thriller M, co-written by Thea von Harbou and Fritz Lang, and adapted and directed by Tess Vidal. Last season, The Actors' Gang Theater presented an acclaimed production of Fo's, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, earning 4 2019 Stage Raw Awards nominations. Bob Turton earned Best Male Comedy Award for playing the Maniac. The season also includes Free Shakespeare in the Park.

In Orwell's classic 1984, Winston Smith hates his job. He works in the Ministry of Information rewriting history to serve the interests of the powerful. Winston's soul is stirring with rebellion and his heart alive with love. Welcome to a world of no privacy, where electronic screens create paranoia, divisiveness and hatred for the 'other', where the state manufactures consent for perpetual war, and where truth is manipulated and love itself is an act of rebellion. Seventy one years ago, in writing his visionary novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell eerily predicted the world we are currently living in.

Director Tim Robbins said, "Throughout the world for over a decade, every time The Actors' Gang has performed this adaptation, we have found new relevance and importance in Orwell's cautionary tale. Today, in this new, frighteningly cruel world of mass deportations, nativist violence, and a constant assault on the truth, 1984 has taken on a new gravity and urgency. For this reason we see the absolute necessity of presenting this staged adaptation this fall."

Nineteen Eighty-Four is one of - if not the classic literary example of political and dystopian fiction. Many terms used in the novel entered common usage, including Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101, telescreen, 2+2=5 and memory hole. Nineteen Eighty-Four also popularized the adjective Orwellian connoting things such as official deception, secret surveillance, brazenly misleading terminology, and manipulation of recorded history by a totalitarian or authoritarian state. Time Magazine included it on its 100 Hundred Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005. It was placed on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels reaching No. 13 on the editors' list and No. 6 on the readers' list. In 2003, the novel was No. 8 on the BBC's The Big Read survey.

The Actors' Gang Theater first presented Orwell's 1984 in 2006 - an acclaimed, wildly successful production that has now been seen in over 40 US states and throughout the world, from Greece, Italy, Spain to Australia, China, Mexico.

Tickets for 1984 are available by calling 310-838-4264 or online at www.TheActorsGang.com. Tickets range from $25 - $50 (ticket prices are subject to change). The Actors' Gang Theater is located at The Ivy Substation at 9070 Venice Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232.

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