Arthur Miller's ALL MY SONS to Start 10/11 at A Noise Within

A Noise Within (ANW), the acclaimed classical repertory theatre company, presents Arthur Miller's classic ALL MY SONS, as part of the 2015-2016 BREAKING AND ENTERING season, directed by Geoff Elliott, beginning October 11 and playing through November 21, 2015 (opens on October 17). Miller was born on October 17, 1915 (this production opens on the actual day and date of the centennial of Miller's birth).

ALL MY SONS is preceded by A Flea in Her Ear, Georges Feydeau's classic French farce in a new version written by David Ives (September 6 to November 22) receiving its West Coast Premiere and the World Premiere of a new translation of Jean Anouilh's Antigone by Robertson Dean (September 20 to November 20).

It's 1946 in the backyard of the Keller home. Joe Keller's son Chris wants to marry Ann Deever, their former next-door neighbor and the daughter of the disgraced Steve Deever, Joe's former business partner. Ann has severed ties with her father, and was previously involved with the Keller's older son Larry, who became a fighter in World War II, still missing in action. Larry and Chris' mother Kate believes that Larry is still alive.

Ann's brother George accompanies Ann to confront the Kellers, after he visits his father in prison. George believes that Joe Keller is equally responsible for the deaths of airmen whose planes crashed because of defective parts that Keller's company manufactured during the war.

The cast includes Geoff Elliott* as Joe Keller, Deborah Strang* as Kate Keller, Rafael Goldstein* as Chris Keller, Maegan McConnell* as Ann Deever, Aaron Blakely* as George Deever, Jeremy Rabb*as Jim Bayliss, June Carryol* as Sue Bayliss, E. K. Dagenfield as Frank Lubey, Natalie Reiko as Lydia Lubey and Vega Pierce-English as Bert. * Denotes member of Actor's Equity.

Single ticket prices for ALL MY SONS start at $44.00. Contact the A Noise Within box office in person, via phone at 626-356-3100, or online at www.ANoiseWithin.org for updated pricing and seat availability. A Noise Within is located on the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Sierra Madre Villa Avenue at 3352 East Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107.

A ferocious indictment of the American Dream and ethos, Arthur Miller's Tony Award-winning first hit play ALL MY SONS holds up a mirror to the soul of American business and morality. How family ties bind - to ideals and the realities of daily life - is illuminated with a bright light in this searing touchstone of the American stage. With echoes of Ibsen and many great Greek tragedies, it was dedicated to Elia Kazan, who directed the first production on Broadway in 1947. The work resonates with another of A Noise Within's fall offerings, Anouilh's Antigone, which appeared three years earlier, by presenting another view of the conflict of World War II.

Arthur Miller established himself as a major theatrical voice with this work and said of the experience of having ALL MY SONS produced on Broadway, "I tasted that power which is reserved, I imagine, for playwrights, which is to know that by one's invention a mass of strangers has been publicly transfixed." He went on to write Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View from the Bridge, as well as After the Fall, Incident at Vichy, The Price, The Creation of the World and Other Business, The American Clock, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, and Broken Glass, among others.

Director Geoff Elliott remarks, "Miller's genius lies in his ability to create a story that has such universal themes that it ends up being prophetic. ALL MY SONS is really about all of us; anyone who has ever had a family will see themselves or their loved ones on stage. It asks these timely questions: What responsibilities do we owe each other, and what do we owe to society at large? Where does our personal identity begin and end? Themes of self-obsession vs. generosity are always timely - the news is filled with examples as readers learn how high level executives and politicians manipulate, and embezzle, or how in the case of ALL MY SONS how crooked military contracts or a tyrannical family can cheat the life force out of people for their own self-aggrandizement-and sometimes, self-preservation. What and whom are we responsible for?; Am I being selfish now?; and How are my actions going to affect the future? are never-ending questions that most people grapple over on a daily basis."

Miller biographer Christopher Bigsby in his introduction to the play states, "There is no past that can be confronted with total honesty and no future that does not carry a threat as well as a promise; and the present is no more than a temporary condition. The characters inhabit a no-man's land. The primary action driving the play has already occurred and been buried ... the living are haunted by the dead, whom they seek to exorcise with a simple denial of reality. No action that any of the characters can take will alter what has happened."

Elliott said, "No theme is more predominant in this play than the power of denial. This play is firmly set in a very specific time-the late 1940s. It was a great time in the annals of America, a time of great growth and boundless optimism. Yet even in the rosiest of times, secrets lurk. It's easy to become immersed in self-satisfaction and denial-but Miller is very clear on one point: past actions can come back to haunt you."

Early in the play, Kate Keller prophetically says, "Everything that happened seems to be coming back," having stumbled on Larry's childhood baseball glove in the cellar. Bigsby says, "Kate holds the key to the action. It is her will that has sustained them and, in a sense, her desperate necessity that has infantilized them as she struggles to deny the truth, to reject casualty. For her nothing must change. The clock must be stopped. Chris must remain unmarried; her husband must remain a charming incompetent - since to assume otherwise would be to accept a view of the world that could only destroy her."

Elliott thinks audiences will feel great empathy for all of the characters. "It's amazing," he says, "how full a range of human archetypes Miller presents in a fairly limited number of characters. But above all, this is Chris's story; all the action swirls around him. Chris lives in a world in which he knows there are secrets, drawers he doesn't dare pry open; but essentially, he has blinders on. Chris sees the best in people, which is a reaction to something he knows is lurking but can't bear to look at. At end of play he is forced to look at it, but it destroys him. It also forces us, the audience, to consider these same questions-really important ones, such as: 'Is denial sometimes a valid response-does it cause less harm in the short run?' There are no easy answers, but this is what makes it a great play. Miller allows many troubling aspects of our daily existence to surface with ALL MY SONS, and this is what makes it part of the canon of great American plays- and world plays, really."

"Chris," adds Resident Artist Raphael Goldstein who plays him onstage, "is a survivor. He's been through the war and has come back home to find that the war isn't really over. He knows, with the greatest certainty, that if he can develop a meaningful connection with someone in an open and honest way, then his survivor's guilt will be assuaged. Like every tragic hero, Chris is looking for relief, and goes looking in all the places that will cause him and everyone else around him the most pain. ALL MY SONS is among the most trenchant plays of an American master," Rafael continues. "In it, he has crafted a story about grief and sin and redemption that rivals the Greeks in its power. I think our audiences will be talking about this one for quite a long time."

"This all said," Geoff smiles, "it's actually very life-affirming in many ways. Ultimately, its message is anti-tribe: we are all swimming in the same sea and have a responsibility to each other and to love and take care of each other. We neglect that responsibility at our peril. It's a cautionary tale but a soaringly poetic one-and that is the essence of Miller's art. ALL MY SONS is a play about coming out at the other end and realizing how precious life is, and that's a very beautiful thing."

"This play is also about young love, and deep familial love. These are people who will sacrifice anything and everything to take care of their family and the ones who are precious to them. In the same vein, this is very much an ensemble piece, one that's driven by performance, and it couldn't be delivered without a magnificent company of actors, many of whom have been together for 20 years. This is among the most personally meaningful plays I have ever directed, and ALL MY SONS is a wonderful introduction both to Arthur Miller and the work we do here at A Noise Within."

In Antigone, a story first set down by Sophocles, later turned into a parable of World War II by Jean Anouilh and now newly translated by ANW company member Robertson Dean, a heroine refuses to break her single vision of life, handed down by the gods themselves, of women's role in society - giving birth to sons and ushering them out, with the correct burial rites, so their children's souls don't wander for eternity by the river Styx. She can only entertain that vision. The chaos that ensues when her father tries to break her resolve is as catastrophic as that which engulfs the Kellers in ALL MY SONS.

George Feydeau's classic French farce, as translated by David Ives, A Flea in Her Ear, reflects the theme of the 2015-2016 season at its most literal. The characters are literally breaking their trust and confidence in each other, by their inability to be vulnerable with each other, and the very elaborate schemes they use to avoid discovering the truth. Chaos ensues, in a similar way, in Arthur Miller's ALL MY SONS, in which an inability to be truthful with each other -- results in a family's emotional meltdown.

The engagement of ALL MY SONS includes a symposium with a lecture from a noted scholar on Wednesday, October 14 at 6:30 pm prior to the performance, and post-performance conversations with the artists on Friday, October 30 at 8:00 pm, Friday, November 6 at 8:00 pm and Sunday, November 15 at 2:00 pm.

A Noise Within's 2015-16 Season also includes our annual A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, You Never Can Tell by George Bernard Shaw, and Six Characters In Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello.

The company's 2015-16 season reaches the public through a media sponsorship with KPCC.

A Noise Within, founded in 1991 and named "one of the nation's premier classical repertory companies" by The Huffington Post, is the leading presenter of these plays in Southern California. The company's mission is to produce world-class performances of the great works of drama in rotating repertory with a resident company; to educate and inspire the public through programs that foster an understanding and appreciation of history's great plays and playwrights; and to train the next generation of classical theatre artists.

Originally based in a former Masonic Temple in Glendale, the company moved to its present home-a building of architectural distinction designed by Edward Durrell Stone of Kennedy Center fame-in 2011. Helmed by Producing Artistic Directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, who hold MFAs from San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre, A Noise Within delivers a seven-show repertory season and a wide range of educational programs to diverse audiences from Los Angeles County and well beyond. Voted "Best Theatre" by readers of Time Out Los Angeles and Reader Recommended by Pasadena Weekly, A Noise Within is indeed "California's Home for the Classics."