Coeurage Theatre Company Presents SAMSARA By Lauren Yee

Coeurage Theatre Company, LA's Pay What You Want theatre company, has announced the first production of its 10th Anniversary season, the Los Angeles premiere of Samsara by Lauren Yee, directed by Rebecca Wear. There will be one preview performance on Friday, May 10, at 8:30pm, and opening is set for Saturday, May 11, at 8:30pm. Samsara will play through June 1 at the Met Theatre in Los Angeles.

The cast will feature (in alphabetical order) Aar n Alonso, Joe Calarco, Nardeep Khurmi, Katie Pelensky, and Pooja Shah. Alternate cast members are (in alphabetical order) Delia Baseman, Zach Brown, Pranshu Mishra, Rachel Rose, and Andy Stokan. Scenic design is by Amanda Knehans, lighting design is by Matt Johns, costume design is by Vicki Conrad, and sound design is by Dean Harada. The assistant director is Josie Osegueda, and Jhani Randhawa serves as dramaturg. Prop designer is Jer Adrianne Lelliott and the production stage managers are Courtney Rhodes and Edward Khris Fernandez.

In Samsara, Katie and Craig are having a baby via a surrogate who lives in India. A month before the baby's due date, Craig reluctantly travels to the subcontinent where he meets Suraiya, their young, less-than-thrilled surrogate. As all three parents anxiously await the baby's birth, flights of fancy attack them from all sides. Of Samsara, the Chicago Tribune said, Genuinely moving with a laudable awareness of how we sometimes only get one shot at happiness of escape.

Lauren Yee was born and raised in San Francisco and currently resides in New York City. Her plays include Cambodian Rock Band, The Great Leap, The Song of Summer, King of the Yees, Ching Chong Chinaman, The Hatmaker's Wife, Hookman, In a Word, and The Tiger Among Us. She was a Dramatists Guild fellow, a MacDowell fellow, a MAP Fund grantee, a member of The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group, a Time Warner Fellow at the Women's Project Playwrights Lab, the Shank playwright-in-residence at Second Stage Theatre, a Playwrights' Center Core Writer, and the Page One resident playwright at Playwrights Realm. She is the winner of the Horton Foote Prize, Kesselring Prize, and Francesca Primus Prize. She has been a finalist for the Edward M. Kennedy Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, ATCA/Steinberg Award, Jerome Fellowship, PONY Fellowship, Princess Grace Award, Sundance Theatre Lab, and the Wasserstein Prize.

Rebecca Wear's previous directing credits include If the Saints, Obedient Steel, I Run with You, and several site-specific pieces. She served as associate director on the world premiere of Lynn Nottage's Sweat and has assisted Kate Whoriskey, Lindsay Allbaugh, and Diane Rodriguez. She is a resident director with HERO Theatre and was previously an associate artist at The Orchard Project.

Coeurage Theatre Company exists to make impassioned theatre accessible for all audiences through Pay What You Want admission and fresh, challenging productions. The company's name is inspired by a re imagining of the word courage coeur is French for heart, and rage, meaning fervor; on fire. Together, Coeurage (pronounced courage ) is a heart enflamed with passion, which the company strives to bring to every production.

The regular running schedule is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8:30pm through June 1. There will be additional performances on Sunday 5/19, at 7pm and Tuesday 5/28, at 8:30pm, and a special performance featuring the alternate cast on Tuesday 5/21, at 8:30pm. All seats are available on a Pay What You Want basis and may be reserved online at www.coeurage.org/buytickets or by calling (323) 944-2165. The Met Theatre is located at 1089 N. Oxford Avenue in LA, 90029.

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