John C. Reilly And Betsy Brandt To Take The Stage At Pasadena Playhouse

Pasadena Playhouse, the State Theater of California, announces the latest news on its spring and summer programming. Academy and Tony Award Nominee John C. Reilly and an amazing ensemble of actors will create a spirited evening of Story Theater in Gather: Surprising Stories & Other Mischief, which Reilly has created with Patrick Murphy, who will also direct. The production will play Friday, May 24 through Saturday, June 22, in the Carrie Hamilton Theatre of The Pasadena Playhouse.

Tickets for Gather are currently exclusive to Members of The Pasadena Playhouse only. To learn more about Membership, visit pasadenaplayhouse.org/membership. Tickets will go on sale to the public at a later date based on availability.

In addition, Betsy Brandt, (CBS' Life in Pieces, and AMC's Breaking Bad), will star in the Los Angeles premiere of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Good Boys, directed by Carolyn Cantor on the mainstage of Pasadena Playhouse, June 26 through Sunday July 21; the press opening is June 30 at 5:00pm. The production is Aguirre-Sacasa's fresh and revisited look at his previous work, Good Boys and True (world premiere, Steppenwolf Theatre Company). Additional casting will be announced at a later date. Good Boys was originally scheduled for May 28-June 23.

Tickets for Good Boys are currently on sale to the general public at pasadenaplayhouse.org.

About Gather: Surprising Stories & Other Mischief

In Gather: Surprising Stories & Other Mischief, audiences will be transported to wondrous worlds full of legendary creatures and colorful characters in a magical experience for young and old. Traditional folklore including such well-known tales as The Bremen Town Musicians as well as contemporary pieces such as War Game will spring to life side by side.

John C. Reilly has been acting in theater since he was a child and has been acting in films for the last 30 years. He is an alumnus of DePaul University where he met his mentor and friend Patrick Murphy who he collaborates with here for Gather: Surprising Stories and Other Mischief. He is honored to be working here at the legendary Pasadena Playhouse with Danny Feldman and the whole creative team.

Some notable films he has appeared in include Casualties of War, State of Grace, Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Thin Red Line, The Perfect Storm, Gangs of New York, Chicago, The Hours, A Prairie Home Companion, Talladega Nights, Walk Hard, Step Brothers, Cyrus, Wreck It Ralph, Kong: Skull Island, The Sisters Brothers and Stan and Ollie.

Theater credits include Grapes of Wrath (Chicago and Broadway), A Streetcar Named Desire (Chicago and Broadway), True West (Broadway), Exit the King, Little Egypt (Los Angeles). He has been acknowledged by The Academy, The Tonys, The Grammys and The Golden Globes.

Patrick Murphy has performed with the Oregon Shakespearean Festival and Act in Seattle. He was director of a new play ensemble called Map of the New World Players as well as Theatre-Go-Round, a touring improvisational theatre. Directing credits include Oedipus, Hamlet, Royal Family, This is Not a Pipe Dream and a production of King Lear with Morris Carnovsky. He directed Xenogenesis and Dogtown at the Eclipse Theatre Company in Chicago, which received Joseph Jefferson Awards for Best Ensemble and Best Sound Design. He was nominated for Best Comedy Direction by the LA Weekly for his production of Exit the King starring John C. Reilly at the Actor's Gang Theater. Patrick recently retired from the Theatre School at Depaul University where he served as Head of the Professional Actor Training Program.

Tickets for this exclusive event are available to Members of The Pasadena Playhouse only. To learn more about Membership, visit pasadenaplayhouse.org/membership. Tickets will go on sale to the public at a later date based on availability.

About Good Boys

Good Boys is a riveting drama set at a private prep school - involving a model student in the mold of his father, a disturbing video tape, and the privileged family that is faced with difficult choices.

Betsy Brandt can currently be seen starring in the CBS family comedy Life in Pieces, alongside Colin Hanks, Dianne Wiest and James Brolin. The series is currently in its fourth season. Betsy will also have a recurring role later this year in the highly anticipated Suits spinoff, Pearson. She is also filming the Blumhouse horror-thriller, Run Sweetheart Run.

Last Fall, Betsy was seen in Lifetime's original movie, Flint, alongside Queen Latifah, Jill Scott and Marin Ireland. The film follows the true story of three of the real-life women turned activists from Flint, Michigan who brought the water crisis to a national level. It was nominated for a Critics Choice Award for Best Movie Made for TV.

Among her many television credits, Betsy is well-known to television audiences for her portrayal of Marie, the sister-in-law of meth-making mastermind Walter White in the Emmy, SAG and Golden Globe award-winning series Breaking Bad. She also starred as Michael J. Fox's wife in the comedy The Michael J. Fox Show. Her recurring television appearances include Masters of Sex and Parenthood.

Brandt received rave reviews for her starring role in the indie dream Claire in Motion, which had its World Premiere in the narrative feature competition line-up at the 2016 South by Southwest Film Festival. Her other film credits include: Landline, Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike and the independent feature Quest.

On stage, she portrayed 'Holly' in the West Coast premiere of Geoffrey Nauffts' Tony-nominated Next Fall at The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. She originated roles in award-winner Julia Cho's World Premiere of The Language Archive at South Coast Repertory and Beth Henley's Ridiculous Fraud at San Jose Rep.

Brandt studied theatre with the Moscow Art School and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. She earned her BFA in Acting at Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A native of Bay City, Michigan, she currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. In her spare time, she works with Feeding America as a member of their Entertainment Council.

Roberto Agiurre-Sacasa has the unusual distinction of being a playwright (Manhattan Theatre Club, 2econd Stage, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, South Coast Rep), television writer (Glee, Supergirl, Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) and Marvel Comics author (The Stand, Spider-Man). He is also the Chief Creative Officer of Archie Comics.

Tickets for Good Boys are available online at PasadenaPlayhouse.org, by phone at 626-356-7529, and in person at The Pasadena Playhouse Box Office, 39 South El Molino Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101.

In Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Good Boys, Brandon Hardy, a senior at St. Joseph's Prep, has the world at his feet. He is handsome, athletic, smart, and a shining example of the perfect private school student, just like his father was. But when a disturbing videotape becomes the talk of the locker room, the comfortable lives of the Hardy family threatens to shatter. Good Boys is a riveting drama that explores what happens when a family must separate fact from fiction-and, ultimately, choose to either preserve their legacy or risk losing everything in pursuit of the truth.

Aguirre-Sacasa says, "The dramatic situations in this play are uncannily similar to incidents and issues that we're still grappling with in this country-viscerally-even more so than when I first wrote Good Boys. In revisiting the play, I further explored themes like privilege, masculinity, and personal responsibility, as Brandon and Elizabeth find themselves on trial by their community and each other. Good Boys is a sort of 'moral thriller,' a game of cat and mouse between a mother and her son, with twists and turns that will keep you guessing about the truth right up to the end."

The New York Sun said of Good Boys and True (the previous incarnation of this work), "Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has proven to be a natural entertainer. Actors like to sink their teeth into his dialogue, and his hard-charging stories proceed with the speed and verve of television. But he takes a leap forward with his latest drama, Good Boys and True, displaying a new deftness in layering troubling moral questions under a smooth, entertaining surface. The play goes down easy, but its aftertaste is sharp." Bloomberg.com called Good Boys and True, "a craftily constructed, psychologically astute, absorbing play that harbors claws the fiercest feline could envy."

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