Open Fist Presents CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS

The Open Fist Theatre Company is thrilled to announce the second production of its 2011 Season, the Los Angeles premiere of a newly revised version of Sam Shepard's CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS, directed by Scott Paulin (who played Wesley in Magic Theatre's production where MR. Shepard was playwright-in-residence). CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS will preview on Friday, April 8; Saturday, April 9 at 8pm; and Thursday, April 14 at 8pm and will open on Friday, April 15 at 8pm and run through Saturday, June 4 at the Open Fist Theatre, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood.

CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS is Sam Shepard's most autobiographical play to date. This newly revised version with over an hour of edits by MR. Shepard himself is set in the early 1970s in the foothills east of Los Angeles Curse of the Starving Class is a darkly comic melodrama about a fractious, hapless Every Family scrambling to hold onto their small sheep and avocado ranch as land values crash and speculators circle their home like coyotes. Like an All-American Samuel Beckett, Sam Shepard sees a dark vein of comedy in the coming apocalypse. "Curses" abound: a boy mysteriously turns into his father, a teenage girl gets "the curse," a man "falls off the wagon," and a mother is left behind. Wildly theatrical, the play is filled with surreal imagery, vivid poetry, and crackling comedy, Pulitzer Prize-winner Sam Shepard's masterful vision of the Last Stand of the American Dream.

Sam Shepard (Playwright) has had a remarkably eclectic life and career. He has been a playwright, a screenwriter, a poet, a writer of short stories, a rock musician, a rodeo roper, a director, and a successful film actor. Born Samuel Shepard Rogers on November 5, 1943, in Fort Sheridan, Illinois, Sam Shepard's family moved to Duarte, California in his early childhood. They grew avocados and raised sheep. Sam worked as a stable hand, herdsman, orange picker, sheep shearer, bus boy, waiter, and rock and roll drummer before beginning his career as a playwright in New York in 1964 with the Theatre Genesis production of two one-act plays, Cowboys and The Rock Garden, at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery. In New York he would later collaborate with rocker Patti Smith on a play with music called Cowboy Mouth. His first full-length play, La Turista, was performed at the American Place Theatre and won an Obie Award in 1967. The Tooth of Crime (1972) was a rock-drama written during the four years he lived in London. His folk-rock band The Holy Modal Rounders was featured in the cult classic film "Easy Rider" in 1969. In 1976 he began a ten-year collaboration as Playwright in Residence at San Francisco's Magic Theater while living with playwright and composer O'lan Jones at the Flying Y Ranch in Mill Valley. Much of Shepard's most important work was written during those years, including Curse of the Starving Class, Buried Child, True West, Fool for Love, Suicide in B-flat, and A Lie of the Mind. During that time his acting career began in earnest with his role in Terence Malick's Days of Heaven in 1978. Also in 1978 Shepard was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his play Buried Child. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as Chuck Yeager in 1982's film The Right Stuff. His screenplay for Paris, Texas won the Golden Palm Award at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. In 1986 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1994 he was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. He has written several collections of short stories including Motel Chronicles, Cruising Paradise, and Great Dream of Heaven. His most recent collection, Day Out of Days, was published in 2010. His most recent play, Ages of the Moon, opened in New York in 2010. He continues to work as an actor in feature films. Shepard lives in New York and Kentucky with Jessica Lange whom he met while filming Frances.

SCOTT PAULIN (Director) is a director and actor living and working in Los Angeles. After graduating from Pomona College he began performing in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s appearing at The Magic Theater, The Berkeley Repertory Theater, The Berkeley Stage Company, and the Eureka Theater where he received the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Best Actor Award for his performance as Pavlo in the West Coast Premiere of David Rabe's The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel. He began directing at The Bay Area Playwrights Festival with an adaptation of Tolstoy's short story The Gambler written and performed by Bill Talen (a.k.a New York City mayoral candidate Reverend Billy).

Since moving to Los Angeles in 1980 he has worked extensively in the theater, film and television. He has directed a number of plays by Horton Foote including The Roads to Home, The Midnight Caller, Blind Date, and The One-Armed Man (the last three one-acts performed together as Harrison, Texas) at The Second Story Theater. His production of Getting Frankie Married---and Afterwards (also by Mr. Foote) closed the 2009-10 Season at The Open Fist Theater in Hollywood. He directed the World Premiere of Nicolas Kazan's A Good Soldier at The Odyssey, John Patrick Shanley's Welcome to the Moon, and Four Dogs and A Bone, Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, Michel Tremblay's Johnny Mangano and his Astonishing Dogs (Trois Petit Tours), and The Woolgatherer by William Mastrosimone at The Second Story Theater. In the fall of 2010 he directed St. Nicolas by Conor McPherson, at the Stephanie Feury Studio. His most recent directing effort is Mlle. God, the inaugural production of The Ensemble Studio Theatre's new space running through March in Atwater Village. In 2009 he performed in Laura Richardson's comedy Come Back Little Horny and Shock Therapy by Tom Baum at The Lillian Theater. He has also directed thirty-five hours of television drama winning the Humanitas Prize for an episode of the NBC civil rights drama I'll Fly Away. As an actor he has guest starred in more than one hundred hours of television drama, mini-series, and MOWs and he has played leading roles in feature films including The Right Stuff, A Soldier's Story, Cat People, Pump Up the Volume, Turner and Hooch, The Accused, and I Am Sam. Currently he plays Jim Beckett, a recurring role on the nighttime ABC drama Castle. He is married to actress Wendy Phillips and is the father of Jenny Dare Paulin, also an actress, living in New York.

The cast of CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS will feature: John Bobek, Bruce Dickinson, Daniel Escobar, Juliette Goglia, John Lacy, Kevin McCorkle, Ian Nelson, Dennis Osborne and Laura Richardson.

CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS features an award-winning design team. The Scenic Design is by Victoria Profitt (Light Up the Sky). The Costume Design is by Melanie Watnick . The Lighting Design is by Jason Mullen (Room Service). The Sound Design is by Peter Carlstedt (Light Up the Sky). Original music is by John Bobek. Make-Up design is by Brittany Vardakas. Prop Design is by Marie Buck, Bruce Dickinson and Ina Shumaker. CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS is being produced by Laetitia Leon and Judith Scarpone.

SCHEDULE AND PRICING

CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS will preview on Friday, April 8; Saturday, April 9 at 8pm; and Thursday, April 14 at 8pm and will open on Friday, April 15 at 8pm and run through Saturday, June 4 at the Open Fist Theatre, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood.

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm Sundays at 2pm. Ticket prices are $25; tickets for the opening night gala are $35. Previews are $15. Pay-What-You-Can Sundays are April 17, April 24 and May 1. Special group rates available for parties of 10 or more. For tickets, please call (323) 882-6912 for details or visit www.openfist.org to purchase tickets online or to view complete schedule.