THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL, LITTLE SOPHIE'S MISFORTUNES and More Set for Parson's Nose Theater's 2013-14 Season

Parson's Nose Theater, led by Producing Artistic Director, Lance Davis, presents its 14th Season of classical adaptations beginning September 28th with The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, followed by Classics that go Bump in the Night with works by Poe, Benet, and Jackson, The Middle Class Nobleman by Molière, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, As You Were: Stories for American GI's in WWII by Twain, Dana, Parker and Whitman, The Algonquin Round Table by Parker, Benchley, Thurber, and Friends, The Seagull by Anton Chekhov, and concludes with Little Sophie's Misfortunes: A Cautionary Tale by Comtesse de Segur.

This season's selections thematically tie the common human struggle of following one's heart vs. one's head. Lance Davis explains, "Great writing is about the heart. We all want to love and be loved, to be accepted, continuously, every day. Scrooge, the Teazles, Sophie Segur, Daniel Webster's jury, Nina, Walter Mitty. The mind can think it rules, but the heart always wins, and that struggle can produce great comedy. That's what this season is about."

Along with the performance of As You Were: Stories for American GI's in WWII, Parson's Nose Theater will be holding a book drive to donate books to current men and women serving in the United States Military.

Tickets for all productions are available by calling 626-403-7667, visiting www.parsonsnose.com, or by emailing parsonsnose@mac.com. As always, productions included in Parson's Nose Readers' Theater Series are "pay what you will" to ensure no one is excluded from enjoying these wonderful works.

The eight plays of the 2013-14 season of Parson's Nose Theater:

The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (September 28-29, 2013)
Gossip, anyone? Before tabloids, before TMZ, there was "School for Scandal". Stephen Colbert's "truthiness" - not that it is true but that it seems true - rules 18th Century London. Old Sir Peter brings a much younger wife to the big city. Two brothers are put to the test to find out who is the rascal and who the hypocrite.
The School for Scandal is performed as part of the Readers' Theater Series.

Classics that go Bump in the Night by Poe, Benet, and Jackson (October 12-13, 2013)
American classic authors at their spooky, autumnal best, Edgar Allan Poe takes us to a bone-filed wine cellar far below Venetian streets in "The Cask of Amontillado". Stephen Vincent Benet pitches America's greatest lawyer against the Prince of Darkness for a New Englander's soul in "The Devil and Daniel Webster", and a sunny American town shows a much, much darker side in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery".
Classics that go Bump in the Night is performed as part of the Readers' Theater Series.

The Middle Class Nobleman by Molière (November 8-24, 2013)
Putting lipstick on a pig, the French master Molière gives us the narcissistic bourgeois, Monsieur Jourdain who can buy all of the lessons but none of the talent. His ignorance is far from bliss for his wife and family. A world premiere translation/adaptation by Lance Davis, direct from our previous Readers' Theater Series production.
The Middle Class Nobleman is performed as part of the Full Production Series.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (December 21-22, 2013)
"...Sucking-pigs, wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters..." Parson's Nose's annual celebration of the English language when we revel in Dickens' own words, the delicious description of Victorian London we skimmed in high school but now can enjoy over a cup of wine or cocoa. "Scrooge lived in a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of a building up a yard where it had so little business to be that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide and seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again." Includes Mr. Dickens' seldom-heard narration.
A Christmas Carol is performed as part of the Readers' Theater Series

As You Were: Stories for American GI's in WWII with works by Twain, Dana, Parker & Whitman. Edited by Alexander Woollcott. (January 25-26, 2014)
From a small book meant to fit snugly into a knapsack in 1943. Inspiring and humorous selections from American classics, "Two Years Before the Mast", "Huckleberry Finn", "The Waltz", "The Declaration of Independence", poems by Sandburg, Whitman and others, compiled by New York Times Editor, Alexander Woollcott.
In conjunction with this reading, Parson's Nose Theater will be holding a book drive to donate books to current men and women serving in the United States Military.
As You Were: Stories for American GI's in WWII is performed as part of the Readers' Theater Series

The Algonquin Round Table by Parker, Benchley, Thurber, and Friends (February 8-16, 2014)
A trip back to East 44th Street in New York in the 1930s. Sophistication and wicked humor from the Golden Era of New Yorker legends. Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", Benchley's "The Treasurer's Report", Gershwin's "They're Writing Songs of Love (But Not for Me)".
The Algonquin Round Table is performed as part of the Full Production Series

The Seagull by Anton Chekhov (March 22-23, 2014)
When my grandmother falls down a well it's a tragedy, when yours does it's a comedy. There is something tragically comical about the self-obsession of Chekhov's characters. Axes are cutting down The Cherry Orchard; the Three Sisters could take a bus to Moscow, but better to curse the darkness than to light a candle. The fight for attention rages on in Madame Arkadina's summerhouse of drama, where innocence never has a chance.
The Seagull is performed as part of the Readers' Theater Series

Little Sophie's Misfortunes: A Cautionary Tale by Comtesse de Segur (April 12-13, 2014)
An Edward Gorey world created by the Russian born French Comtesse de Segur in 1856. Meant to instruct little girls and boys, but useful for all ages. In each adventure little Sophie has a choice to listen to mother and nanny or to listen to her own voices. And each time she chooses disaster strikes. "Nothing can hurt a turtle, can it?"
Little Sophie's Misfortunes: A Cautionary Tale is performed as part of the Readers' Theater Series.

Parson's Nose Theater is a non-profit, 501(c)3 theater company located in Pasadena, CA dedicated to introducing the classics to audiences of all ages. Through condensed adaptations of the works of Shakespeare, Molière, Shaw, Goldoni, Goldsmith and more, lives of the old, young, and in-between are enriched with this introduction to the works of some of the greatest writers who've ever lived. Productions are presented in a fun, commedia dell-arte style that makes them both engaging and easy to understand. Parson's Nose believes the classics are stories that have endured because they speak illuminating truths to each generation. The joys and problems of 17th Century parents and children form a bridge to the 21st.

Parson's Nose Theater was founded in 2000 by Lance Davis and Mary Chalon Davis. After previous relationships with both InterACT Theater and The Geffen Playhouse, Parson's Nose Theater became an independent company that presents their annual season at Lineage Performing Arts Center in Pasadena, CA. Parson's Nose takes pride in paying actors above the Actors Equity requirements because they believe artists should be paid appropriately for their talents. To date, Parson's Nose has introduced approximately sixty-five fun, condensed, professional presentations of thirty-two comedies to over 50,000 kids and adults. Parson's Nose takes pride that no one is ever turned away from attending a production because they could not afford a ticket. Parson's Nose is the only company in America devoted to this new way of experiencing the classics.

Parson's Nose Founder and Artistic Director, Lance Davis, is a classically and comically trained actor who spent over twenty years working in New York. A guest teaching opportunity brought Lance to Los Angeles where he quickly realized that many students had little, if any, experience with live theater, and none with live classical theater. Many of his own friends admitted that they too had never been exposed to classical theater or Shakespeare out of the fear they wouldn't understand it. With the help of his wife, Mary Chalon Davis, and the generosity of Terry Perl, they founded Parson's Nose Theater in 2000 to inspire the young and reward the old, by developing in them an appetite that would lead to further exploration of the unique art form, 'Theater'.