Sally Wingert & Mark Benninghofen Set for Park Square's SHOOTING STAR

Park Square continues its 40th season this month with Steven Dietz's wistful comedy, SHOOTING STAR. Dietz, author of Becky's New Car, produced by Park Square in 2009, is one of America's most produced playwrights, and with SHOOTING STAR he gives us a moving new twist on the one that got away. Twin Cities favorite Sally Wingert* is joined by Mark Benninghofen* as the couple that could have been. NPR called Dietz's SHOOTING STAR "...a quick and sharp play about our lives, one that gives us all the fun and all the tears of our times."

"What a joy to work on a beautifully made play with such masterful actors," says director Leah Cooper, "Sally and Mark both have the wonderful ability to move between hilarious wit and moments of heartbreak with such agility and grace, and together, their chemistry is just magic."

Snowed in overnight at an airport in the Midwest, college lovers Elena Carson (Wingert*) and Reed McAllister (Benninghofen) have an unexpected reunion. Elena has stayed true to the hippie counter-culture path they forged together, but Reed has gone corporate and conservative. She's been unlucky in love; he's married with children. As the awkward meeting gives way to memories and laughter, Elena and Reed revisit a past that holds more surprises than they imagined - and a present that neither of them could have predicted. Filled with laughter and heartache, SHOOTING STAR is a bittersweet romantic comedy about the middle days of our lives and how we got there.

From Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn in the classic Same Time Next Year to Katy Perry's pop hit "The One That Got Away," lost loves and what could have been are perennially popular subjects across many media. Dietz's contemporary look at roads not taken and the political shifts in our lives is a nostalgic and insightful look at how we arrive at the middle of our lives. Dietz said in an interview that each person has three pasts: "We have the past we remember, we have the past that we may have transcribed or written in the journal or diary, and we have the past that actually happened. The tension between what we remember, what we invent and what actually happened is fairly inexhaustible." During a blizzard, with no way out, Elena and Reed laugh and reminisce as they hope to determine whether the one that got way should have never gone away.

The SHOOTING STAR production team includes Mary Beth Gagner (Costume Designer), Kit Mayer (Set Designer), and Michael P. Kittel (Lighting Designer), Anita Kelling (Sound Designer), and Wayne Hendricks* (Stage Manager).

SHOOTING STAR Performance Schedule: Previews begin Friday, March 27 and run through April 2. April 3 is Opening Night, and the run continues through April 19. Show times are 7:30 p.m. except for Sunday performances, which begin at 2 p.m. All performances are in the company's 348-seat proscenium stage in Saint Paul's historic Hamm Building, 20 W. Seventh Place.

Ticket prices: Previews: $27 and $37. Regular Run: $40 and $60. Discounts are available for seniors, those under age 30, and groups. Tickets are on sale at the Park Square box office, 20 W. Seventh Place, or by phone: 651.291.7005, (12 noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday), or online at www.parksquaretheatre.org.

*Member, Actors Equity Association

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