The Gurthie And The Playwrights' Center Present ONE MAN SHOW 4/27

In collaboration with The Playwrights’ Center, the Guthrie will present a reading of One Man Show, a newly translated play by Yutaka Kuramochi, on Monday, April 27 in the Dowling Studio. Presented as part of a two-year collaboration between the Guthrie and The Playwrights’ Center, the evening will feature local actors John Middleton, Annelise Christ Gould, Casey Greig, Amy Mcdonald, Bill McCallum, Ryan Parker Knox and Mo Perry. Tickets for the one-night-only reading are $10 and are now on sale through the Guthrie Box Office at 612.377.2224, toll-free 877.44.STAGE, 612.225.6240 (Group Sales) and online at www.guthrietheater.org.

In One Man Show, one man’s obsession with filling out sweepstakes entry postcards plunges eight characters into a dizzying maze where not only their future but the nature of their reality is put in question. In the end, it is up to the audience to decide the sequence of events and the relationships that tie them together. Translated and developed at The Playwrights’ Center in November, this mind-bending drama from acclaimed Japanese playwright Yutaka Kuramochi returns for a reading at the Guthrie Theater’s Dowling Studio.

One Man Show is co-presented by The Playwrights’ Center and the U.S./Japan Cultural Trade Network, Inc., in association with The Saison Foundation, as part of the U.S.-Japan Contemporary Plays and Playwrights Exchange Project. One Man Show is one of 10 new plays being developed in a special collaboration between the Guthrie Theater and The Playwrights’ Center.

Yutaka Kuramochi was born in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. He started writing and acting in a student drama club in 1992 while a student of economics at Gakushuin University. He also acted in Iwamatsu Ryo’s 1994 production of Ice Cream Man. In 1996 Kuramochi joined forces with fellow actors Toda Masahiro and Tanigawa Shoichiro, producing plays through their Puriseta troupe. In 2000, he started writing and performing with his own group, Penguins Pull Pale Piles. His plays are characterized by their uniquely cynical perspective with well-paced dialogue set to a solid storyline. They draw on a wide range of settings?such as a family, an unspecified location abroad, and a cave—while taking in a larger world view. They have been highly acclaimed, particularly for the way in which they pull the audience into a space between fiction and truth that appears suddenly in the course of the play. His play One Man Show is a winner of the 2004 Kishida Drama Award, the most prestigious award for playwriting in Japan.

Supported by The Saison Foundation of Japan, the U.S.-Japan Contemporary Plays and Playwrights Exchange Project is a collaborative partnership between The Playwrights’ Center and the U.S.-Japan Cultural Trade Network designed to create a new model for the translation process that is geared toward production rather than simply publication. The collaboration begins with two translators—one a native of Japan and fluent Japanese speaker and the other an accomplished American playwright. The script is then heard in a rehearsal setting to identify parts that are unclear due to cultural differences or the need for more clarity in the translation. With the Japanese playwright  participating, through the support of a translator, the play is examined line by line for clarity and theatricality. After 25-30 hours of rehearsal, the play is read before an American audience. One Man Show is the sixth play developed through the Project.

The Playwrights’ Center champions playwrights and plays to build upon a living theater that demands new and innovative works. Founded in 1971 by a handful of playwrights seeking support for their work, the Center has since served 5,000 writers and put over $10 million in the hands of playwrights. Its major program areas include more than $800,000 annually in fellowships, residencies, and workshops; a year-round R&D lab for new plays; a New Plays On Campus program serving the nation’s college theater community; and a national career development program serving more than 800 writers. In addition, the Center makes new plays accessible to the nation’s theater community with writer profiles and downloadable script samples, available at the completely redesigned www.pwcenter.org.

The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is an American center for theater performance, production, education and professional training. The Guthrie is dedicated to producing the great works of dramatic literature, developing the work of contemporary playwrights and cultivating the next generation of theater artists. Led by Director Joe Dowling since 1995, the Guthrie opened a new three-theater home on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis in June 2006.

The Guthrie is located at 818 South 2nd Street (at Chicago Avenue), in downtown Minneapolis. To purchase tickets or season subscriptions call the Guthrie Box Office at 612.377.2224 or toll-free 877.44.STAGE. For more information, or to purchase tickets online, visit www.guthrietheater.org.

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