PLAY DATES WITH THE RAC Continues With A RAISIN IN THE SUN

The Resident Acting Company, formed two years ago by members of the Pearl Theater Company, due to the intense popularity of the series, announced today that they will continue Play Dates With The RAC into the fall of 2020. The RAC has chosen four more classic (and timely) plays to examine in four 90 minute live Zoom sessions. Audience members will receive a digital copy of the play in advance, and they are really supposed to actually read it beforehand. Hosted by Kate Farrington, Artistic Associate, these evenings will explore the background of the play and playwright, audience members will enjoy live performances from the script by members of the Resident Acting Company as well as guest artists, and they will end with a Q&A session when the audience can join the conversation.

The Resident Acting Co has been performing script in hand readings of classic plays as well as new works to great acclaim and sold out houses at The Players for the last two years, and during the pandemic has had great success with this book club styled event over the summer of 2020. Audience members have commented the fact that there is a live interactive element to the evening and according to Bradford Cover, Artistic Director of the RAC, "The audience feels as if they are a part of it to a degree. We are all little rectangles on a screen, so it does place everybody fundamentally in the same zone, and we all feel a bit like we are working as a group, that we will get through all this madness together, and that we can take a moment to stop the worry, and just think about ideas, and enjoy a play. We had so many truly magical moments this summer with this series. We can't wait for more of them. The acting has been tremendous, and Kate Farrington's presentations are incredibly interesting, fun, and inspiring."

If you wish to sign up for these events email The RAC at: ractheatre@gmail.com and put "Play Date" in the subject line and mention which event you would like to attend. Audience members will receive a confirmation email with a digital copy of the play, and then a Zoom invite and password the day of the event, shortly before it begins. Tickets are free although at each event the company suggests a donation to a specific organization.

The series begins this fall with Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun on October 1st at 6PM on Zoom. One of the pivotal works of the American theatre, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun introduces the audience to the Youngers; a family in flux. They are up against not only the prejudices of the world around them, but their own assumptions about what that future looks like. Writing with passion, humor, and great love, Hansberry's masterpiece asks us to question the reality (and the value) of the American Dream.

The second Play Date will take place on October 29th at 6PM on Zoom and will feature The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht. A Chicago mobster is looking to make his name-so naturally he's got his sights set on the cauliflower market! German playwright Bertolt Brecht's sharp political satire on the rise of Nazi Germany skewers not just coming to power of Adolf Hitler and his followers, but the machinations of would-be dictators anywhere and everywhere. Is the timing of this due to the election? "Absolutely," says Cover.

The third Play Date on November 24th at 6PM on Zoom will focus on Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. In the late Middle Ages, the blockbuster play Everyman chronicled one soul's journey from life to death. 500 years later American playwright Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins' playful and compassionate adaptation Everybody reimagines that journey-both the celebration and the loss-for the contemporary world. Increasing the homework load, audience members will receive a copy of both plays to read before this one.

The fourth event will present Oscar Wilde's A Woman of No Importance on December 17th at 6PM on Zoom. This wonderful play invites us to a party. Artistic Director Cover said, "It will be the holidays and we want to invite everybody to a party. By that time we will all need it." In Wilde's play the routine social pleasantries mask a much juicier tale. A worldly man who once saved his reputation faces the woman who sacrificed hers-but she may have gained far more than she lost. Blending sly upper-class wit with wry realpolitik, Wilde asks us to consider-in this (ever so polite) battle of the sexes, who really came out on top? And it is Oscar Wilde - so get ready to laugh.

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