Mad Cow Theatre to Present PAINTING CHURCHES

Mad Cow Theatre is delighted to announce the cast and creative team for the delicate comic drama Painting Churches, opening Feb. 19, 2016 in the Zehngebot-Stonerock Theatre as the fifth production of Mad Cow Theatre's Season 19. Painting Churches, by the award-winning playwright Tina Howe (Coastal Disturbances, Pride's Crossing), replaces Outside Mullingar in the 2015-2016 season.

An Obie Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Painting Churches has been described by The New York Times as "beautifully written ... a theatrical family portrait that has the shimmer and depth of Renoir portraits."

Is it possible to capture a lifelong love story in a single image? To render the nuances of memory with brushstrokes? In Painting Churches, artist Mags Church returns home to paint a portrait of her aging parents while she still has them around - but her canvas may not be big enough, nor her colors varied enough, to capture all the passion, poetry, outrage, and zest of Fanny and Gardner Church.

For Painting Churches, Mad Cow welcomes director Tony Simotes**, founder and former artistic director of Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Mass. The play also will feature visiting artists Kate Young* (Hedda Gabler, Miami Theater Center; Other Desert Cities, Human Race Theatre Company), Scott Stoney* (Other Desert Cities, August: Osage County, Human Race Theatre Company), and Mad Cow's own Ame Livingston* (You Can't Take It With You, Dinner With Friends).

Simotes, who is also a well-known fight director, choreographer, and actor and a former professor at the University of Wisconsin, has a long list of directing credits, including many productions at Shakespeare and Company as well as at other regional and academic theatres across the country and in Canada and Australia.

He has worked closely with playwright Howe on another of her plays, Rembrandt's Gift, and he says he has been "struck by how her characters seemed to walk a delicate line between tragedy, comedy and farce in a single paragraph.

"She imbues her story with an almost magical world of situations that on the surface seem quite normal, only to find that indeed there is more involved in her writing than telling a simple tale of family life. The same is true for Painting Churches. It all weaves together through poetry, art, and fancy as only Tina Howe can tell a story."

Regarding the mid-season change, executive director Mitzi Maxwell said, "Outside Mullingar is simply delayed, and we plan to present it in a future season. When the slot opened up, we seized the opportunity to bring Tony and this perfect cast together to present Painting Churches - a play we have loved for years. In this case the stars aligned."

*Members of Actor's Equity Association
**The Director is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, a national theatrical labor union.

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