Seattle Repertory Theatre News

She was the world's beloved Princess Leia in Star Wars, a daughter born to celebrity parents, and the wife of a famous musician. She could also have taken the title of 'walking controversy,' thanks largely to her partying past. This spring, iconic actress Carrie Fisher brings her dynamic spirit and real-life tale to Seattle Repertory Theatre as it presents Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking April 2 through May 3 at its Bagley Wright Theatre.

American Theater Company (ATC) closes its highly successful Season 24 with a new production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, text by John Cameron Mitchell and music and lyrics by Stephen Trask, directed by Artistic Director PJ Paparelli with musical direction by Malcolm Ruhl. The production will run April 9 - May 17, 2009 at American Theater Company, 1909 W Byron St, Chicago. Press opening is Monday, April 13, 2009 at 7 p.m.

Joyce Award-recipient Naomi Iizuka brings her tale of family ties, a lingering debt, mystical stories-and magical food-to the Goodman stage in her newest work, Ghostwritten, April 4 - May 3, 2009. Lisa Portes, who has shepherded this play from its first appearance at the 2007 New Stages Series, directs its world-premiere production with a cast of Chicago favorites led by Lisa Tejero (Mirror of the Invisible World and Metamorphoses) and Kim Martin-Cotten (King Lear).

Marin Theatre Company presents the final show of its highly successful 2008-09 season with a seminal work of modern comedy, Joe Orton's uproarious farce What the Butler Saw in MTC's Boyer Theatre beginning June 4.

Playwrights Horizons, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tim Sanford and Managing Director Leslie Marcus, is proud to announce four World Premieres for its 2009/2010 Season. Presented at the theater company's home at 416 West 42nd Street.

George Street Playhouse has announced full casting for New Year's Eve a world premiere from the pen of ARTHUR LAURENTS. George Street Playhouse Artistic Director DAVID SAINT will direct a starry cast comprised of WALTER BELENKY, KEITH CARRADINE, PETER FRECHETTE, MARLO THOMAS and NATASHA GREGSON WAGNER. New Year's Eve marks the ninth collaboration between Saint and Laurents at the New Brunswick Playhouse, and the return engagement of Ms. Thomas, who starred in Elaine May's Roger is Dead last season.

Theatre for a New Audience's Winter-Spring Shakespeare Season which began with Othello (February 14 - March 7) continues with Hamlet which previews Sunday, March 15, at 7:00pm, opens Thursday, March 26, at 6:30pm and plays through April 19. Both productions play at The Duke on 42nd StreetSM, a New 42nd Street? project, 229 West 42nd Street.

Theatre for a New Audience's Winter-Spring Shakespeare Season which begins with Othello (February 14 - March 7) continues with Hamlet which previews Sunday, March 15, at 7:00pm, opens Thursday, March 26, at 6:30pm and plays through April 19. Both productions play at The Duke on 42nd Street SM, a New 42nd Street? project, 229 West 42nd Street. Hamlet features Christian Camargo in the title role. The production is directed by David Esbjornson. Joining Mr. Camargo will be Alyssa Bresnahan as Gertrude, Alvin Epstein as Polonius, Graham Hamilton as Laertes, Jennifer Ikeda as Ophelia and Patrick Page as Claudius.

Hot on the heels of their smash-hit How? How? Why? Why? Why?, humorist, storyteller and NPR-contributor Kevin Kling returns to Seattle Rep with singer/accordionist Simone Perrin for the world premiere of a new collection of vignettes, stories and songs called Breakin' Hearts & Takin' Names. This time around, the two take on all things amore-from romantic dalliances, to brotherly love, to the joy of the human spirit.

The Seattle Rep's production of Conor McPherson's Tony Nominated play, 'The Seafarer' only goes to show that the Rep is up there with the best of them and can produce the goods.

Theatre for a New Audience's Winter-Spring Shakespeare Season which began with Othello (February 14 - March 7) continues with Hamlet which previews Sunday, March 15, at 7:00pm, opens Thursday, March 26, at 6:30pm and plays through April 19. Both productions play at The Duke on 42nd StreetSM, a New 42nd Street? project, 229 West 42nd Street.

Due to overwhelming box office demand, Seattle Repertory Theatre will extend Betrayal, playing in the Leo K Theatre, through March 28, 2009. Additional performances are Tuesday, March 24, 7:30 pm; Wednesday, March 25, 7:30 pm; Thursday, March 26, 7:30 pm; Friday, March 27, 7:30 pm; Saturday, March 28, 2 pm and 7:30 pm. Tickets are on sale now and available through the Seattle Repertory Theatre box office seven days a week at (206) 443-2222, toll-free at (877) 900-9285, as well as online at http://www.seattlerep.org/.

Harold Pinter's play about an extra marital affair at the Rep doesn't always shine but Pinter is still always engaging. The show tells the story of a young British couple in the 1970's and their illicit affair told from beginning to end. Or rather, the play in this case is told from end to beginning.

Conor McPherson's recent Broadway hit The Seafarer comes to Seattle Repertory Theatre February 26-March 28, 2009. Set in a forgotten corner of Northern Dublin, the play centers on four old friends as they gather to face the holidays the only way they know how-with a bottle of whiskey and a deck of cards. But when a mysterious stranger arrives and wants a piece of the action, the men find themselves playing a game with devilishly high stakes. Steeped in Irish myth, the play is both darkly funny and surprisingly uplifting.

South Coast Repertory?s final NewSCRipts reading of the 2008-09 season will be The Happy Ones by Julie Marie Myatt. Directed by Oanh Nguyen and commissioned by SCR, The Happy Ones is the 108th play to receive a staged reading as part of SCR?s venerable play reading program. Myatt?s My Wandering Boy received its World Premiere production at SCR in 2007 as part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival. The NewSCRipts reading of The Happy Ones will take place on March 2 at 7:30 p.m. on the Julianne Argyros Stage. Tickets are $12 each and may be purchased online at www.scr.org, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or in person at the SCR box office.

Following up on its critically acclaimed inaugural production of The Adding Machine, Seattle?s newest professional theatre company will present something completely different for Valentine?s Day. NCTC?s first annual Love Fest is a concert featuring one of Seattle?s most popular, long-lost bands of the early ?90s, the ska and big band tinged Tiny Hat Orchestra.

Up-and-coming Seattle director Braden Abraham (My Name is Rachel Corrie) stages Harold Pinter's love-triangle-with-a-twist Betrayal at Seattle Repertory Theatre, February 19-March 22, 2009. In this fresh retelling of Pinter's gripping drama, a woman's illicit relationship with her husband's best friend is played out in reverse, from the end of the affair to their first encounter. Betrayal plays in Seattle Rep's intimate Leo K. Theatre. Previews begin February 19, with opening night set for February 25. Tickets are available through the Seattle Repertory Theatre box office seven days a week at (206) 443-2222, toll-free at (877) 900-9285, as well as online at www.seattlerep.org. Director Braden Abraham directed My Name is Rachel Corrie for Seattle Rep in 2007. Other recent projects include Paul Mullin's The Ten Thousand Things at Washington Ensemble Theatre and The K of D by Laura Schellhardt. His cast features Seattle-based actress Cheyenne Casebier (most recently seen as Milady in the Rep's The Three Musketeers) and New York actors Alex Podulke and David Christopher Wells (most recently seen on Broadway in Tom Stoppard's award winning trilogy The Coast of Utopia).

Following up on its critically acclaimed inaugural production of The Adding Machine, Seattle's newest professional theatre company will present something completely different for Valentine's Day. NCTC's first annual Love Fest is a concert featuring one of Seattle's most popular, long-lost bands of the early ?90s, the ska and big band tinged Tiny Hat Orchestra. During the height of the grunge era, Tiny Hat, with its five-piece horn section and infectious and sophisticated original dance music, was an iconoclastic mainstay of the Seattle scene, playing venues like the original grand openings of both the Crocodile Caf? and Moe's (now Neumos), as well as opening nights for SIFF and SAM.

The Public Theater (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis; Executive Director Andrew D. Hamingson) announced today that the 2009 Shakespeare in the Park summer season will begin in June with a new production of William Shakespeare?s TWELFTH NIGHT directed by Daniel Sullivan and featuring Academy Award nominee Anne Hathaway as Viola. TWELFTH NIGHT will run June 9-July 12 at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. In August, JoAnne Akalaitis will return to direct Euripides?s THE BACCHAE, translated by Nicholas Rudall, and featuring original music by Philip Glass. THE BACCHAE will run August 11-September 6.

The American Conservatory Theater Master of Fine Arts Program presents Maxim Gorky's Philistines in a fresh new version by Andrew Upton, the co-artistic director of Australia's Sydney Theatre Company and an acclaimed adaptor of Russian plays.