Arden Theatre Company Apprentice Class 17 Presents Falling Into Place 6/20-21

Arden Professional Apprentice (APA) Class 17 concludes their 2009/10 season with the Apprentice Showcase Falling Into Place, featuring five short plays by Christopher Durang, David Ives, Shel Silverstein, and Sean Michael Welch, directed by Steve Pacek, the Arden's Mouse in If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. Falling Into Place serves as the culminating project of a year-long professional training program and provides a unique opportunity for the apprentices to put their varied skills into practice and to the test.

An evening hell-bent on slapstick insanity, Falling Into Place will feature the APAs falling in and out of ridiculous predicaments: from being narrated into a sordid love affair in Welch's Boise, ID, to being trapped in the alternate universe of Ives' The Philadelphia, to staging an unusual intervention in Silverstein's One Tennis Shoe, to holding the most unexpected of surprise parties in Silverstein's The Best Daddy, to finally chucking all sense out the window and celebrating the madness of theatre and life in Durang's Desire, Desire, Desire.

Adding to the chaos, the entire production will thread these stories together with vaudevillian-inspired movement pieces devised by Pacek and the APAs, featuring snippets and reconfigurations of sound featured in many of the Arden's productions this season, all taking place on the 140% scaled set of If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.

With APAs helming the needs of the production's management, fund raising, marketing, design, and performance, Steve Pacek, co-founder of 11th Hour Theatre Company and beloved local actor, takes up the direction of his fifth APA Showcase. Bringing the same antic energy and calculated mischief as he does to his Mouse, Pacek makes bold, wacky choices with these plucky scenes to push the APAs to go beyond wild and have a lot of fun.

Falling Into Place performs Sunday, June 20th at 8pm and Monday, June 21st at 8pm.
Tickets are free to the public. Call the Arden Box Office at 215.922.1122 or visit the box office at 40 N. 2nd Street in Old City, Philadelphia.

The Arden is wheelchair accessible and provides assisted listening devices and large-print programs at every performance. Reservations are required for accessible seating and may be made by calling the Arden's Box Office at 215.922.1122.

TICKETS: FREE

Call the Box Office at 215.922.1122 to reserve seats

CAST:

Kristyn Hegner (formerly of Chicago, IL)

Michael Hollinshead (resident of Cherry Hill, NJ)

Brittany Howard (formerly of Early, TX)

Mark Kennedy (formerly of Walla Walla, WA)

Meredith Sonnen (formerly of Pittsburgh, PA)

ARTISTIC STAFF:

Steve Pacek Director

David Gordon Set Designer of If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

Katherine Fritz Costume Designer

Michael Hollinshead Lighting Designer

Justin Giza Sound Designer and Engineer

Mark Kennedy Video Designer

Kristyn Hegner Choreographer

Meg Walsh Stage Manager

The Showcase serves as an accomplishment that will catapult the APAs toward each of their desired career paths. For Michael Hollinshead, that is the world of production and more specifically, lighting design. Mark Kennedy will continue to pursue directing and strive to produce theatre, be it Shakespeare, new work, or children's theatre. As an aspiring writer, Brittany Howard is passionate about new play development. Kristyn Hegner will share her gifts as an actor, dancer, and teaching artist. Meredith Sonnen will return to her artistic roots: acting, directing, and developing new works from all over the world.

Joining Class 17 and Pacek on their quest to joyful insanity is freelance costume designer and former APA Katherine Fritz, former APA Meg Walsh as production stage manager, and soundsmith Justin Giza as sound engineer and design consultant.

The Arden Professional Apprentice Program is one of the most distinguished theatre training programs in the country. The program's philosophy is to provide a comprehensive working knowledge of the inner workings of a nonprofit regional theatre. To that end, apprentices work in every aspect of the Arden's operations including artistic, marketing, education, box office, front of house, development, production (load-in/strike, run crew, prop/set/costume building, etc.), stage management, finance, and general management.
This well-rounded experience serves the apprentices well as they begin their careers in the local and national performing arts communities.

Arden Theatre Company is located at 40 N. 2nd Street in the heart of historic Old City, Philadelphia

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