Bristol Riverside Theatre Kicks Off the New Year with TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE, Now thru 2/16

Bristol Riverside Theatre kicks off the new year with Tuesdays With Morrie by Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom based on the book by Mitch Albom, running now through February 16. Directed by Susan D. Atkinson, the ensemble cast features Richert Easley and Danny Vaccaro.

Performances run Tuesday through Sunday until February 16. Tickets start at $31, with discounts for students, groups and military personnel. Tickets are available by visiting brtstage.org or calling the BRT Box Office at 215-785-0100. Bristol Riverside Theatre is located at 120 Radcliffe Street in Bristol, PA.

Most teachers develop our minds. Good teachers touch our hearts. But great teachers change our lives forever. For Mitch Albom, Morrie Schwartz was such a teacher. Adapted from the New York Times best-selling novel, this is the story of a mentor's undying need to teach life's most important lesson. Spend your time with care. Spend your life with meaning. Spend your Tuesdays with Morrie.

Mitch Albom (Playwright) is an internationally renowned and best-selling author, journalist, screenwriter, playwright, radio and television broadcaster and musician. His books have collectively sold more than 35 million copies worldwide, have been published in forty-eight territories and in forty-four languages around the world, and have been made into Emmy Award-winning and critically-acclaimed television movies. Albom began his writing career as a freelance sports journalist for Sports Illustrated, GEO and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He worked as a feature writer and sports columnist for the Fort Lauderdale News and Sun Sentinel before becoming a nationally-acclaimed sports journalist at the Detroit Free Press. He currently hosts a daily talk show on WJR radio and appears regularly on ESPN Sports Reporters and SportsCenter.

Tuesdays with Morrie, chronicling Albom's time spent with a former beloved college professor dying of ALS, spent four years on the New York Times Bestseller list and is now the most successful memoir ever published. The Five People You Meet in Heaven is the most successful US hardcover first adult novel ever, and For One More Day, with nine months on the New York Times Bestseller list, was the first book chosen by Starbucks to launch its Book Break Program. He recently released The First Phone Call >From Heaven. As a playwright he is the author of the comedies Duck Hunter Shoots Angel and And the Winner Is, and most recently Ernie about famed Detroit Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell.

Jeffrey Hatcher (Playwright) is the author of Murderers, A Picasso, Three Viewings, and Compleat Female Stage Beauty, all of which have been produced locally including his adaptation Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde performed at BRT. His other plays/adaptations include Scotland Road, To Fool the Eye and The Turn of the Screw. His work has been developed and produced at Manhattan Theatre Club, Primary Stages, Yale Rep, Old Globe, Guthrie, South Coast Rep., Intiman, Milwaukee Rep., The Empty Space, Denver Center, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, among others. His screenplays include Compleat Female Stage Beauty and Casanova.

Susan D. Atkinson (Director) Susan's theatrical career spans 40 years of directing and producing on both the east and west coasts. She has directed well over 150 plays and musicals in her career, including world and area premieres from such playwrights and composers as Doug Katsoras, Mark St. Germain, Jon Marans, Alan Knee and Larry Gatlin. For BRT, Ms. Atkinson has directed such shows as The Good Earth, Wintertime, Irma La Douce, Alive and Well, The Price, 110 in the Shade, A Sunbeam, Inspecting Carol, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Arsenic and Old Lace, A Little Night Music, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, Holiday, Talley's Folly, Proof, Little Women, A Raw Space and Steel Magnolias. In 1998, Ms. Atkinson directed Larry Gatlin's Texas Flyer both here at BRT and at Theatre Under The Stars in Houston, Texas. Last season, Susan directed What A Glorious Feeling and Inherit The Wind.

Richert Easley (Morrie) appeared on Broadway in Porgy and Bess and Oh Calcutta, and Off-Broadwayt in Junkyard at AMAS Repertory. His is a frequent guest at St. Louis Repertory Theatre and Cincinnati Playhouse and has appeared in productions at Old Globe Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company and Capital Rep.

Danny Vaccaro (Mitch) recreates the role he played at Barter Theatre where he has also starred in The Foreigner, Sweeney Todd, Singin' in the Rain, and The Last Five Years. In addition to leading roles in the national tours of La Cage Aux Folles and The Diary of Anne Frank, he has appeared at the Walnut Street Theatre in A Chorus Line and at Goodman Theatre, Fulton Opera House and Alabama Shakespeare Festival.

Tuesdays with Morrie brings together the creative team of BRT veteran designers -costume designer Linda Bee Stockton and lighting designer Deborah Constantine - with designers new to BRT - set designer Andrew Deppen and sound designer Jamie LaJoie.

The 2013-2014 mainstage season continues with Laughter on the 23rd Floor by Neil Simon (March 18-April 13) and Little Shop of Horrors by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (May 6-June 8).

Since 1986, BRT has brought consistently acclaimed professional theatre to Bucks County and maintained a long-term commitment to finding and developing new plays. The theatre is the recipient of over 68 Barrymore Award nominations for Excellence in Theatre, given annually by Theatre Philadelphia. In addition to its mainstage productions, the theatre serves as a cultural hub for the community, with such programs as children's theatre, community concerts and exhibitions of local visual arts. Currently under the direction of Artistic Director Keith Baker, Founding Director Susan D. Atkinson, and Managing Director, Amy Kaissar, BRT continues its 27th season. For information, visit www.brtstage.org.