Pitt Rep Closes Season with CITY OF ASYLUM, Beginning Today

City of Asylum runs Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8PM and Sunday Matinees at 2PM, with an ASL Interpretation Performance set for Saturday, April 6 at 8PM. For tickets, call 412-624-PLAY or visit www.play.pitt.edu.

A story of struggle, resilience, transcendence, and hope. The City of Asylum movement provides sanctuary to writers in danger of persecution or death in their home countries. City of Asylum/Pittsburgh, the first COA in the United States, has been in operation since 2004. In addition to hosting and supporting exiled writers, COA/P also engages creatively with the community. Pitt Rep responds to this effort with a newly devised play, which gives voice to the work of artists from China, El Salvador, Burma, and Venezuela.

Pitt Rep's City of Asylum focuses on four artists hosted by the Pittsburgh organization: Israel Centeno, Huang Xiang, Khet Mar, and Horacio Castellanos Moya. The truth and brutality of their lives mixes with the beauty and hope of their works in this stage production, and will be accompanied by a number of community-driven artist talkbacks. Check www.play.pitt.edu for a full schedule of events.

Cynthia Croot - a writer, director, and humanitarian activist - represented U.S. artists on a five- person delegation to Damascus University, Syria in 2004. This exchange, originally organized by the Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University and the U.S. State Department, helped shape her ongoing commitment to forging cross-cultural understanding through innovative use of the arts and media. .

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of Theatre Arts offers BA, MA, MFA and PhD degrees in Theatre Arts. All faculty members are active in teaching, research, and artistic projects. For more information about the University of Pittsburgh Repertory Theatre, visit www.play.pitt.edu.