Penguin Rep Closes 2009 Mainstage Season with FREE MAN OF COLOR

Free Man of Color, a new play by Charles Smith in its New York premiere from October 2 through October 25 at Penguin Rep Theatre in Stony Point, New York, explores this and other hot topics in its true life story of John Newton Templeton, an ex-slave who was the first African-American to attend college in Ohio.

Winner of Chicago's prestigious Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Play, Free Man of Color is described by Penguin Rep artistic director Joe Brancato who will stage the play as "a provocative meditation on race and responsibility, about who we are and where we came from".

Set in 1824, decades before the Emancipation Proclamation, Free Man of Color looks back at actual historical events and figures, including Ohio University's president, Robert Wilson, an avowed abolitionist, who has big plans for Newton, and Wilson's wife who is more skeptical. As a woman, she is not permitted to study at the college. And Templeton, unexpectedly, has ideas of his own about the future.

Free Man of Color will close Penguin Rep's 2009 mainstage season and replaces the previously announced Breath and Imagination.

The cast of Free Man of Color, under Mr. Brancato's direction, includes Sheldon Best (as Templeton), Tom Frey (as Newton), and Emma O'Donnell (as Jane Wilson). Designers include Joseph Egan (sets and props), Patricia E. Doherty (costumes), Martin Vreeland (lights), and Chris Rummel (sound). C. Renee Alexander is the production stage manager.

Performances of Free Man of Color are scheduled Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. through October 25, 2009 at Penguin Rep's intimate, 108-seat theatre located at 7 Crickettown Road in Stony Point (Rockland County). (Directions avoiding Route 9W's closed James Farley Bridge are accessible at www.penguinrep.org or by calling 845-786-2873).

Tickets are $32 with special discounts available for people 30 and younger and groups as small as ten.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.penguinrep.org, by phone at 845-786-2873, by fax at 845-786-3638, or by mail at P.O. Box 91, Stony Point, New York 10980-0091.

Penguin Rep's 2009 season began in May with the world premiere of Tom Dudzick's comedy Our Lady of South Division Street, and was followed by The Wonder Bread Years, former Seinfeld writer Pat Hazell's humorous salute to Baby Boomer culture, and Carter W. Lewis's outrageous comedy Women Who Steal. In addition to its mainstage season, Penguin also presented its second annual Children's Theatre Festival and the popular Play with Your Food series of new play readings.

Upcoming are: Penguin Rep's Annual Auction Sunday, October 4 at 3:30 p.m. at the Stony Point Center; the New York premiere of Avi Hoffman's Still Jewish After All These Years, a follow-up to the actor-singer-comedian's wildly successful Too Jewish and Too Jewish, Two, Saturday, September 26 at 8:30 p.m. at SUNY Rockland Community College in Suffern, as well as a special performance of Jeffrey Solomon's play De Novo on Saturday, November 23 at 8 p.m., to commemorate Rockland Community College's fiftieth anniversary.

Admission to the October 4 auction is free but reservations are strongly suggested: 845-786-2873. Tickets for Avi Hoffman's Still Jewish After All These Years are $30 ($25 for subscribers). Tickets for De Novo are $20 ($15 for subscribers, students and RCC staff).

To order tickets or get more information, go to Penguin Rep's website at www.penguinrep.org or call 845.786.2873.

Penguin Rep Theatre, Rockland County's first year-round, non-profit professional theatre, was founded in 1977 in a century-old hay barn converted to a theatre, by Rockland residents Joe Brancato, Artistic Director, and Fran Newman-McCarthy, Treasurer of the Board of Trustees. Described by The New York Times as "the gutsiest little theatre" and by The Journal News as a theatre that "continues to astonish," Penguin Rep celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2007 when it spruced up its theatre, which now features heating, air conditioning, wheelchair accessible rest rooms and seating, new upholstered theatre seats, and plenty of free parking.

 

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