ACT Extends CLYBOURNE PARK Through 2/20

In response to overwhelming box office demand-and before its official opening performance tonight-the West Coast premiere of Bruce Norris's Clybourne Park has been extended through February 20 at American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.). The five additional performances will take place on the following dates: Wednesday, February 16, at 8 p.m.; Thursday, February 17, at 8 p.m.; Friday, February 18, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, February 19, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday, February 20, at 2 p.m. Directed by Jonathan Moscone, this "buzz-saw sharp new comedy" (The Washington Post) cleverly spins the events of A Raisin in the Sun to tell an unforgettable new story about race and real estate in America. Act I opens in 1959, as a white couple sells their home to a black family, causing uproar in their middle-class Chicago neighborhood. Act II transports us to the same house in 2009, when the stakes are different, but the debate is strikingly familiar.

Amid lightning-quick repartee, the characters scramble for control of the situation, revealing how we can-and can't-distance ourselves from the stories that linger in our houses. Clybourne Park plays at the American Conservatory Theater (415 Geary Street, San Francisco). Tickets (starting at $10) are available by calling the A.C.T. Box Office at 415.749.2228 or at www.act-sf.org.

Clybourne Park received the 2010 London Evening Standard Award and the London Critics' Circle Award for Best New Play and continues to receive critical acclaim in the United States, where it has been named in the "Top Ten of 2010" lists of Entertainment Weekly, the New Yorker, the New York Times, Time Out New York, and the Washington Post.  In their announcements, critics heaped new praise on Clybourne Park and Norris: Ben Brantley of the New York Times named Clybourne Park "the year's slyest and bravest political comedy"; John Lahr of the New Yorker called the show "superb, elegantly written, and hilarious"; and Peter Marks of the Washington Post claimed it was "the best play in Washington this year, and then some."