Aurora Theatre Company to Present FIFTH OF JULY, 4/17-5/17

Lanford Wilson's "Talley Trilogy" continues on the Aurora Theatre Company main stage with FIFTH OF JULY. It's 1977, thirty-three years after Talley's Folly, and Ken Talley has retreated to his childhood home in Missouri, confused about his future after losing his legs in the Vietnam War. As he contemplates selling his childhood home, family and friends from Ken's radical student days at UC Berkeley gather around him, helping Ken decide the fate of the Talley legacy as well as his own. Alternately funny and moving, FIFTH OF JULY contemplates the illusions of the 1960's in a bittersweet portrait of the Woodstock generation at the precise moment they realize the fireworks ended yesterday.

The last play chronologically, but the first play Lanford Wilson wrote in what would become his "Talley Trilogy," FIFTH OF JULY premiered on Broadway in 1980. Aurora Artistic Director Tom Ross (A Bright New Boise, This Is How It Goes, Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance, The Shape of Things) helms what the New York Daily News called "one of the most incredibly well-written...profound and moving and often hilarious plays in the American theatre," and about which the Chicago Reader stated, "Wilson's special brand of humor and poetry makes his plays stand out from anything else that precedes or follows them." Craig Marker, who starred in Aurora's productions of The Shape of Things and The Persians, returns to the company as Ken Talley; also featuring Elizabeth Benedict, John Girot, Jennifer Le Blanc, Oceana Ortiz, Harold Pierce, Josh Schell, and Nanci Zoppi.

For tickets (Previews $35; Regular Performances $32-50; Limited Opening Night Seating $60) the public can call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org. Half-off tickets for Under 35, student, and group discounts available.