BWW Preview: KIDDO AND PATTY HEARST HEARST Brings Nostalgia of a Bygone Era

Writer Claudia McGarry has taken on playwriting with Kiddo and Patty Heart, a nostalgic, semi-autobiographical story about a girl on the cusp of adulthood living with her alcoholic father in the summer of 1974. Kiddo will be McGarry's first theatrical production, but the local writer is committed to making her upcoming staged reading, which runs twice this weekend at Center Stage Theater (Sunday, 8/24 at 2pm and 6pm), a memorable debut effort.

As a young woman, McGarry moved in with her writer father after her parents split. McGarry calls the summer tumultuous, and attributes the strange, vacillating energy of the time to her father's unhealthy relationship with drinking and the tangible cultural changes of mid-seventies Southern California. Hippies and musicians left over from the summer of love made homes in Laural Canyon, and Patty Heart, heiress to the Randolph Hearst media fortune, was running with the SLA. A wanted criminal and high-profile kidnapping victim, Patty Hearst's story was a fascinating news piece of the time, and, much like Elvis or UFOs, Patty Hearst "sightings" were not uncommon, especially in the greater Los Angeles area.

For McGarry, the era is marked by striking memories. Her family moved to Los Angeles in 1969, and McGarry was admittedly star-struck by the vast number of Los Angelites who worked in (or in jobs related to) the entertainment industry. McGarry was living in LA when the Manson murders made big news, and her older friends introduced her to a world of social and political activism. Kiddo and Patty Hearst is a coming of age story for the young protagonist, Marta, who is 17 in 1974. Based on this period of time in her own youth, McGarry has boiled down her universe of people, places, and remembered events, and written them together within this play. Kiddo, as Marta's father calls her, feels a sense of connection with the captive/criminal Patty Hearst; both characters struggle to survive and overcome the harsh elements of their bleak situations.

LIVE MUSIC by: Beverly Van Wingerden, Kevin McGarry, Paul McGarry, Christina Apostolopoulos, Ashley Jones, and Nick Rattray.

CAST: Starring Sheila Murphy as the Narrator, Ashley Jones as Marta, Peter Rojas as Don Saunders, Caitlin McCarthy as Dori Saunders, Chella Courington as the Hippie, Tawnie Fransen as Beth, Michele Peterson as Joan Collins, Nick Rattray as Steve, Ted Chiles as the doctor and the policeman, Kathleen Russell Hardin as Carla, Victoria Charters as Robin, Caitlin McCarthy as Patty Hearst, and Aubrey Gordon as an SLA member. Voices played by Beverly Van Wingerden.

TIMES: 2 PM AND 6 PM (no intermission)

General admission, $20.00

centerstagetheater.org