ACT Announces 2008 Season to Include Stoppard, Das Barbecu and More

ACT Artistic Director Kurt Beattie announces six Mainstage plays (one TBA) for ACT – A Contemporary Theatre's 2009 Season, to start April 10, 2009.

"Our 2009 season is ambitiously theatrical and entertaining, an extravagant journey filled with both rapturous experiences and profound ideas. It dives into the core of what it means to be human and man's relationship to his culture and himself-from political and social revolution in Rock 'n' Roll to a divided family in Runt of the Litter and confrontations with our secret selves in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, to our place in an ever evolving world in the break/s, to simply having a good ol' time in Das Barbecü!," said ACT Artistic Director Kurt Beattie. "As always, the 2009 line-up places a high premium on the power of the actor to tell the story, making for an incredibly accessible, dynamic and richly layered season that adds to the conversation ACT inspires."

ACT will utilize both the Allen Theatre, a 434-seat arena theatre with seating in-the-round, and the 409-seat thrust-style Falls Theatre during the 2009 season. This season, ACT will also incorporate an innovative, flexible, multi-use scenery approach for use across all productions in both theatre spaces.

Season tickets are on sale now. Single tickets go on sale by mid-February 2009. Subscriptions, from $60 (for students and people 25 and under), $171 (senior matinee package) to $300, are available at the Ticket Office, 700 Union Street in downtown Seattle, by phone at (206) 292-7676 or online at acttheatre.org. Single ticket prices range $10/$15 (for students/people 25 and under) to $55.

For more information please visit www.acttheatre.org

 
The 2009 Mainstage Season:

Rock 'n' Roll

By Tom Stoppard

Directed by Kurt Beattie

April 10-May 10, 2009

In August 1968, while Russian tanks roll into Prague, an aging British professor's old style Marxism collides head on with the anti-communist sentiments of a new generation. His most promising young Czech student, his flower-child daughter, and the rock bands that fuel the movement known as the Velvet Revolution explode into the political status quo with feverish idealism and desperate consequences.  Stoppard's sweeping, passionate play inspired in part by the music of Pink Floyd, spans two countries, three generations and 22 turbulent years, at the end of which love remains - and so does rock 'n' roll. ACT's production stunningly links past and present with performances in the Allen Theatre, originally Eagles Auditorium, the site of Pink Floyd's first Seattle concerts, August 9 – 11, 1968.

"Astounding, funny, wise and triumphant. Rock 'N' Roll renews your awareness that history is what happens while we live our day-to-day lives. I left the theater feeling elated." New York Magazine

 
To Be Announced

May 22-June 21, 2009

ACT is holding this space open for one of a variety of new and entertaining projects that it believes to be engaging and intriguing to our audience. There are a range of exciting new works and new voices under consideration.

 
the break/s

By Marc Bamuthi Joseph

Directed by Michael John Garces, choreography by Stacy Printz, set and video design by David Szlasa,

lighting design by James Clotfelter, and original music by Ajayi Lumumba

June 18-July 12, 2009

"Hip-hop renaissance man" Marc Bamuthi Joseph is an accomplished dancer, an award-winning poet and a passionate educator. His new play – the break/s – features Joseph's unique fusion of movement and theater; a powerhouse mixture of dance, sound, story and visual imagery. With two turntables, a video jockey and Joseph's virtuosity, the break/s is an enthralling piece of performance magic. Drawing on interviews and documentary footage, this collaboration between performer, score and projected image explodes the boundaries of theater, dance and film and explores the conflicts between public identity and private identity in our globalized, multi-everything era.

 
"This one-man show isn't just one man's show; it's a thunderous, expansive and deeply felt wrestling match with being an American in the 21st century." – The Washington Post

 

Das Barbecü

Book and Lyrics by Jim Luigs

Music by Scott Warrender

Directed by Stephen Terrell

August 6-September 6, 2009

In celebration of Seattle Opera's 2009 presentation of The Ring Cycle, comes the revival of the wildly popular country western spoof of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, originally commissioned by Seattle Opera and produced by ACT in 1995. Wagner's majestic Ring Cycle goes through the looking-glass and emerges in the wide open spaces of Texas with five actors playing more than 30 outrageous characters at breakneck speed.  With lyrics by Jim Luigs and a score by Seattle favorite Scott Warrender that ranges from Broadway to Texas swing, from jazz to country two-step,  Das Barbecü's irreverent ingredients include mismatched lovers, feuding families, a magic ring of power, construction-worker giants, rope tricks, a synchronized swim team of Rhine maidens, and a serenade to guacamole. It all adds up to an irresistible recipe for fun.

 
"The delicious fun of Das Barbecü is the deadpan way it superimposes the weirdest ancient Germanic lore onto a batch of down-home, straight-shootin' folk." Seattle Times

 
Runt of the Litter

Written and performed by Bo Eason

Directed by Larry Moss

September 18-October 11, 2009

Fact and fiction overlap to gripping effect in pro-football player and actor Bo Eason's fiercely personal look at his life and career as a ruthless defensive back for the Houston Oilers. Through the fictional alter-ego of Jack Henry, told by his parents that he's too small for football while his older brother is destined for sports stardom, Eason gives us an insider's vivid and sometimes brutally honest look at the cult and culture of pro sports – what it takes to succeed and at what price. You don't have to be a sports fan to be engaged by Eason's fast, funny writing and riveted by his dynamic, honest performance of an unforgettable American story.

". . . written and performed with such a compelling combination of authenticity and semi-autobiographical detail that truth and art become one and the same." Variety

 
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher

from Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Directed by Kurt Beattie

October 9-November 8, 2009

Respected Dr. Henry Jekyll has begun to display alarmingly erratic behavior while at the same time a fearsome figure haunts the foggy streets after dark, committing unspeakable crimes. Against the chilly, menacing backdrop of Victorian London, Jekyll's friends try to unravel his tortured connection to the monstrous Mr. Hyde, and solve the mystery of what happened on the night Jekyll died. Jeffrey Hatcher's provocative new adaptation brings modern psychological complexity to Stevenson's classic tale of good vs. evil to create a fiendishly theatrical portrait of one man's confrontation with his suppressed desires and deeper – and more dangerous – selves.

"Hatcher has written a play that honors the original, but gives a more complex interpretation of the dual nature of man . . . It's a dark and disturbing story liberally peppered with humor." Arizona Daily Star

Following the 2009 Mainstage season, ACT will stage its 34th annual production of the Seattle holiday favorite, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, adapted by Gregory A. Falls, November 29-December 27, 2009.

The Central Heating Lab at ACT will continue throughout 2009 with after-hour companion pieces inspired by each Mainstage production, as well as an eight week comedy series, a dance residency by the Maureen Whiting Company, the 2009 New Play Award and workshop, plus the RAWSTOCK film festival, Seattle Dance Project and the Moisture Festival to name a few.

 
**Titles, dates and venues subject to change.

 
About ACT – A Contemporary Theatre

For the past 44 seasons, ACT's mission has been to inspire our diverse community through theatre that advances our understanding of human life. To dare, excite and enrich artists and audiences. To steward our many resources. Through The Central Heating Lab, ACT seeks to heat things up and create a conversation with its season that reaches for a deeper impact.

For more information please visit www.acttheatre.org

Photo Credit Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.

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