Casting Announced For NATIVE GARDENS By Karen Zacarías

Today, Intiman Theatre announced the casting for its third mainstage production of its 2018 WILD, WICKED, WOKE Season: NATIVE GARDENS by Karen Zacarías, one of the most produced Latina playwrights in the nation. Intiman's production of NATIVE GARDENS will be directed by Seattle-based director Arlene Martínez-Vázquez and will play at The Jones Playhouse from September 6-30, 2018.

"There are a million reasons why I wanted to direct NATIVE GARDENS," said Arlene Martínez-Vázquez, a director, translator, educator, and arts administrator currently serving as Education Director for Seattle Repertory Theatre. "First, I love what it does for Latinx representation on stage. These characters are highly educated AND funny, a combination rarely seen on our stages. Second, I love the approach it takes on the very timely border conversations plaguing our nation. It approaches the subject acknowledging the many perspectives and points of view and with great empathy. Third, I think at its core, NATIVE GARDENS is really about tolerance, understanding and balance, which really, is what the world needs now. Desperately."

In NATIVE GARDENS, cultures and gardens clash, turning well-intentioned neighbors into feuding enemies. Pablo, a rising attorney, and doctoral candidate Tania, his very pregnant wife, have just purchased a home next to Frank and Virginia, a well-established D.C. couple with a prize-worthy English garden. But an impending barbeque for Pablo's colleagues and a delicate dispute over a long-standing fence line soon spirals into an all-out border dispute, exposing both couples' notions of race, taste, class and privilege.

Playwright Karen Zacarias, a native of Mexico who has lived in Washington D.C. since 1991, got the idea for the play after a dinner party where guests traded horror stories about feuds with their neighbors. "As I was going home, I thought, Wow, in a way, almost every single fight - internationally, locally, whatever - is about these things," Zacarias told the Washington Post in an interview. "They're about what your place is in the world and culture."

The Intiman cast features Julie Briskman as Virginia (Seattle Repertory Theatre: THE IMAGINARY INVALID, THE BEARD OF AVON, THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS; ACT Theatre: DIRTY BLONDE, ENCHANTED APRIL, THE WOMEN; Intiman debut), Sophie Franco as Tania (Seattle Shakespeare Company: the bilingual production of TWELFTH NIGHT; Forward Flux Productions: LAS MARIPOSAS Y LOS MUERTOS; Proof Porch Project & Thriving Artists: PROOF; Intiman debut), Jim Gall as Frank (Intiman: THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK; Taproot Theatre: JOYFUL NOISE; Seattle Shakespeare Company: TITUS ANDRONICUS, MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN; Wooden O: OTHELLO, THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA), and Phillip Ray Guevara as Pablo (Intiman debut). The ensemble includes Gloria Alcala (Cornish College of the Arts: THE SINS OF SOR JUANA; Intiman debut) and Yolanda Suarez (Intiman debut).

The creative team for Intiman's NATIVE GARDENS includes Jennifer Zeyl (Intiman Artistic Director and Producer), Lex Marcos (Set Designer), Frances Kenny (Costume Designer), Robert J. Aguilar (Lighting Designer), Matt Starritt (Sound Designer), Liana Dillaway (Stage Manager), and Laura Owens (Assistant Stage Manager) (Read the bios of the cast and creative team here.)

NATIVE GARDENS had its world premiere in January 2016 at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, followed by The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 2017, where it was extended for one week. It was also produced at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C., Victory Gardens in Chicago, Old Globe Theater in San Diego, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Trinity Repertory Theater in Providence, the Orlando Shakespeare Theater, Florida Studio Stage in Sarasota, Vermont Stage, and at the WaterTower Theater in Addison, Texas. Intiman Theatre's production of NATIVE GARDENS marks the Pacific Northwest premiere of the play.

NATIVE GARDENS is a full-length, 90-minute play with no intermission. Single tickets range from $28-$38 and are on sale now via intiman.org/nativegardens or through the Intiman Box Office at (206) 315-5838.

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