Trustus Theatre Presents PARADISE KEY TO THE MIDLANDS, 8/6

Trustus Theatre is preparing to bring the premiere of Trustus Alumni Dean Poynor's Paradise Key to the Midlands with a full stage production. This suspenseful on-stage thriller will engage and electrify audiences as the curtain rises on this stirring winner of the Trustus Playwrights' Festival on Friday August 6th at 8:00pm.

Trustus Theatre has had a long-standing commitment to producing new works right here in South Carolina. Trustus wanted to create an annual festival where new plays would receive a professional production each year; therefore The Trustus Playwrights' Festival was established in 1988. Playwrights from all over the nation submit scripts for this festival, and each year a winner is chosen and that play gets a staged reading the year it wins, and then a full production the following year. Past winners have gone on to be published and have had productions on Broadway, in Hollywood, and at the Actors' Theatre in Louisville, KY. Past winner David Lindsay Abaire has even gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, for his Broadway hit Rabbit Hole.

This year, the winning playwright is Dean Poynor, Trustus Company Alumni. Recently graduating with his MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Poynor received workshops for Paradise Key at the University and is excited to see the stage version come to life in Columbia, SC. Poynor has been accomplishing a lot in his years as a playwright, winning countless grants and awards, staging readings all over the nation including Seattle, New York City, and Houston, as well as being an artist in residence at The Studios of Key West. Poynor is even traveling to Australia to stage a reading of his play Homo Apocalyptus which he developed in Key West, FL in the summer of 2009. Needless to say, Dean Poynor is well on his way to crafting a successful career as a playwright and Trustus Theatre is proud to welcome him and his show home to the Midlands.

The story of Paradise Key is set in August, 1951. In the sweaty back room of a U.S. Army safe house, hidden deep in the Florida Keys, a young American Counter-Intelligence agent named David has brought in a special subject for an interview - a German medical doctor named Halb. The doctor is rumored to have found a vaccine for Polio, years before his American counterparts, and David wants to acquire that vaccine to save the lives of countless American children. However, as the Faustian bargain unfolds, we learn this knowledge was gained by the doctor's work in Nazi concentration camps with experiments on human prisoners. Over the course of one night, David must find this formula hidden inside Halb's head, or risk an American disaster.

Poynor based this show on early CIA interrogation techniques, and Paradise Key follows the step-by-step process of "breaking the mind" in order to retrieve information. The play explores the border between the physical world (the body, a baseball bat) and the metaphysical (the mind, the will, ideas.) Using specific psychological techniques, David tries to uncover the truth about the formula, but Halb will only offer it to him if he can in return make David a man, complicit and responsible for the consequences. In this way, the two are locked in a battle for definition - of each other, of history, of themselves - using words like knives, and the audience watches as they dissect the body to find the root of the disease inherited by each generation, passed from father to son.
Trustus Artistic Director Jim Thigpen is helming the world premiere production as director, with Alex Smith (Elephant's Graveyard) and Larry McMullen (A Christmas Carol) playing David and Halb respectfully.

Certainly, Playwright Dean Poynor is an exciting voice in the modern American theatrical landscape and audiences all over the nation are becoming familiar with his work. Trustus Theatre is proud to welcome a native-son back into the very same theatre where many of his first plays were developed. The premiere of Paradise Key promises to be a thrilling addition to the already stellar catalogue of Trustus Playwrights' Festival winners. You can learn more about Dean Poynor at his website www.deanpoynor.com.

Paradise Key opens at 8:00pm on Friday August 6th on the Trustus Main Stage. The show runs through August 14th, 2010. Tickets are $22.50 on Fridays and Saturdays, $17.50 on Sundays, and $20 on Thursdays.

The Trustus Playwrights' Festival is possible through sponsorship from The Muses, a group of supportive theatre fans who help underwrite the festival to keep bringing new and engaging works to the Trustus stage from America's up-and-coming playwrights.

Trustus Theatre is located at 520 Lady Street, behind the Gervais St. Publix. Parking is available on Lady Street. The main stage entrance is located on the Publix side of the building.

For reservations or more information patrons can call the box office Tuesdays through Saturdays 1-6 pm at 803-254-9732. Visit www.trustus.org for all show information and season info.

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