Muddy Waters Theatre Begin Their Season of O'Neill with DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS 3/12-3/28

Continuing its tradition of devoting an entire season to exploring the work of a single playwright, Muddy Waters Theatre Company opens its Eugene O'Neill season with the passion-filled Desire Under the Elms presented March 12-28, 2010 in the Kranzberg Arts Center, located in the Big Brothers Big Sisters Building at Grand and Olive in Grand Center.

In the spring, even an old man's fancy turns to thoughts of love. Septuagenarian Ephraim Cabot returns to the hardscrabble New England farm he shares with his three grown browbeaten sons accompanied by a young, desirable new wife. The brothers make fun of the old man and the elder two head for the hills, but Eben stays around to get to know his "new maw." That he does, and the ramifications of their adulterous relationship set in motion events that are reminiscent of classical tragedy. Powerful, passionate, and moving, this is one of Eugene O'Neill's most masterful examinations of greed, God, and, of course, Desire Under the Elms.

The production is directed by Jerry McAdams and features Jim Anthony as Ephraim and Patty Ulrich, co-founder and co-artistic director of Muddy Waters, Abbie. Eben is played by Franklin Killian, and his brothers Peter and Simeon by Ben Ritchie and Chris Jones, respectively with Charlie Heuvelman as the sheriff. Incidental and contra dance music is provided by Laura Sexauer and Ryan Spearman.

All performances will be Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. and. For more information, reservations, tickets and directions to the Kranzberg, visit the Muddy Waters website, www.muddywaterstheatre.com or call 314-799-8399.

The 2010 season will continue with of O'Neill Now I Ask You, a seldom-staged drawing room comedy yes, comedy written in 1916 that plays with notions of traditional love, free love and faddish intellectualism as it affects the lives of two couples. A playful tug on George Bernard Shaw's beard, Now I Ask You will run June 11-27.

Closing the off O'Neill Season, Muddy Waters will produce the powerful Long Day's Journey Into Night (November 5-21) in which a family's addictions and dysfunctions are explored in a single, heart-rending day in August 1912 at the home of the Tyrones - the autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his older brother, and their parents. They all constantly conceal, blame, resent, regret, accuse and deny in an escalating cycle of conflict with occasional desperate and half-sincere attempts at affection, encouragement and consolation.

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