FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training Proudly Presents BOOK OF DAYS

The FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training proudly kicks off its 2016-17 season with Pultizer Prize-winner Lanford Wilson's gripping drama BOOK OF DAYS. The American Theatre Critics Association Best Play winner will be directed by FSU/Asolo Conservatory Director Greg Leaming. Featuring the entire second-year Conservatory class, the production previews on Tuesday, November 1, with a special "Pay What You Can Performance", officially opens Wednesday, November 2, and runs throughSunday, November 20 in the Cook Theatre, located in the FSU Center for the Performing Arts.

In an all-too-small town in rural Missouri, everyone knows everyone, a cheese plant is the economic powerhouse, the reverend's word is law, and newcomers are not welcome. In the dead of summer, under the veil of a treacherous storm, a shocking death rocks the town's simple way of life. When the cheese plant's bookkeeper, Ruth, who has been cast as Joan of Arc in the town's production of Saint Joan, suspects foul play, life imitates art as she crusades for the truth. An engrossing look at small town America, BOOK OF DAYS poignantly examines the dangers of greed and the high price of justice.

A greatly revered 20th century American playwright, Lanford Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize for Talley's Folly in 1980. The New York Times described his work as "earthy, realist, greatly admired, widely performed - centered on the sheer ordinariness of marginality." He is also known for plays including Burn This, Angels Fall, Redwood Curtain, and Fifth of July.

"This is a play by one of the legends of American drama. Lanford Wilson wrote lyrical, hauntingly poetic plays about real, very human characters caught up in sometimes quite disturbing situations, and the majority of them taking place in the heart of rural America," said Director Greg Leaming. "His was a truly American voice. BOOK OF DAYS is one of his later plays and is about passion, murder, and the ways in which a community can come together to cover up the most horrible of situations. It's an ensemble piece that plays out on a bare stage but promises to be a real surprise to anyone who has not had the chance to see this man's later plays, or in fact anyone who has not had the chance to meet our second year company of actors."