TreasureTrove Productions and Finborough Theatre Present SATURN RETURNS Nov 2

By: Oct. 25, 2010
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TreasureTrove Productions in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre presents The European Premiere of SATURN RETURNS by Noah Haidle.

Directed by Adam Lenson. Designed by Bec Chippendale. Lighting by James Smith. Sound by Sean Ephgrave.

Cast: Lisa Caruccio Came. Richard Evans. Nicholas Gecks. Christopher Harper.
The UK debut of Noah Haidle, one of America's most exciting young playwrights.

"There are echoes.

Do you know what I mean?

They were here.

And then they weren't.

And I have to stay here.

Because this is where they were."

Every thirty years, the planet Saturn returns to the same place in the universe it occupied on the day of your birth. Its arrival is said to herald pivotal events in a person's life.

In Saturn Returns, we follow one man, Gustin Novak, at the ages of 28, 58 and 88, as he reaches a series of crossroads with three key women and comes to understand how the echoes of the past have defined the orbit of his life.

An enthralling time-bending structure allows us to watch Gustin over a period of sixty years in a series of deftly interwoven scenes. Moving from wry humour to touching poignancy, this new play from one of American theatre's brightest new voices unashamedly looks for answers to life's big questions.

Playwright Noah Haidle is one of America's most exciting young writers and "a name to watch" (LA Times). Saturn Returns marks his UK debut, and he is working directly with the director to develop and expand the piece for this London staging. Saturn Returns was first produced in 2008 where it had a sell-out run at Lincoln Center Theater, New York City.

His other work includes Persephone (Huntington Theater Company, University of Boston), Vigils (Goodman Theatre, Chicago, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington DC), Mr. Marmalade (Roundabout Theatre, New York, and South Coast Repertory, California), Princess Marjorie (South Coast Repertory, California) and Rag and Bone (Long Wharf Theatre, Connecticut). He has taught playwriting at Princeton University, the Kennedy Center and in Kenya and Uganda as part of The Sundance Theatre Institute. He is a graduate of Princeton University and The Juilliard School, where he was a Lila Acheson Wallace Playwright-in-Residence. He is the recipient of three Lincoln Center Le Compte Du Nuoy Awards, the 2005 Helen Merrill Award for emerging playwrights, the 2007 Claire Tow Award, and an NEA/TCG theatre residenCy Grant. He lives in Brooklyn, New York City.

Director Adam Lenson returns to the Finborough Theatre where he previously directed the European premieres of Little Fish (2009) and Ordinary Days (2008). Other directing includes The Family (Public Theater, New York), These Memories Must Go, Cell Begat Cell (Old Vic Theatre), The Rain King (Hampstead Theatre Start Night), Immaculate (Etcetera Theatre), Hades (The Company Project at Theatre 503) and Bifurcated (Southwark Playhouse, Nabakov's Present : Tense). Assistant and Resident Directing includes The Prisoner of Second Avenue (Vaudeville Theatre), Six Degrees Of Separation (Old Vic Theatre), An Inspector Calls (West End and National Tour), La Cage Aux Folles (Menier Chocolate Factory and West End), Talent (Menier Chocolate Factory) and The Music Man (Chichester Festival Theatre).

The cast includes:
Lisa Caruccio Came

Trained at Tisch School of The Arts, New York.

Theatre includes: Fever Chart (York Theatre Royal and Trafalgar Studios), The Woodsman (Old Red Lion), Dark Tales (Bridewell Theatre and on tour), Seven Jewish Children (Hackney Empire), The Six Wives of Timothy Leary (Riverside Studios and Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh), The Dybbuk (King's Head Theatre), the world premiere of Trevor Griffiths' Camel Station (Theatre Museum and Midland Actors Theatre Tour), The Mothers (Midland Actors Theatre Tour), The Time of the Tortoise (Theatre 503), The Tempest (The Looking Glass Theater, New York), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Lion Theatre, Theater Row, New York), The Winter's Tale (Lion Theatre, Theater Row, New York).

Film includes Sprawlers and That Samba Thing.

Radio includes The Hamam Bride and Seeing in the Dark (both for BBC World Service).
Richard Evans

Recent theatre includes The Crucible (Bolton Octagon), Burial At Thebes (Nottingham Theatre and US Tour), As You Like It (Derby Playhouse), No Shame No Fear (Jermyn Street Theatre), Macbeth and Robin Hood (Creation Theatre), As You Like It, Antony and Cleopatra for Michael Bogdanov's English Shakespeare Company (National Tour and Perth Festival, Australia), Beowulf (English Shakespeare Company), As You Like It (Greenwich Playhouse), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds), two seasons at the Chichester Festival Theatre, Romeo and Juliet (London Bubble) Pickwick Papers and Unlawful Killing (Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich), Much Ado About Nothing (Oxford Stage Company), Julius Caesar (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), The Secret Garden (Library Theatre, Manchester and National Tour), Moll Flanders (Bristol Old Vic), Dominic Cooke's The Weavers (Gate Theatre), Richard IV (Northcott Theatre), Blavatsky's Tower (The Flying Machine) and Under the Greenwood Tree (Vaudeville Theatre).

Television and Film includes The Trip, The Conspiracy Theories, The Pinocchio Effect, The Brief, North and South, Fight To The Death, The Gathering, The Inspector Linley Mysteries, One Foot In The Grave, Peak Practice, Between the Lines, Mitch, Rumpole, Dempsey and Makepeace, Auf Wiedersehn Pet, and Blat.

Directing includes The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and West Side Story (Bloomsbury Theatre).

Writing includes Devonshire 300 (Chatsworth and Buxton Festival).

Singing includes training in London, Hamburg and the Royal Northern College of Music before joining Scottish Opera, the Royal Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
Nicholas Gecks

Theatre includes The Deep Blue Sea (Northcott Theatre), Memory of Water (National Tour), Anna Karenina (Theatre Royal Plymouth), Night Must Fall (Theatre Royal Windsor), Richard II (National Theatre), Under the Stars (Greenwich Theatre), The Prisoner of Zenda (Greenwich Theatre), The Winter's Tale (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Lady Windermere's Fan (Watford Palace Theatre), A Patriot for Me (Chichester Festival Theatre, West End and Los Angeles), The Beaux Stratagem, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Accrington Pals, Suicide, Nicholas Nickleby, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Cymbeline, Julius Caesar, Baal (all Royal Shakespeare Company).

Television includes Doctors, Collision, Doctor Who, Inspector Lynley, Sea of Souls, Lazarus Child, Red Cap, Scarlet Pimpernel, The Dark Room, Between the Lines, Secret Agent, Not A Penny More Not A Penny Less, Pirates, The Marlow Inquest, Mrs Capper's Birthday, A Still Small Shout, Titus Andronicus, Prisoner of Zenda, The Falklands Factor, Crack in the Ice, East Lynne, Julius Caesar, A Face at the Window, Children of the North (all BBC), Sherlock (Box TV USA), The Forsyte Saga, The Return of Sherlock Holmes (both Granada), Othello (LWT), Coronation Street, Seeing Red (both Granada), Brookside (Mersey Television), The Mill on the Floss (Carnival Films), Richard II (Illuminations), The Chief (Anglia), Wycliffe (HTV), Berlin Break (Oceanic Productions), Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (LA Films), The Bill, Making News, Hunted Down, Chekov in Yalta, Rumpole of the Bailey, The Grand Tour, Six Centuries of Verse (all Thames), Wolf to the Slaughter (TVS), Two Per Cent (STV), Nicholas Nickleby (Channel 4), Reilly Ace of Spies (Euston Films).

Film includes Mutant Chronicles (Simon Hunter), Parting Shots (Scimitar Productions, Michael Winner), Richard II (Illuminations/BBC/Arte), Tai Pan (De Laurentis), Forever Young (David Putnam), To the Lighthouse (De Laurentis), The Wicked Lady (Colin Gregg Productions).
Christopher Harper

Theatre includes Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (Arcola Theatre), Journey's End (National Tour), After Miss Julie and People at Sea (Salisbury Playhouse), Man of the Moment and Private Fears in Public Places (Northampton Royal Theatre), Lie of the Land (Arcola Theatre), See How They Run, Separate Tables and Volpone (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Strange Orchestra and Adam Bede (Orange Tree Theatre), You Were After Poetry and Assembly (High Tide) and Tabloid Caligula (Arcola Theatre and New York).

TV includes Upstairs Downstairs (BBC Wales), Doctors (BBC), The Bill (Talkback), Heartbeat (YTV), Cliff Last in Victoria Wood's Housewife 49 (Granada), Rosemary and Thyme (ITV), The Roman Mysteries and Life on Mars (BBC).

Film includes Bollywood film Patiala House (Bugle Boy Films) and Rules of the Game (Strike Films) which was nominated for awards at Cannes and Raindance in 2009.
The Press on playwright Noah Haidle
"Beautifully written...the play is really a haunting, in which Haidle finds a way of dramatizing the presence of absence in all of us." The New Yorker

"A muted study in the constancy of loneliness and need" Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

"An elegantly arranged character study, Saturn Returns encapsulates the transitory bliss that can haunt a lifetime." Charles McNulty, LA Times

"An intimate reflection on grief and loneliness." Variety

"A name to watch in the future" LA Times

"[Haidle is] able to turn the internal dramas of the psyche into thrilling stage pictures... a sophisticated playwright" The New Yorker

"Formidably talented, with a sort of freewheeling intuitive daring... he has a firm command of the theatrical idiom to back up his ambition for originality." The New Yorker

"Haidle has an Albee-like bent for creating character capable of both kindness and cruelty" Orange County Register

The Press on director Adam Lenson
On Ordinary Days at the Finborough Theatre:

"London's hottest ticket - the entire run was sold out ahead of last night's opening. It shows a hunger and appetite for this kind of work in London that is not being met elsewhere." Mark Shenton, The Stage

"A bright and witty show, convincingly performed by four talented actors with verve and wonderful comic timing." Carol Gordon, Whatsonstage

"Director Adam Lenson does a smart job of revealing the patterns and connections that are being sketched here, and giving them a carefully blended sense of fluidity." Mark Shenton, The Stage

On Little Fish at the Finborough Theatre:

"There's enough verve and bitter wit, both in LaChiusa's writing and in Adam Lenson's persuasive production, to keep it sharp rather than saccharine." Sam Marlowe, The Times

"A credit to Adam Lenson's skilled and sensitive direction." Gerald Berkowitz, Theatreguide London

"This quirky little show manages to make a surprisingly big splash...Well worth wading into" Sam Marlowe, The Times

Finborough Theatre, The Finborough, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
Box Office 0844 847 1652. www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Tuesday, 2 November - Saturday, 27 November 2010

Tuesday to Saturday evenings at 7.30pm. Sunday matinees at 3.00pm. Saturday matinees at 3.00pm (from 13 November 2010).
Prices for Weeks 1 and 2 (2-14 November) - Tickets £15, £11 concessions, except Tuesday evenings £11 all seats, and Saturday evenings £15 all seats. Previews (2 and 3 November) £9 all seats.

£5 tickets for under 30's for performances from Tuesday to Sunday of the first week when booked online only.

£10 tickets for residents of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea on the first Saturday of the run only.

Prices for Weeks 3 and 4 (16 November-27 November) - Tickets £18, £15 concessions, except Tuesday evenings £15 all seats, and Saturday evenings £18 all seats.

Performance Length: Approximately 90 minutes



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