Seattle, WA – December 23, 2009 – ACT – A Contemporary Theatre kicks off 2010 with a full menu of Central Heating Lab events, including the highly anticipated 14/48: The World’s Quickest Theatre Festival, a series devoted to the works of Harold Pinter, ACT’s collaboration with Town Hall for Short Stories Live, and the debut of a new piece from Seattle Dance Project.

14/48: The World’s Quickest Theatre Festival

January 8-16, 2010, Fri. and Sat. 8:00 and 10:30 p.m.

Tickets: $20 or $40 All-Fest Pass or included with ACT Basic Membership

Each weekend, seven playwrights write seven plays on a randomly selected theme. Twelve hours later, seven directors each blindly select a play and the required number of actors to cast it. After 10 hours of fevered rehearsal with seven designers and seven musicians, another theme is chosen and the process starts all over again. It all adds up to 14 plays you’ll never see again, but will never forget.

*Town Hall and ACT: Short Stories Live at Town Hall

January 17, 2010, Sun. at 4:00 p.m.

Tickets: $13/$10 advance ($15/$13 at door) or included with ACT Basic Membership

*At Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, www.brownpapertickets.com

Think of it as NPR’s Selected Shorts, Seattle style: ACT Artistic Director Kurt Beattie selects compelling short stories based on a common theme; then local actors bring the stories to life during readings at Town Hall. January’s program is The Catholic Imagination.

Shadow & Light: Two by Pinter

January 21-February 7, Fri. and Sat. at 8:00; Sat. and Sun. at 2:00 p.m.

Tickets: $20 or included with ACT Basic Membership

Shadow & Light is a new Seattle theatre company devoted to the works of late Nobel laureate Harold Pinter. Inspired by Oliver Sacks’ Awakenings, A Kind of Alaska chronicles one woman’s journey from mysterious neurological darkness into tenuous light. In Ashes To Ashes, a seemingly typical domestic conversation between a wife and husband gradually evolves into a haunting meditation on “the banality of evil.” The Central Heating Lab is proud to present the first professional staging of Ashes To Ashes in Seattle. Company members include Suzanne Bouchard, Frank Corrado, Kimberly King, and Victor Pappas.

Seattle Dance Project: Project 3

January 29-February 6, Fri. and Sat. at 8:00; Sun. at 2:00 p.m.; Feb 5 at 12:00 noon.

Tickets: $25 or included with ACT Basic Membership

An entirely new work of innovative dance which includes world-premiere choreography by former soloist with New York City Ballet Edwaard Liang and by Kent Stowell, founder and former director of Pacific Northwest Ballet. Also showcased are rock and roll-inspired works by James Canfield, director of Nevada Ballet Theatre, Betsy Cooper, Director of the University of Washington dance department, and a Seattle premiere by Mark Haim.

Launched in 2008, The Central Heating Lab at ACT serves as an incubator and catalyst for new works. ACT cultivates, produces, and presents artists working in all performance genres and provides an artistic home for a variety of local performance groups and artists. Relationships develop daily with individual actors, performers and playwrights while established partnerships with groups such as the New Century Theatre Company, Moisture Festival and Icicle Creek Theatre Festival deepen. New programs are added throughout the year.