In the Heights Author Headlines 5th Avenue Show Talks Series!

Quiara Alegría Hudes, local academics featured in special programming to complement first show of the 2010-11 Season

SEATTLE, WA –During the run of the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights (September 28-October 17), The 5th Avenue will feature a line-up of special guests who will give pre-show presentations.

The 5th Avenue Show Talks Series is sponsored by Macy’s. The free pre-show talks are designed to engage 5th Avenue patrons in a deeper conversation and offer new informative insight into the shows on our stage.

On Friday, October 1, and Saturday, October 2, Quiara Alegría Hudes, award-winning author of the book for In the Heights, discusses the show, her career and her association with Hedgebrook, the Whidbey Island-based writer’s retreat that supports women writers from all over the world. Hudes will also be discussing her brand new children's book,Welcome to My Neighborhood! A Barrio ABC, which, like In the Heights, gives insight into family and life in an immigrant neighborhood.

On Tuesday October 5, Pramila Jayapal, founder and executive director of OneAmerica, invites us to consider In the Heights in relation to the current intense debate about immigration, including the controversial legislation that passed inArizona earlier this year. How does this show give us the opportunity to get a real perspective into the lives and vibrancy of immigrant communities? Jayapal is an award-winning speaker on local and national television and radio shows, addressing diverse audiences on issues of immigrant integration as well as immigrant, civil and human rights.

On Friday, October 8, Matt Barreto, Associate Professor at the UW and the author of the book Ethnic Cues: The Role of Shared Ethnicity in Latino Political Behavior, comes to discuss minority political behavior, with an emphasis on Latino culture. Barreto specializes in Latino and immigrant voting behavior, and teaches courses on Racial and Ethnic Politics, Latino Politics, Voting and Elections, and American Politics at UW.

On Tuesday, October 12, and Wednesday, October 13, Albert Evans, artistic associate at The 5th Avenue, presentsStarring New York City, a concert/lecture discussing musicals in which the city of New York is a starring character. With his varied background as composer (Off-Broadway's hit Pageant, The 5th Avenue's Yankee Doodle Dandy), and lyricist (Mikado, Inc.), as well as dramaturg and music director at The 5th Avenue Theatre, brings a uniquely entertaining and educational perspective.

For dates and details on Show Talks, go to 5thavenue.org/education/showtalk.aspx.

Open Circle Presents HP Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model"

Open Circle Theater brings you its 8th annual production of H.P. Lovecraft with Pickman’s Model.

People have been going missing in Pioneer Square. Some of them turn up horribly mutilated. It is the night of the unveiling of the latest and greatest painting by Richard Upton Pickman, Seattle's self-proclaimed "premiere artiste morbid" in a struggling Pioneer Square gallery. But something is not right. Following a strangely disturbing and somehow toxic musical performance art piece, the painting, Ghoul Feeding, is unveiled and is met, not with amazement and artistic acclaim, but with terror, physical revulsion, and insanity in all who view it. All that is, except for Pickman himself who is strangely elated. Pickman vanishes leaving only questions: Where is Pickman? How is this connected to the disappearances? What has Pickman been doing in a series of mysterious tunnels beneath the Old Seattle Underground? Vivian Thurber, Pickman's agent, and Danyeris Eliot, a photojournalist, cannot rest until they find out, but what they find out threatens both their lives and their sanity.

WHAT: H.P. Lovecraft’s Pickman’s Model

WHEN: October 15^th through November 13^th, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 4pm

* OPENING NIGHT IS 100% FREE

PRICE: $16 at the door / $14 Advance at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/129979

Students/Seniors $3 off at the door

WHERE: Open Circle Theater 2222 2^nd Ave

Directed by John McKenna

Cast- Simon Astor, Marriana de Fazio, Kenna Kettrick, Don MacEllis, Jennifer Pratt, Colin Schreiber

Trio of powerhouse NW actors take on Albee’s Three Tall Women at Seattle Rep

Megan Cole, Suzanne Bouchard, and Alexandra Tavares star

Seattle, WA – The second show in the Seattle Rep 2010-2011 season—and the first in the intimate Leo K. Theatre—is Edward Albee’s Pultizer-Prize winning drama Three Tall Women, brought to life by a trio of powerhouse Northwest actresses and Seattle director Allison Narver.

Tickets are available now through the Seattle Rep Box Office at 206-443-2222 as well as online atwww.seattlerep.org.

Megan Cole—who starred in Seattle Rep’s Wit in 1999—is the play’s protagonist, a woman at the end of her life, laying out her secrets in all of their charming, vicious, and wretched glory. Cole has appeared on a number of TV shows, including recurring roles on “ER” and “The Practice.”

The woman’s caretaker is played by Suzanne Bouchard (By the Waters of Babylon, Private Lives), and Alexandra Tavares is the young lawyer taking care of the older woman’s estate. Tavares is making her Seattle Rep debut after a number of well-received roles around town, including at Intiman and Book-It.

Rounding out the cast is Village Theatre and 5^th Avenue Theatre regular Eric Ankrim, playing The Boy, a role Albee based on himself.

Three Tall Women won Albee his third Pulitzer in 1994. Electrifying and heartrending, this portrait of three women at different stages in their lives is “a dazzler…Worthy of mention in the same breath asWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and A Delicate Balance." (The Wall Street Journal)

Director Allison Narver (recently: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the 5th Avenue, Female of the Species, Eurydice and The Clean House at ACT, and Orange Flower Water for New Century Theatre) returns after helming Memory House at Seattle Rep in 2006.

“Any full discussion of American playwriting always includes Albee, and since the passing of August [Wilson] and Arthur Miller, he’s the preeminent playwright in this country,” said Seattle Rep Artistic Director Jerry Manning. “Among his plays, it’s my favorite. I love the mystery of it. I’m also really happy that Allison Narver is directing it. It’s a little bit of a departure for her, and yet I think it will be a great experience for her as an artist to try something a little bit different, a more psychological work. And here are three extraordinary roles for three Seattle actors.”

ACT – A Contemporary Theatre Announces 2011 Mainstage Season

Two World Premieres, one Northwest Premiere, and a healthy dose of intrigue, power, passion and fun take to the ACT stages

Seattle, WA – September 16, 2010 – ACT –A Contemporary Theatre announces its 2011 Mainstage season, featuring six plays that range from playful to powerful, romantic to dramatic, musical to murderous –including two World Premieres!

ACT’s 2011 Mainstage season opens with the first production of its exciting new partnership with The 5th Avenue Theatre, Vanities: A New Musical, a funny and poignant musical adaptation of Jack Heifner’s acclaimed comedy-drama with music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum (April 1-May 1). Next is Neil Simon’s comic portrait of urban angst, The Prisoner of Second Avenue (April 29-May 29), followed by the World Premiere of the quirky romantic comedy Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World by local playwright Yussef El Guindi (June 17-July 17); Sarah Ruhl’s titillating comedy In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (July 29-August 28); and Peter Oswald’s smash hit adaptation of Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller (September 9-October 9). Concluding the season is the thrilling World Premiere of Double Indemnity, from the crime novel by James M. Cain and masterfully adapted by two of ACT’s best-loved actors, David Pichette and R. Hamilton Wright (October 21-November 20).

“2011 promises to be one of ACT’s most entertaining and ambitious seasons to date,” said ACT Artistic Director Kurt Beattie. “ACT’s season resonates to and reflects on the issues that most concern us today—money, relationships, politics, power, work, and of course, love—in a multiplicity of voices and visions sure to keep the discussion going long after the play is over.”

The 2011 Mainstage Season:

Vanities: A New Musical

Book by Jack Heifner

Music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum

Directed by David Armstrong

Co-produced by ACT and The 5^th Avenue Theatre

April 1-May 1 | NORTHWEST PREMIERE!

Three women. Three decades. One friendship.

Set off on a life-affirming journey through the turbulent ’60s to the late ’80s and discover how three friends face life’s defining moments: growing up, getting older and getting over it. Vanities is a funny and poignant look at three women who discover that, even in 30 years of rapidly changing times, the one thing they can rely on is each other.

The Prisoner of Second Avenue

by Neil Simon

Directed by Warner Shook

April 29-May 29

A comic portrait of urban angst spiked with Simon’s trademark zingers.

Heat waves. Garbage strikes. Noisy neighbors. Burglars. No place dishes it out quite like New York City, and with his job hanging by a thread, Mel Edison is in no mood to grin and bear it. Sparkling with Simon’s usual wit and fueled by a still-resonant anger at the dehumanizing effects of modern city life, this comedy classic pits Mel and his steadfast wife Edna against an assault by 1970s Manhattan—and it’s anybody’s guess who’ll win.

Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World

by Yussef El Guindi

Directed by TBD

June 17-July 17 | WORLD PREMIERE!

A quirky modern romantic comedy celebrating the pilgrim in all of us.

When Musa, an Egyptian cab driver who’s been in America less than a year, falls for Sheri, a sassy American waitress, his life takes unexpected and delightfully complicated turns. This brand-new comedy by Seattle playwright Yussef El Guindi is full of unabashed sweetness and goofy charm, and reminds us that we are all “immigrants” with far more connecting than separating us.

In the Next Room, or the vibrator play

by Sarah Ruhl

Directed by Kurt Beattie

July 29-August 28

A stimulating comedy sure to create a buzz.

In a prim upper class Victorian home, a gentleman doctor has innocently invented a most extraordinary and mysterious device for treating “hysteria.” When his increasingly despondent wife overhears the strange sounds emanating from the operating theatre and sees patients leaving in the pink of health, she is compelled to investigate—even if it means throwing over domesticity for desire. Ranging from the tender to the farcical, this smart comedy ponders marriage and intimacy, and how electricity came along to fuse them.

Mary Stuart

by Friedrich Schiller

Adapted by Peter Oswald

Directed by Victor Pappas

September 9-October 9

Legendary monarchs clash in a London and Broadway smash hit.

Astonishingly relevant today, Mary Stuart probes themes of religious fanaticism and political corruption as it dramatizes the struggle of Mary, Queen of Scots, for her freedom from Queen Elizabeth I. Amidst espionage, attempted assassinations, and prison breaks, a tragic crisis confronts both women with impossibly difficult decisions. Will Mary renounce her claim to the throne? Can Elizabeth free Mary without jeopardizing her throne? It’s a thrilling episode from the past that strikes at the core of our contemporary selves.

Double Indemnity

From the novel by James M. Cain

Adapted by David Pichette and R. Hamilton Wright

Directed by Kurt Beattie

October 21-November 20 | WORLD PREMIERE!

A nail-biting take on the famous novel probes the shadowy human soul.

Lust, intrigue, and cliffhanging twists amp up this much-loved crime tale, which Billy Wilder also adapted for his classic noir film. In the dusty, amoral Los Angeles of the 1930s, discontented insurance agent Walter Huff encounters temptations too great to resist and embarks on a dark journey to escape his life. Double Indemnity is a suspenseful and profound consideration of the materialistic and sexual cravings of Depression-era America, rendered in a delicious new voice by R. Hamilton Wright and David Pichette.

Following the 2011 Mainstage season, ACT will stage its 36^th annual production of the Seattle holiday favorite,A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, adapted by Gregory A. Falls, November 25-December 24, 2011.

Rounding out the Mainstage season is year-round programming presented by The Central Heating Lab at ACT (CHL), including Scripto Incognito by Ian Bell, Mother in Another Language by ReACT and Prawidhwani, The Variety Show by Seattle Dance Project and Spectrum Dance Theatre, In the Cards cabaret with Jayne Muirhead and John Engerman, plus the return of CHL favorites, New Voices, 14/48, You Really Got a Hold of Me by The Hansberry Project, Pinter Fortnightly, Hedgebrook Women’s Playwright Festival, The Love Markets, Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, InterACTions lecture series, Short Stories Live! at Town Hall, and many, many more!

Subscription Memberships (season packages) and ACTPass Monthly Memberships (all you can see for only $25 a month) are on sale now through the ACT Ticket Office, (206) 292-7676 or 700 Union Street in downtown Seattle, and online at www.acttheatre.org.

Subscription Memberships range from $60 (students with ID/25 and under) to $300, and include a special$177.50 senior matinee package.

Single tickets/non-membership tickets go on sale mid-March and range $15/$20 (for students with ID/25 and under) to $65.

TAPROOT THEATRE’S ACTING STUDIO NOW OFFERS ADULT CLASSES FOR BOTH AMATEUR AND PROFESSIONAL ACTORS

Fall quarter features Adult Showcase, and brand-new Professional Actor Conservatory class

SEATTLE – September 15, 2010 – Whether you’re an amateur actor or a professional, Taproot Theatre’s Acting Studio has something for you this fall. With Adult Showcase and the brand-new Professional Actor Conservatory class, fall quarter features classes for adult actors of all experience levels. Registration is open now; forms are available online at www.taproottheatre.og, or contact Taproot’s Acting Studio at (206) 529-3668 or studio@taproottheatre.org.

With Adult Showcase, Taproot’s Acting Studio believes it’s never too late to develop your acting skills. After all, you do it all the time, whether you realize it or not, in interviews, presentations, and telling stories. Whether you're already an actor or you've never set foot on stage, embrace this opportunity to learn new techniques and develop your skills under professional tutelage tailored to your individual experience. You'll put it all together while participating in the rehearsal process and performance of a one-act play to be presented on Taproot's stage. A great option for first-timers and people with amateur experience! Adult Showcase runs Tuesdays, October 5 through November 22, from 7 to 10 p.m.

Brand new this fall, the new Professional Actors Conservatory: Going Deeper with the Basics class, taught by esteemed director and actor Marianne Savell, is for the professional actor. Recently mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, Savell has years of experience directing and acting on stages along the West Coast and Chicago, teaching and coaching, and has served on the staff and boards of a number of theatre companies, including Hollywood’s Actor’s Co-op andSouth Coast Repertory Conservatory in Costa Mesa. She will coach actors on scene work, teaching them to keys to delving into the core of characters and bringing out their wants, obstacles and actions to deepen the actors’ storytelling skills and make the character come alive. Going Deeper with the Basics takes place on Mondays, October 25 through November 22, from 7 to 10 p.m.

Both classes take place at Timberlake Church-Ballard, located at 1460 NW 73rd Street in Seattle.

Fall quarter at Taproot’s Acting Studio also features classes for kids and teens. Registration is open now. Registration forms and class descriptions are available online at www.taproottheatre.org, or contact Taproot’s Acting Studio at (206) 529-3668 or studio@taproottheatre.org.

TPS 2010 Gregory Awards Nominees Announced

WHAT: The nominees for the 2010 GREGORY AWARDS have been announced, and tickets are now on sale for the 2010 Gregory Awards Ceremony at ACT on Monday, October 25, 2010.

TICKET INFORMATION & INSTRUCTIONS

To purchase tickets, please go online to www.gregoryawards.org or call the ACT box office at 206-292-7676. Presale tickets are $15 for TPS members, $20 general admission, or $30 at the door (no discounts at the door). Doors open at 7:00 PM, and the ceremony begins at 7:30 PM.

VIP RECEPTION

Please join us for a special VIP reception honoring the nominees at 6:30 PM before the doors open for the main event. VIP tickets are $100 and include an opportunity to meet the artists at the reception, plus complimentary wine, beer and hors d’oeuvres throughout the evening, access to the VIP Lounge (sponsored by Fremont Brewing), preferred seating at the ceremony, and a mention in the souvenir program.

THE NOMINEES FOR EACH CATEGORY ARE:

Outstanding Actor Eric Ankrim Charles Leggett MJ Sieber Ray Tagavilla Hans Altwies (Members’ Voice) Daniel Berryman (People’s Choice) Outstanding Actress Anne Allgood Maria Glanz Terri Weagant Portia Marya Sea Kaminski (Members’ Voice) Marianne Owen (People’s Choice) Person to Watch Trick Danneker Angela DiMarco Marc “Waxie Moon” Kenison Patrick Lennon Brandon Ivie (Members’ Voice) Jager Weatherby (People’s Choice) Outstanding Playwright Rachel Atkins Steven Dietz Scotto Moore Kristina Sutherland & Desiree Prewitt Scot Augustson (Members’ Voice) Stephanie Timm (People’s Choice)

Outstanding Scenic Design William Bloodgood Steven Capone David Gignac Derek McLane Andrea Bush (Members’ Voice) Matthew Smucker (People’s Choice) Outstanding Music & Sound Design Edd Key John Osebold RJ Tancioco Rob Witmer Brendan Patrick Hogan (Members’ Voice) Matt Starritt (People’s Choice) Outstanding Costume Design Melanie Burgess Julia Evanovich Lynda L. Salsbury Paul Tazewell Sarah Burch Gordon (Members’ Voice) Frances Kenny (People’s Choice) Outstanding Lighting Design Donald Holder Peter Kaczorowski Andrew D. Smith Tom Sturge L.B. Morse (Members’ Voice) Robert Aguilar (People’s Choice)

Outstanding Director David Armstrong Kurt Beattie Greg Carter Victor Pappas Sheila Daniels (Members’ Voice) Jane Jones (People’s Choice) Outstanding Production 42nd Street Candide Electra The Laramie Project Ruined (Members’ Voice) The Cider House Rules, Part 1 (People’s Choice) Theater of the Year Balagan Theatre Book-It Repertory Theatre Contemporary Classics Village Theatre ACT (Members’ Voice) Seattle Repertory Theatre(People’s Choice)

AFTER PARTY

After the ceremony is over, please join us for the official after-party of the 2010 Gregory Awards, at Solo Bar in lower Queen Anne: 200 Roy Street, Seattle, WA 98109. Solo will donate a portion of all proceeds that night to TPS.

ALSO: Check out this interview with NCTC co-artistic directors, Paul Morgan Stetler and Hans Altwies about their 2009 "Theater of the Year" award:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZsAsDcO5Y8

For More Information:

Visit www.GregoryAwards.org for more details on the Gregory Awards.