Announcing: The Blank Theatre Company Announces Final Production of 20th Anniversary Season

THE BLANK THEATRE COMPANY ANNOUNCES FINAL PRODUCTION
OF ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON
THE TEMPERAMENTALS BY JON MARANS
DIRECTED BY MICHAEL MATTHEWS

WEST COAST PREMIERE BEGINS PREVIEWS APRIL 9, 2011
AT THE BLANK’S 2nd STAGE THEATRE IN HOLLYWOOD

The Blank Theatre Company (Daniel Henning, Founding Artistic Director) has announced the final production of its 20th anniversary season, the West Coast premiere of The Temperamentals by Jon Marans. Directed by Michael Matthews, The Temperamentals will begin preview performances on Saturday, April 9, 2011 and is set to open on Saturday, April 16 at 8pm. The engagement will run through Sunday, May 22.

“Temperamental” was code for “homosexual” in the early 1950s, part of a created language of secret words that gay men used to communicate. The Temperamentals tells the story of two men – the communist Harry Hay and the Viennese refugee and designer Rudi Gernreich – as they fall in love while building the first gay rights organization in the pre-Stonewall United States.

Of the 2009 off-Broadway production, The New York Times called The Temperamentals “Intellectual, emotional, and sexual.” “Combines savvy context and ascending flights of bittersweet fabulousness,” said New York Newsday. And the Associated Press called it, “Fascinating, entertaining, and emotionally affecting.”

Playwright Jon Marans is well known for his play Old Wicked Songs, which was a 1996 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama, and has been produced throughout the United States and translated and produced in a dozen countries around the world. Other plays by Marans include A Strange and Separate People, Child Child, and Jumping for Joy. Director Michael Matthews is currently represented by the critically acclaimed, sold out hit Take Me Out at Celebration Theatre. Other L.A. credits include The Women of Brewster Place – The Musical, Haram! Iran!, Three Tall Women, Porcelain, Stupid Kids, Beautiful Thing, and The Bacchae (which was recently seen at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival). On Broadway, he served as assistant director on Butley. Previously for The Blank, Matthews directed The Jazz Age and The Santaland Diaries (in both 2009 and 2010).

Tickets will go on sale February 1 and may be purchased by calling (323) 661-9827 or online at www.TheBlank.com. The Blank’s 2nd Stage Theatre is located at 6500 Santa Monica Boulevard (at Wilcox), in Hollywood. Secured valet parking is available.

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01-04-11

Assistant Directing: The Women of Brewster Place – The Musical

CELEBRATION THEATRE PRESENTS
THE WEST COAST PREMIERE OF
THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE – THE MUSICAL
WITH MUSIC, BOOK AND LYRICS BY TIM ACITO (ZANNA, DON’T)
CHOREOGRAPHY BY AMEENAH KAPLAN (ALTAR BOYZ, FROSTY THE SNOW MANILOW), MUSICAL DIRECTION BY GREG NABOURS (A NEW BRAIN)
DIRECTION BY MICHAEL MATTHEWS (HARAM IRAN, BEAUTIFUL THING)
AND PRODUCED FOR CELEBRATION THEATRE BY DAVID TARLOW.

THE NEW MUSICAL WILL OPEN ON FRIDAY, APRIL 23.

Based on Gloria Naylor’s beloved award-winning collection of stories The Women of Brewster Place—The Musical premiered in 2007 as a co-production between the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta and Arena Stage in Washington D.C.

Using an original score of R&B, pop, disco and old school funk, the musical tells the individual stories of eight very different African American women in a 1970’s housing project who are struggling with issues of identity, poverty, hope, love and loss. Simultaneously comic and heartbreaking, wise and shortsighted, noble and flawed, each of the women must ultimately face the largest question of all − where does one’s individual story end, and the story of one’s community begin?

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3-4-10