Intiman Theatre Presents THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, Starring Judith Roberts, 8/21-9/20

Intiman Theatre, under the leadership of Artistic Director Bartlett Sher and Managing Director Brian Colburn, continues its 2009 Season with The Year of Magical Thinking, adapted by Joan Didion from her memoir, directed by Sarna Lapine and starring Judith Roberts. Performances will begin at Intiman Theatre, 201 Mercer Street at Seattle Center, on Friday, August 21 and continue through Sunday, September 20. The opening night performance is Wednesday, August 26 at 7:30 pm.

Since the 1960s, Joan Didion has earned acclaim for the cool, elegant prose with which, in a dozen novels and essays, she has dissected American culture and politics. On December 30, 2003, her life changed when her husband of nearly 40 years, the writer John Gregory Dunne, died suddenly of a heart attack as she prepared dinner. After his death, Didion turned to poetry as she wrote her memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, her story of love, loss and the power of grief to derange the mind. In her own stage adaptation of the acclaimed memoir, she brings her singular-and newly personal-voice to the universal experience of what it feels like to be made crazy by grief, the power of magical thinking, and letting go.

Tickets are available from www.intiman.org or 206.269.1900. Tickets range in price from $40 to $55, with discounts available for groups, seniors and members of the military (those on active duty and veterans). Patrons 25 and under can purchase tickets to any performance for $10. Pending availability, rush tickets will be sold 15 minutes before curtain for $20.

To support patrons in the current economy, throughout the season all adult tickets for every Tuesday night performance are on sale for $25 and Intiman will offer floating pay-what-you-can performances for each production. Intiman has also created a new "Friends Four Pack": patrons can buy four adult tickets for any production and save $50 off their total order.

The Year of Magical Thinking won the 2005 National Book Award; the play adaptation had its world premiere in 2007. Didion's other works-seven nonfiction books and five novels-include Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It as It Lays, The White Album, Salvador, Democracy, Miami and Political Fictions. With her husband, John Gregory Dunne, she wrote the screenplays for such films as The Panic in Needle Park, True Confessions and Up Close & Personal.

Didion is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which awarded her its 2005 Gold Medal in nonfiction. Among her many other honors, she was awarded the 2007 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards. She contributes to various periodicals, most frequently The New York Review of Books.

The production features Judith Roberts as Joan Didion. She was previously seen in Seattle at Intiman in The Seagull and Tongue of a Bird, and at ACT in Big Love. New York credits include Present Laughter on Broadway; Richard III at Classic Stage Company, and The Voysey Inheritance and Hobson's Choice for the Atlantic Theater Company. Her film credits include David Lynch's cult film Eraserhead as The Beautiful Girl Across the Hall.

Director Sarna Lapine worked as assistant director on the Broadway productions of South Pacific, Awake and Sing! and The Light in the Piazza, all directed by Bartlett Sher. She has directed readings of new and original works at New York Theatre Workshop, the Warning: Not for Broadway Festival presented by Dixon Place and Philipstown Depot Theatre. Her first film, the short documentary My Saraab, about the Seattle-based Iraqi sculptor Sabah Al-Dhaher, received the 2005 Northwest Film Forum's Best Short Film Award sponsored by Altoids and was an official selection at several film festivals including the Big Sky Documentary Festival, Beverly Hills Shorts Festival, Arab and Iranian Film Festival and Northwest Folklife. She received her M.F.A. from the Film Division of Columbia University's School of the Arts.

The creative team includes scenic and costume designer Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams, lighting designer L.B. Morse and sound designer Leon Rothenberg. The casting is by Janet Foster, C.S.A. and the stage manager is Michael B. Paul.

Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams (Scenic and Costume Designer) is a graduate of Cornish College of the Arts. Her credits include The Cook (Seattle Rep), Topdog/Underdog (Actors Theatre of Louisville) and LOW (The Public's Under the Radar Festival). She was associate scenic designer for the Broadway revival of Joe Turner's Come and Gone and works frequently with scenic designer Michael Yeargan, including on the Broadway productions of South Pacific, Awake and Sing! and The Light in the Piazza. She received her M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama.

L.B. Morse (Lighting Designer) is a lighting, scenic and multimedia designer for theatre and dance. Recent credits include lighting for A Streetcar Named Desire at Intiman, sets and multimedia for The Tempest at Seattle Shakespeare Company, lighting and multimedia for Betrayal and lighting and scenery for Breakin' Hearts and Takin' Names, both at Seattle Rep.

Leon Rothenberg (Sound Designer) received a Tony nomination for the sound design of the Broadway revival of Joe Turner's Come and Gone. He works frequently with Cirque du Soleil, where his credits include Wintuk, Kooza and, as assistant, LOVE, Corteo and KÀ.

This production is sponsored in part by Holland America Line.

Seasonal support for Intiman Theatre is provided by ArtsFund; Intiman Theatre Foundation; Kreielsheimer Remainder Foundation; The Leading National Theatres Program, a joint initiative of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; The Shubert Foundation; and Washington State Arts Commission.

For more information, visit www.intiman.org.