Photo Flash: ArtsWest Announces 2009-10 Season

"If there is an underlying principle that links all six of these plays, it is that within each, people progress to a newer level of life, never to suffer the old level again," said ArtsWest Executive Director Alan Harrison. "They transform, they journey, they have fun, they find themselves, they lose themselves, they take a chance, and take a ride."

"It's a more lighthearted season overall than our last," added ArtsWest Theater and Education Director Christopher Zinovitch. "But it's comedy with a lot of compassion, a lot of heart. I think most of us could use that in our lives right now."

Shows:
DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE (Seattle Premiere)
by Sarah Ruhl
Directed by Carol Roscoe (The Vertical Hour, The Retreat from Moscow)
September 9 - October 3, 2009

MEASURE FOR PLEASURE (Seattle Premiere)
by David Grimm
Directed by Christopher Zinovitch
October 21 - November 14, 2009

PLAID TIDINGS: THE FOREVER PLAID CHRISTMAS SHOW
by Stuart Ross
Directed by Jeff Church and Jeannette LeGault

Musical Direction by R.J. Tancioco
Starring John Bartley, Aaron Finley, Ryan McCabe, and Daniel Stoltenberg
December 2 - 27, 2009

LOVE SONG (Seattle Premiere)
by John Kolvenbach
Directed by Kate Witt
January 27 - February 21, 2010

SUNLIGHT (National New Play Network World Premiere)
by Sharr White
Directed by Vanessa Miller (Well)
March 10 - April 3, 2010

TELL ME ON A SUNDAY
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics by Don Black and Richard Maltby, Jr. (Miss Saigon)
Directed by Christopher Zinovitch
Starring Jessica Skerritt
April 28 - May 23, 2010

ArtsWest Playhouse and Gallery
4711 California Avenue SW
Seattle, WA 98116
www.artswest.org
Box Office: (206) 938-0339

ArtsWest starts the season with DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE, a wildly imaginative new work from the playwright behind The Clean House and Eurydice. When Jean answers the cell phone of the corpse at the next table, she unwittingly embarks on a quirky odyssey that takes her from grief to the black market to the afterlife. With unfailing empathy, she sets the dead man's bizarre life to rights and on the way resurrects her own.

"Ruhl's zany probe of the razor-thin line between life and death delivers a fresh and humorous look at the times we live in."-Variety

Lady Vanity loves Sir Lustforth...who loves Hermione Goode...who loves Captain Dick Dashwood...who loves...well, just about everyone (male and female) before the intermission. A deliciously naughty Restoration romp meets modern sex farce, MEASURE FOR PLEASURE chases rakes, romantics, and transvestite prostitutes through mistaken identities, duels, and double-dealings galore on their way to learning that, whatever else it may be, love is rarely pure and never simple. Recommended for ages 17 and older - adult situations.

"Delightfully bawdy comedy with a sentimental streak!" - Associated Press

The Plaids are back, and ArtsWest has 'em! The cast of last year's smash holiday hit returns, singing swingin' jingle bell ringin' favorites. Frankie, Sparky, Jinx, and Smudge are transported from the ethereal cosmos to croon heavenly harmonic renditions of musical hits from the '50s and '60s. Suddenly, as ordered by a heavenly phone call from Rosemary Clooney, they stage a nostalgic holiday extravaganza for world-weary mortals. PLAID TIDINGS: THE FOREVER PLAID CHRISTMAS SHOW is an ideal seasonal show with all the trimmings . . .and one the whole family can enjoy!

"ArtsWest's Plaid Tidings is a treat!" - Seattle Times

Oddball Beane is a modern day hermit, avoiding everyone but his career-focused sister and her cynical husband. His life is a shrinking, darkening world, until the night a beautiful thief breaks into his apartment. Suddenly all of the love songs make sense. His blissful transformation baffles his sister Joan, who finds her own marriage transfigured even as she tries to unravel the story behind Molly, Beane's mysterious new love. Funny, enchanting and tender, LOVE SONG is the latest off-beat romantic comedy from a hot young playwright whose work has been produced from New York to London's West End.

"One of the best new plays of the year. Richly comic and deeply touching. Outstanding. A smashing, compassionate new play." - Daily Telegraph (London).

In SUNLIGHT, it's the middle of the night on a campus in turmoil and at the center of the storm a college president poised for retirement is combating one last scandal. Back at his residence the political battle turns fiercely personal, pitting his family against his legacy. Sharr White is a storyteller with uncommon insight into his characters and his searing new play spotlights an influential American family struggling to make right out of many wrongs.

TELL ME ON A SUNDAY, Andrew Lloyd Webber's one-woman tour de force in song, tells the story of fierce young designer Emma, an ordinary English girl who journeys to New York City in search of love. By turns wry, sly, and very funny, dozens of Lloyd Webber's best songs take us through Emma's romantic misadventures as they lead her from Manhattan to Hollywood and back again, returning older and wiser.

Photos by Nichole DeMent and Matthew Durham

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