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The Western Stage Unveils its 2008 Season

The Western Stage proudly announces its 2008 season! On the Mainstage – The Sound of Music, La Llorona: The Weeping Woman and My Fair Lady, in the Studio Theater The Laramie Project, Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, Rabbit Hole and The Clean House. Call the box office at 755-6816 for more information, or visit the website at westernstage.com. Season subscription packages and Gift Certificates are now available online! (74 word PSA)

Salinas, CA—December 3, 2006

Raymond Carver once wrote that it is not talent that makes a great writer, for there are plenty of writers with talent, but instead it takes “a unique and exact way of looking at things, and finding the right context for expressing that way of looking [at the world].” This not only holds true for short story writers, novelists, and poets, but for playwrights as well. Every play inhabits its own unique world. When we take our seats in a theater and settle in as the house lights fade and the stage lights rise, it is as if we are being invited over the threshold into that particular playwright’s vision of reality.

This is one ingredient that creates a truly dynamic theatre season. Each opening night not only launches the run of a new production, but it also opens the door to a different, unique reality born from the playwright’s imagination and given life by the actors, directors, and designers collaborating on the show. For its 2008 season, The Western Stage offers seven completely different doors for Central Coast audiences to choose from. Some are familiar, leading to the foggy streets and alleyways of Sherlock Holmes’ Victorian England while others lead to more festive worlds full of reverie and song.

One of those doors leads to San Francisco based composer Hector Armienta’s adaptation of La Llorona/the Weeping Woman: a Mexican Musical Novela. Based on the ancient Aztec legend about a woman who is transformed into a grieving and guilt-ridden Banshee after taking revenge on her adulterous husband by drowning their child in a river, this haunting tragedy promises to be one of the most fascinating new works The Western Stage has developed in years.

Yet, not every door leads to such chilling worlds. Some open to nostalgic, comfortable destinations like Rodger and Hammerstein’s final masterpiece The Sound of Music and Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s My Fair Lady. This pair of musicals from the Golden Age of Broadway are as good as comfort food, guaranteed to carry audiences off to familiar pastures with stories we all know by heart and songs we can all sing along with—if not lip sync.

Other plays, however, lead to more sobering realities like Moises Kaufman and his Tectonic Theatre Group’s The Laramie Project and David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole. Based on over 400 interviews collected after the brutal murder of Mathew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, The Laramie Project is a thought provoking docudrama about the impact a homophobic hate crime creates on a quiet, small American town. While the death of a teenager to senseless violence is more than enough to give one pause, the accidental death of a young child remains one of the most terrifying realities any parent could face. Thus is the premise of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole, the story of a family dealing with the tragic loss of their four year old son who was accidentally struck and killed by a car. Rather than wallowing in the histrionics of grief, as a lesser play might do, this 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama explores the deafening silence that follows such a devastating loss.

While it always remains important to visit these worlds colored by heavy, often gut wrenching themes to keep in touch with our empathy for the human condition, it’s also equally important to enjoy a good evening of pure entertainment—and there are two doors leading to just that. If a high, flying, almost brutal farce strikes you as a the perfect escape from your own daily toils, Sarah Ruhl’s 2005 dark comedy The Clean House promises to deliver punch lines that will knock audiences right out of their seats with laughter. When Mathilde, a recent Brazilian immigrant with aspirations to become a stand-up comic, is hired to clean house for a young doctor and her husband, her obsessive quest to write the perfect joke, a joke that will literally “kill” anyone who hears it, proves quite the personal conflict until she finds an obsessive-compulsive cleaner to do her job for her. Even though everyone loves a good joke, if not a deadly joke, others enjoy a gripping mystery full of suspense and romance. These are just the ingredients playwright Steven Dietz serves up in Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure. Adapted from an 1899 play by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and William Gillette, the world’s greatest detective returns to 221B Baker Street after faking his own death to once again join his sidekick Dr. Watson to unravel yet another mystery woven by the diabolical mind of his arch-nemesis Dr. Moriarty.

It doesn’t take a key to unlock these myriad doors. Patrons can visit any or all of these worlds of horror, humor, and mystery by simply purchasing tickets through The Western Stage box office. Groups interested in purchasing a block of tickets should take advantage of TWS’ special group rate by calling Ron Cacas, TWS’ Marketing and Public Relations Manager, at (831) 759-6012. Season subscriptions offer the best bargain, saving patrons up to 42% off the single ticket price. Season subscriptions are available online at westernstage.com.