Arizona Theatre Company Presents Smart, Sexy Hit, "Venus in Fur," April 5-26

 

 

From: Steve Carr [mailto:scarr51@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Steve Carr
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2014 3:06 PM
Subject: Arizona Theatre Company Presents Smart, Sexy Hit, "Venus in Fur," April 5-26

 

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact: Steve Carr, 602-317-3040; scarr@fastq.com 

ATC PRESENTS SMART AND SEXY BROADWAY HIT, “VENUS IN FUR,” AT TEMPLE OF MUSIC AND ART, APRIL 5-26

            TUCSON, Ariz. (March 24, 2014) – Venus in Fur, the award-winning Broadway play by David Ives is a lively, fun and risque look at the result of an audition between a modern director and an actress hoping to land the lead in his racy new play. One of the sexiest, intelligent and most acclaimed new plays in recent Broadway history, Venus in Fur has been called “90 minutes of good, kinky fun” by The New York Times and comes to the Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave., from April 5-26.

          I. Michael and Beth Kasser are the 2013-14 Season Sponsors.  Opening night is supported by Downtown Kitchen + Cocktail.

          Venus in Fur is an electrifying game of cat and mouse that explores the lines between fantasy and reality, seduction and power, love and sex.  Set in a rundown rehearsal studio, Venus in Fur pits Vanda, a talented and ambitious young actress who is determined to win the lead role, against the controlling writer-director Thomas.  In this fast-moving play, Thomas is drawn into reading his own script with the seducing and enigmatic Vanda, producing a sizzling exploration of sexual control and attraction. 

          In Ives’ play, the script that Thomas has written is an adaptation of “Venus in Furs,” the 1870 erotic novella by Leopold Sacher-Masoch.  This novella became infamous in the 19^th Century when the author’s last name inspired Austrian psychiatrist Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing to coin the term “masochism.” 

          Charles Isherwood, writing in the New York Times, called Venus in Fur equally as funny as any other play on Broadway, but also “something darker, stranger and altogether more delicious: a suspense-packed study of the erotics (and the semiotics) of power, in which the two participants … prove to be seriously, almost scarily adept.”

          Venus In Fur is produced in association with Seattle Repertory Theatre.

          David Ives (Playwright) is perhaps best known for his evening of one-act plays, All in the Timing and for his drama Venus in Fur, which was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play. His plays include New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza; The School for Lies (adapted from Molière’s The Misanthrope); The Liar (adapted from Corneille); Time Flies; and Is He Dead? (adapted from Mark Twain). He has also translated Feydeau’s A Flea in Her Ear and Yasmina Reza’s A Spanish Play. A former Guggenheim Fellow in playwriting and a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Mr. Ives lives in New York City.

          Shana Cooper (Director) most recently directed The Unfortunates and Love’s Labor’s Lost at Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), as well as serving as assistant director on the original production of Bill Cain’s Equivocation. Other regional credits include Yale Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, and Sonoma Repertory Theatre. She is currently a Phil Killian Directing Fellow at OSF and was the Associate Artistic Director of California Shakespeare Theater from 2000-2004. She received a master’s degree in Directing from Yale School of Drama.

CAST:

          Michael Tisdale (Thomas) is making his ATC debut. New York credits include Never the Sinner (John Houseman Theater); The Shawl (Jewish Repertory Theatre); Photograph 51 (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Waste (Theatre for a New Audience); and The Private Lives of Eskimos. Regionally, Mr. Tisdale has performed at Huntington Theatre Company, Ahmanson Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Bard Summerscape, Alley Theatre and many more. Television credits include Third Watch, Law & Order, Unforgettable and Guiding Light. As a playwright, Mr. Tisdale’s work has been developed and/or produced by Atlantic Theater Company, Rising Phoenix Repertory, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, hotINK, Hartford Stage Company, Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, American Theatre Company (Chicago), New York Theatre Workshop and Cleveland Public Theatre. As a filmmaker, his award-winning short films have appeared in over 40 festivals around the world including the Beloit International, São Paolo International, Nashville, Heartland, Cleveland International and Sundance film festivals.

          Gillian Williams (Vanda) is thrilled to be making her ATC debut. Regional credits include Michael Wilson’s A Christmas Carol – A Ghost Story of Christmas (Hartford Stage Company); Cabaret (Trinity Repertory Company); Submerged (American Theater Company); Hamlet and boom (Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre). Film and television credits include Self Storage; A Dream of Flying (Ron Howard/The Weinstein Company); and CBS’s The Good Wife. Ms. Williams also assistant directed Fiasco Theater’s acclaimed off-Broadway production of Cymbeline at the New Victory Theater and was one of two Americans to receive the 2011 International Actors’ Fellowship from Shakespeare’s Globe. Ms. Williams holds an MFA from Brown University/Trinity Rep Graduate Acting Program and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College.

          The creative team for Venus in Fur includes scenic designer Sibyl Ann Wickersheimer, costume designer Harmony Arnold, lighting designer Geoff Korf, composer and sound designer Robertson Witmer, dialect coach Gin Hammond and fight consultant Geoff Alm, all of whom except Mr. Alm are making their ATC debuts. Stage manager is Glenn Bruner. 

          Tickets for Venus in Fur start at $37, are subject to change depending on time, date and section, and are available at www.arizonatheatre.org or by calling the box office at (520) 622-2823.  Discounts are available for seniors and active military.  A $10 student ticket pricing is now available for all performances.  Half-price rush tickets are available for balcony seating for all performances one hour prior to curtain at the ATC box office (subject to availability). Pay What You Can is NEED DATE at 7:30 p.m.  Tickets for this performance are available for a suggested $10 donation and must be purchased starting one hour prior to curtain.  Seating is first-come, first.  Cash only. (Two tickets maximum per person.) For discounts for groups of 10 or more, call (520) 622-2823.

          Arizona Theatre Company offers accessibility services for patrons with disabilities for select performances.  Audio Description provides patrons with vision loss a running audio description of the movement and activities onstage through an infrared broadcast system.  Audio-Described performances are offered on Thursday, April 24 at 2 p.m.  Interested patrons with vision loss may request a tactile tour one hour prior to curtain. American Sign Language Interpretation is presented by professional, theatrically trained ASL-interpreters for people who have deafness or hearing impairment.  An ASL-interpreted performance is offered in Tucson on Thursday, April 24 at 7:30 p.m. Open-captioning allows patrons to read the play's dialogue on an LED screen as the play progresses.  An open-captioned performance is offered in Tucson on Thursday, April 24 at 2 p.m. For open-captioned or ASL-interpreted performances, patrons should request seats best suited to ASL interpretation or captioning when purchasing tickets.  Large print and Braille playbills and infrared listening amplification devices are also available at every ATC performance with reservation. TTY access for the box office is available in Tucson at (520) 884-9723 or via Arizona Relay at (800) 367-8939 (TTY/ASCII).

About Arizona Theatre Company: Touching lives through the power of theatre, Arizona Theatre Company (ATC), is the preeminent fully professional theatre in the state of Arizona. Boasting the largest seasonal subscriber base in the performing arts in Arizona, ATC is the only resident company in the US that is fully based in two cities providing its wide array of programming and community outreach across the region. Now in its 47th season, more than 130,000 people a year attend our performances at the historic Temple of Music and Art in Tucson, and the elegant Herberger Theater Center in downtown Phoenix. Each season of home-grown productions reflects the rich variety of world drama—from classics to contemporary plays, from musicals to new works—along with a wide array of community outreach programs, educational opportunities, access initiatives.

SHOW DATES

Saturday, April 5, 8 p.m.

Sunday, April 6, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, April 8, 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, April 9, 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 10, 7:30 p.m.

Friday, April 11, 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 12, 8 p.m.

Sunday, April 13, 2 and 7 p.m.

Tuesday, April 15, 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, April 16, 2 and 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 17, 7:30 p.m.

Friday, April 18, 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 19, 4 and 8 p.m.

Sunday, April 20, 2 p.m.

Wednesday, April 23, 2 and 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 24, 2 and 7:30 p.m.

Friday, April 25, 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 26, 2 and 8 p.m.

 

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