Performers Under Stress Opens Fourth Season With 'Ghost Train Coming'

Performers Under Stress (PUS) opens its fourth season of critically acclaimed stage-work in the Bay Area with the World Premiere of GHOST TRAIN COMING, a new dark comedy by PUS co-founder Charles Pike (Chicago’s Steppenwolf, Second City, and others). Scott Baker, PUS co-founding Artistic Director, helms this gritty, surreal, campy, and spiritual exploration of a week in the life of Jackie-O, a struggling sex worker, starring Monica Cortes Viharo, Valerie Fachman, and Vince Faso, and featuring Anoulack, Glen Caspillo, Dale Tagtmeyer, and Gareth Whitlow. GHOST TRAIN COMING plays October 30 through November 22 (press opening: October 31) at The Garage, 975 Howard St. in San Francisco. For tickets ($15 in advance, or $7 plus the roll of two dice at the door) and more information, the public may call 415-585-1221, visit pustheatre.com, or brownpapertickets.com. Contains mature language and content.

In GHOST TRAIN COMING, Jackie-O is a struggling American sex worker yearning to breathe free. Set in a rundown SRO somewhere in L.A., Jackie-O supposedly lives alone in order to accommodate her multifarious clientele. But who is that creature that keeps emerging from her storage trunk and bathroom, spinning enigmatic backwoods tales, crooning Elvis standards, requesting more of Jackie-O’s unique tattoos? As drama builds in Jackie-O’s life, her deepening relationship with “The King” becomes indispensable to her salvation and quest to find her own version of the American Dream.

Charles Pike is a playwright, actor, and director. As a playwright, his work has been produced at the Steppenwolf Garage (Now Dig This...The Terry Southern Show), Second City (The Return of the Hip Messiah), Lark Theater, Chicago New Plays Festival, NYC International Fringe Theatre Festival, Revolutions Theater Festival, and Prop Thtr., among others; Sacred Fools in Los Angeles will premiere his play Resignation Day in Spring 2009. Pike is also the co-founder of PUS, where he has co-written, directed, and acted in many of the Company’s productions.

Comprised of Scott Baker and Charles Pike, recipients of Joseph Jefferson Awards for their theater work in Chicago, and Joseph Jefferson nominee Valerie Fachman, PUS has been in existence for over 15 years, and has been critically lauded in Chicago, where the company was founded, and in the Bay Area for its bare-bones productions of Samuel Beckett plays and original works. Other PUS productions include Sam I Am; The Farmington Armada; Anatomy of It’s a Wonderful Life; Robinson Jeffer’s Dead Soldier Walks Home; Glory Hole; Pound Bound; Fun with Dick and Perry; and Jungle of Tongues.

For more information please visit www.pustheatre.com

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