Rep Stage Presents THE PIANO TEACHER, Now thru 2/23

Rep Stage, the regional theatre in residence at Howard Community College (HCC), continues its 21st season with Julia Cho's "The Piano Teacher." Helen Hayes award winner and Rep Stage veteran Kasi Campbell ("Yellowman," "Travels With My Aunt," "The Temperamentals") directs Cho's affective thriller, which was originally produced in 2007 at the Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California, and Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre that same year. "The Piano Teacher" has been acclaimed by The New York Times as "Deftly wrought...a cozy, effective little chiller...you will probably feel speechless with sadness," and praised by The New Yorker as "Well-written...triumphs in dramatizing the unknown." The story centers on Mrs. K, a long retired piano teacher, who looks back upon her former students with much affection. Nostalgic and lonely, Mrs. K contacts them. Recollections of happy afternoons at her piano are shattered as she meets a darker, unimaginable truth.

"The Piano Teacher" opens tonight, February 5, 2014, with a limited run through February 23 in the Smith Theatre of the Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center (HVPA) on the campus of HCC. For tickets and additional information, visit www.repstage.org or call 443-518-1500. Press performance is Saturday, February 8, at 8 p.m.

"The Piano Teacher" was a finalist for the 2007 Susan Smith Blackburn prize. "We wrap ourselves in a created protective skin, a construct that neatly separates and lifts us above the darker aspects of the world we live in," comments director Kasi Campbell. "Cho's tightly written play delivers an intimate setting to test that created skin."

Julia Cho is an award-winning playwright whose honors include the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for "The Language Archive," Barrie Stavis Award, the Claire Tow Award for Emerging Artists, and the L. Arnold Weissberger Award. Her play "Durango" was named one of the Top 10 Plays of 2006 by Entertainment Weekly and one of the Best of 2007 by The L.A. Times. She has been a resident playwright at New Dramatists since 2004. Ms. Cho was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for her work on the FOX television series "Fringe."

A newcomer to the DC/Baltimore theatre scene, Laureen E. Smith stars as Mrs. K. Laureen was a regular on stages in Vancouver, British Columbia, and as far-reaching as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She is joined by Joshua Morgan as Michael, also new to Rep Stage. Joshua is the artistic director of No Rules Theatre Company, currently at residence at The Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia. Most recently he appeared in The Folger Shakepeare Theatre's production of "Twelth Night." Rounding out the cast is another Rep first-timer, Kashi-Tara Barrett, who plays Mary Fields. Kashi-Tara is the artistic director, writer, choreographer and founder of The Finest! Performance Foundation Inc. Her most recent work, "A Change Gon' Come," appeared at the DC Black Theatre Festival.