Strand Theater Launches 10th Anniversary Season with ORIGIN OF SPECIES

The Strand Theater Company will open its 10th Anniversary Season with a production of Origin of the Species by British playwright, Bryony Lavery.

Molly is an old lady who digs up her ancestor: a four-million-year-old woman, miraculously alive. Molly names her Victoria and smuggles her home with her to Yorkshire. Clocks - biological and other - tick away in this engaging two-hander that digs deep beneath the sands of time to discover that we are all brothers and sisters under the skin.

Directed by Erin Riley. Cast includes Janet Constable Preston as Molly, and Nicole Mullins-Teasley as Victoria.

Origin of the Species opens tonight, November 3, 2017 and runs Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm, through November 19. Tickets are $20 General Admission, $10 for students, seniors and artists. All performances take place at 5426 Harford Rd. 21201. Tickets are available at strand-theater.org.

"This Season is titled "Journey", which echoes both the journey our Company has been on over the past 10 years, and the individual journeys women in our society embark on throughout time," says Strand's Executive Director, Elena Kostakis. "Origin of the Species explores the fundamental idea of a woman's role in society and her journey to ultimately finding herself."

Performances run November 3-19, Thurs-Sat at 8:00 p.m., Sundays at 2:00pm at 5426 Harford Rd. Baltimore MD 21201. For tickets, visit www.strand-theater.org. General Admission - $20; Student/Senior/Artist - $10.

Playwright Bryony Lavery (born 1947) is a British dramatist, known for her successful and award-winning 1998 play Frozen. In addition to her work in theatre, she has also written for television and radio. She has written books including the biography Tallulah Bankhead and The Woman Writer's Handbook, and taught playwriting at Birmingham University.

Having begun her career as an actress, she decided that she was fed up with playing poor parts in plays, such as the left arm of a sofa, and decided to write plays with better parts for women. Early in her career she founded a theatre company called Les Oeufs Malades with actor Gerard Bell, she also founded Female Trouble, More Female Trouble and served as artistic director of Gay Sweatshop.

Her plays have a feminist undertone in them and she has even written plays (like More Light which has only one male speaking role) with almost entirely female casts. She has written more than twenty plays since 1976.

The Strand Theater Company champions challenging and provocative theater that especially celebrates women's diverse voices and perspectives while bringing together the creative talents of both women and men as artists, technicians, and administrators. We invite patrons to experience some of the region's best contemporary and reinterpreted works for the stage in our intimate midtown theater.

Since launching in 2008, the Strand has presented over 35 full-length plays, including twelve World Premieres; offered 75% of the artistic positions on its productions-as playwrights, directors, designers, stage managers, and actors-to women; provided affordable theater space to many organizations and independent artists; and played an integral role in the revitalization of the Station North Arts & Entertainment District.

In August 2011, the Strand was honored as one of Baltimore magazine's "Top 5 Baltimore Theaters," along with CENTERSTAGE, Everyman, the Hippodrome, and Single Carrot. To learn more about the Strand Theater Company, visit www.strand-theater.org

Photo Credit: Jim Preston

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