Company of Fools Presents OTHER DESERT CITIES, 7/2-28

Hidden secrets are unearthed and family tensions fly high in Pulitzer Prize nominee Jon Robin Baitz's contemporary family drama Other Desert Cities, hailed by the New York Times as "the best new play on Broadway" in 2011. Richmond Theatre Critics Circle award winner and Company of Fools' founder RusTy Wilson returns to direct the Idaho premiere of the show with a standout cast that features Keith Moore, Denise Simone and Patsy Wygle and guest actors Hanna Cheek and Adrian Rieder. Other Desert Cities runs July 2-27, 2013 at the Liberty Theatre.

When Brooke Wyeth arrives at her parents' Palm Springs mansion on Christmas Eve with the manuscript of her tell-all memoir in tow, she unearths a devastating family secret that throws her parents into a panic and threatens to rip the clan apart. With biting wit and razor-sharp insight, Other Desert Cities "has the appeal of a Broadway hit from another age" (The New York Times). Full of surprisingly touching moments, Jon Robin Baitz's play brings dysfunctional family drama to new heights in this witty, deeply enjoyable work that garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best New Play and won the 2012 Drama League Award.

The creative team for Other Desert Cities includes Joe Lavigne (Set Designer), John Glenn (Lighting Designer), TEd Macklin (Sound Design) andK.O. Ogilvie (Stage Manager).

RusTy Wilson (Direction) is a free-lance theatre artist and teacher based in Richmond, VA. Since moving to Richmond in 2005, he has directed a number of critically acclaimed productions including Firehouse Theatre's, Death of a Salesman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Eurydice, and Mr. Marmalade. He also directed Cadence Theatre's production of In The Next Room, or the vibrator play. Prior to moving to Richmond, Rusty spent ten years serving as the Founding Artistic Director for Company of Fools, an award winning theatre company located in Sun Valley, Idaho. Favorite directing credits there include Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, The Glass Menagerie, Uncle Vanya, James Joyce's The Dead, Waiting for Godot, How I Learned to Drive, The Tempest, Death and the Maiden, and Buried Child. During Rusty's tenure, Company of Fools received the Idaho Governor's Award, and it continues to be one of Idaho's leading arts institutions. Rusty has been a guest director and teacher at various colleges and universities around the country, and received a fellowship in directing in 2003. He currently serves as the Arts Dept. Chair, and Director of Theatre at St. Christopher's School.

Jon Robin Baitz (Playwright) plays include Maizlansky/Zilinsky or "smucks," The Film Society, The Substance of Fire, The End of the Day, Three Hotels, A Fair Country, (an adaptation of) Hedda Gabler, Ten Unknowns and The Paris Letter. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for A Fair Country and a Guggenheim, NEA and American Academy of the Arts and Letters Award winner. He is on the faculties of the New School's Graduate Drama Division and Stony Brook South Hampton's MFA in theater and film. His screenplays include The Substance of Fire and People I Know starring Al Pacino, both for Miramax. He created the ABC drama Brothers & Sisters in 2006, after writing an episode of The West Wing (The Long Goodbye). Other Desert Cities was nominated for Lortel, Drama Desk, Drama League and Outer Critics Circle Awards, winning the latter two.

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