Rolling World Premiere of Steven Dietz's RANCHO MIRAGE Comes to New Rep Theatre, Now thru 11/3

New Repertory Theatre announces the National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere of Steven Dietz' dark comedy RANCHO MIRAGE, tonight, October 12 through November 3, 2013. Directed by Robert Walsh, RANCHO MIRAGE performs in the Charles Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal Street, in Watertown, MA. Tickets are $28-$60 and may be purchased by calling the box office at 617-923-8487 or online at newrep.org. Student, senior, and group discounts are available. The press performance is Monday, October 14 at 7:30pm.

"Steven Dietz is one of our most prolific, published, and produced playwrights in the U.S. today," says Artistic Director Jim Petosa. "It's a unique position for New Rep, as a core member of the National New Play Network (NNPN), to join forces with sister theatres around the nation and, as a group, commit to develop and produce new works like RANCHO MIRAGE, and celebrate together throughout the season."

"We're thrilled to produce another NNPN Rolling World Premiere," says Managing Director Harriet Sheets. "BAKERSFIELD MIST, also an NNPN Rolling World Premiere that New Rep produced in 2012, was an audience favorite and earned the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Script."

RANCHO MIRAGE features Cate Damon (Pam), Tamara Hickey (Diane), Abbie Killeen (Louise), John Kooi (Charlie), Robert Pemberton (Trevor), Lewis D. Wheeler (Nick), and Marion Mason (Julie).

About RANCHO MIRAGE: Acclaimed playwright Steven Dietz' black comedy looks at affluent suburban couples whose truths finally catch up with them. At an ill-fated dinner party, these long-time friends are awakened to the secrets of their past with hilarious and farcical results. Written by one of America's most widely-produced playwrights, this National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere comedy asks what remains between us when youth, dreams, and the last bottle of wine is gone?

New Repertory Theatre is the award-winning, professional theatre company in residence at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, MA. Entering its 30th season as a leading self-producing theatre in greater Boston, New Rep produces contemporary and classic dramas, comedies, and musicals in both the 340-seat Charles Mosesian Theater and the 90-seat Black Box Theater. Annually, New Rep serves 45,000-50,000 patrons, including over 2,200 season Subscribers. In addition to its mainstage productions, the non-profit theatre produces New Rep's Next Voices, with four playwrights each season, which develops new plays into three staged readings and one world premiere production. Under its Lifelong Enrichment Arts Programs (LEAP), New Rep also produces its Classic Repertory Company, summerSTAGE2, Page To Stage, Insider Experiences, and Spotlight Symposium Series.

New Rep's Mission: New Repertory Theatre produces plays that speak powerfully to the essential ideas of our time. Through the passion and electricity of live theater performed to the highest standards of excellence, New Rep expands and challenges the human spirit of both artists and audience. New Rep presents world premieres, contemporary and classic works in several intimate settings. We are committed to education and outreach, including special dedication to the creation of innovative in-school programming and providing access to underserved audiences. New Rep is an active advocate for the arts and a major voice in the national dialogue defining the role of theater in our culture.

About the National New Play Network: The National New Play Network (NNPN) is the country's alliance of nonprofit theaters that champions the development, production and continued life of new plays. We strive to pioneer, implement and disseminate ideas and programs that revolutionize the way theaters collaborate to support new plays and playwrights. Since its founding in 1998, NNPN has commissioned eighteen playwrights, provided more than twenty MFA graduates with paid residencies, and supported over 100 productions nationwide through its innovative Continued Life of New Plays Fund, which creates "Rolling World Premieres" of new plays. Through these activities and others, NNPN has granted over a half million dollars to theaters and artists in the past ten years. All told, hundreds of artists have gained employment through these efforts in the 24 regions of the country where NNPN member theaters are located.

ARTISTIC BIOS:

Cate Damon* (Pam) returns to New Repertory Theatre after appearing in Jack and Jill. Other area credits include First Night (The Theater Lobby), It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, and A Christmas Carol (Foothills Theatre). Off- Broadway credits include Johnny Got His Gun (Cherry Lane) and 5th of July (Equity Library Theatre). Film credits include The God Question. Television credits include commercials for Burger King, Pizzeria Uno, and Arm and Hammer. She is a member of New Century Theatre in Northampton, MA, where she has appeared in over 30 plays including God of Carnage, Distracted, Arcadia, The Heidi Chronicles, Sight Unseen, Kimberly Akimbo, and Morning's at Seven.

Tamara Hickey* (Diane) makes her New Repertory Theatre debut. Other area credits include Pericles and Living in Exile (Actors' Shakespeare Project); Beat Generation and Aunt Dan and Lemon (Merrimack Repertory Theatre); and Cabaret (A.R.T., IRNE Award Best Ensemble). Film and television credits include The Judge (Warner Bros); Chasing Life and Gilded Lilys (ABC Pilots); The Makeover (ABC); In Your Eyes (Independent Film); Army Wives (Lifetime); One Life To Live (ABC); and Against The Ropes (Paramount). Ms. Hickey earned her MFA in Theatre from American Repertory Theatre. Originally from Prince Edward Island, Canada, she resides in Medford. After Rancho Mirage, she will appear in Henry VIII (Actors' Shakespeare Project).

Abigail Killeen* (Louise) makes her New Repertory Theatre debut. Other New England credits include Love/Sick and A Christmas Carol (Portland Stage Company); Love's Labor's Lost and Macbeth (Fenix Theater, PEER Award Best Actress); Next Fall, The Importance of Being Earnest and Death by Design (Good Theater). Off-Broadway credits include The Mag-7 (Naked Angels) and The Phoenician Women (New York Theatre Workshop). Ms. Killeen earned her BFA from New York University, her MFA from Brandeis University, and teaches acting at Bowdoin College in Maine. Originally from Brazil, she resides in Brunswick, ME. After Rancho Mirage, her adaptation of Isak Dinesen's Babette's Feast (written with Rose Courtney) will premiere Off-Broadway.

John Kooi* (Charlie) makes his New Repertory Theatre debut. Recent area credits include Operation Epsilon (The Nora Theatre Company); The Company We Keep (Boston Playwrights' Theatre); A Moon for the Misbegotten, Dinah Was, Betrayal, and As You Like It (Merrimack Repertory Theatre); Danny Casolaro Died For You and Romance (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater); and Hamlet (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company). Regional credits include The Glass Menagerie and The Woman In Black (Shadowland Theatre); Romeo and Juliet (The Cleveland Orchestra); Beyond Therapy (Long Beach Playhouse); and Much Ado About Nothing (Pasadena Shakespeare Company). New York credits include Othello (John Montgomery Theatre Company); Twelfth Night (The Actors' Company Theatre); and Romeo and Juliet (Metropolitan Playhouse of New York). Film and television credits include Sins of the Preacher and Labor Day. Mr. Kooi earned his BA from St. John's University (Minnesota) and his MFA from Brandeis University. Originally from suburban Chicago, he resides in North Chelmsford.

Marion Mason (Julie) makes her New Repertory Theatre debut. Recent area credits include Fireworks (Mercutio Troupe), The Bear, Tartuff (Emerson Stage), DNA, and Julius Caesar (Shakespeare Society). New York credits include the national tour of Speak About It. Film and television credits include The Byte (EIV), Crazy in Training (Women in Motion), The Uplink (Emerson Channel), and Camp Hope (Lionsgate Entertainment). Ms. Mason earned her BFA in Acting from Emerson College. Originally from Westport, CT, she resides both in Boston and in New York.

Robert Pemberton* (Trevor) returns to New Repertory Theatre after performing in 'ART', Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, and Speed the Plow/IRNE Award; Other credits include Driving Miss Daisy, Ponies, and Dinner with Friends (Gloucester Stage Company); Mercy Seat (The Lyric Stage Company); Antony and Cleopatra, A Midsummer Night's Dream/Elliot Norton Award (Boston Theatre Works); Much Ado About Nothing/Elliot Norton Award (Public Theatre); and Shel's Shorts (Market Theatre/Elliot Norton Award). Film credits include By the Sea (nominated for a Latin Oscar), Treading Water, Boondock Saints, The Exchange, Gentleman from Boston, Temps, The Still Point, The New England Connection, and Anathema. Television credits include Another World, Guiding Light, Unsolved Mysteries, and over 400 hundred national and local commercials.

Lewis D. Wheeler* (Nick) returns to New Repertory Theatre after performing in Long Day's Journey Into Night, Silence, and Cyrano. A founding member of the new Harbor Stage Company in Wellfleet, acting credits there include The Seagull and Hedda Gabler, and he directed Sticks and Bones. Regional credits include No Man's Land/IRNE Nomination, Best Supporting Actor (American Repertory Theatre); The Importance of Being Earnest, A Number, and The Glass Menagerie (The Lyric Stage Company); Doubt and An Ideal Husband (Gloucester Stage Company); Arcadia/IRNE Nomination, Best Actor and Troilus and Cressida (Publick Theatre); Life of Galileo (Underground Railway Theater); No Exit (Payomet); Hamlet and Macbeth (Shakespeare Now); Bald Soprano, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, What the Butler Saw, and five seasons with Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre; and work at American Stage (Florida), Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Huntington Theatre Company, Wellesley Summer Theatre, Stoneham Theatre, The Vineyard Playhouse, and The Center for Arts in Natick. Film and television credits include The Company Men, Gone Baby Gone, Pink Panther 2, Underdog, Louisa May Alcott (PBS), and Brotherhood (Showtime). Mr. Wheeler earned his BA in Theatre and Film Studies at Cornell University and his MFA from the American Film Institute. He resides in Boston.

Robert Walsh (Director) returns to New Repertory Theatre after directing Race, Speed the Plow, True West, Holiday Memories, and The Circle. As an actor he has appeared in 'ART' and The Cocktail Hour. He has also served as Fight Choreographer for The Pillowman, Approaching Moomtag, and A Girl's War, among others. Other directing credits include Othello (Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey); Table Manners, Round and Round the Garden, K2, and Later (Merrimack Repertory Theatre); The Goatwoman of Corvis County and The Secret of Sherlock Holmes (Shakespeare & Company); I Hate Hamlet (Stage West); The Little Foxes (Barter Theatre); North Shore Fish, Fighting Over Beverly, The Widow's Blind Date, and The Primary English Class (Gloucester Stage Company); Misalliance and A Life in the Theatre (Two River Theatre Company); The Liar (The Lyric Stage Company); The Speed of Darkness (The Nora Theatre Company); Of Mice and Men (Stoneham Theatre); A Lie of the Mind (A.R.T./M.X.A.T. Institute); and numerous productions at the American Stage Festival, where he served as Producing Artistic Director. Other area acting credits include As You Like It, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Coriolanus, Twelfth Night, and Measure for Measure (Actors' Shakespeare Project). Mr. Walsh is on faculty at both the Institute for Advanced Theater Training at A.R.T. and Brandeis University.

Steven Dietz (Playwright) is the author of over thirty plays and is one of America's most widely-produced and published contemporary playwrights. He is a two-time winner of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award, a two-time finalist for the Steinberg New Play Award, winner of the Pen USA West Award in Drama, winner of the Edgar Award for Drama, winner of the Yomuiri Shimbun Award, and an Ingram New Works Fellow at Tennessee Repertory Theatre. For ten years he was a resident director at the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, where he also served as Artistic Director of Midwest PlayLabs. His plays have been produced world-wide and translated into ten languages, and his articles have been published in American Theatre Magazine. Mr. Dietz teaches playwriting and directing at the University of Texas in Austin and regularly directs at Zach Theatre.

The show runs at the Charles Mosesian Theatre, Arsenal Center for the Arts 321 Arsenal Street, Watertown, Mass. For tickets, contact: Telephone: 617-923-8487; Online: newrep.org; In Person: 10am to 6pm, Arsenal Center for the Arts 321 Arsenal Street, Watertown, Mass. Parking: Free, six-level parking garage next to the Arsenal Center for the Arts. Public transport: #70 or #70A bus to the School Street stop from Central Square Station, Red Line. Wheelchair Accessible, Assistive Listening System Large-Print and Braille Programs Available.

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