The Nora Theatre Company Presents A Moon for the Misbegotten 10/7-11/7

The Nora Theatre Company opens their season with a revival of Eugene O'Neill's enduring masterpiece, A Moon for the Misbegotten. Directed by Richard McElvain, A Moon for the Misbegotten plays at Central Square Theater from Thursday, October 7th through Sunday, November 7th. The press performance is scheduled for Sunday, October 10 at 2 PM.

This uniquely funny and poignant play brings together two of O'Neill's most memorable characters, Josie Hogan, the tough-talking daughter of an Irish immigrant farmer, and Jim Tyrone, first introduced in O'Neill's autobiographical Long Day's Journey Into Night. Burdened with dark family legacies, they find solace in each other as their search for redemption weaves an unlikely and magnificent love story.

RaMona Lisa Alexander's (Josie Hogan) local credits include a national tour of Are You Ready, My Sister, last season's Harriet Jacobs, and How Do You Spell Hope? in February 2009 with Underground Railway Theater, Breath Boom with the Huntington Theatre Company, Intimate Apparel with Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, and The Christmas Carol with Berkshire Theatre Festival. She received an IRNE Award for 103 Within The Veil with Company One. She was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the IRNE Awards for her roles in For Colored Girls... and Joe Turner's Come and Gone with Up You Mighty Race Theater Co.

Will McGarrahan (Jim Tyrone) is happy to return to The Nora Theatre Company, where he appeared as Bradley in Buried Child. Other local credits include Reckless, Some Men, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Five By Tenn, Company, The Last Sunday in June, Elegies: A Song Cycle, Ruthless!, A Class Act, and A New Brain with SpeakEasy Stage Company; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Grey Gardens, November, Souvenir and Dirty Blonde with The Lyric Stage Company of Boston; The Wind in the Willows and Happy Days with Gloucester Stage Company; and The Wrestling Patient with SpeakEasy Stage/Boston Playwrights' Theatre/40 Magnolias.

Billy Meleady (Phil Hogan) was last seen with The Nora Theatre Company in last season's Not Enough Air. Recently, he has also appeared with Tir Na Theatre in Trad and with SpeakEasy Stage Company in The Seafarer, a 2009 Elliot Norton Award winner for Outstanding Ensemble.Other credits include;The Taming of the Shrew (Gremio),As You Like It (Touchstone),The Tempest (Caliban), and The Blowin' of Baile Gall (Eamon), all with The Vineyard Playhouse; The Seafarer with Studio Theatre, Washington.D.C., and The Misanthrope with New Repertory Theatre. Billy was a regular performer with The Súgán Theatre Company at the Boston Center for the Arts and appeared in seventeen productions with them. He received an Elliot Norton Award and an IRNE Award for his performances with Súgán, New Rep, and Boston Playwrights' Theatre.

Director Richard McElvain has been acting and directing in the Boston area for twenty-five years and is the winner of the 2000 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Actor, Small Company. He has worked with The Nora previously in several capacities: playing the role of John in Dublin Carol, writing an adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone, and playing the role of Creon in that production, and directing A.R. Gurney's Screen Play. Two seasons ago, he played the title role in Underground Railway Theater's production of The Life of Galileo. He has acted in many other productions on area stages including Boston Theatre Works' award-winning Angels in America, Groundswell at The Lyric Stage Company of Boston, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Lady from Maxim's, and Bang the Drum Slowly at the Huntington Theatre Company, Barking Sharks and Tender at Gloucester Stage Company, and The Scarlet Letter, Sylvia, and Twelfth Night at New Repertory Theatre. He has also appeared at Merrimack Repertory Theatre and Boston Shakespeare Theatre Company. Other directing credits include productions of the classics, works of Israel Horowitz at Gloucester Stage and productions Off-Broadway. He has worked in film and television, including several episodes of Spencer for Hire. In 2006 he launched Theatre Omnibus, a theater company aimed at featuring the work of emerging theater artists in the Boston area.

Anthony Phelps (set design) is working with The Nora for the first time, and has previously worked at Worcester Foothills Theatre, Company One, Theatre On Fire, Theatre L'Homme Dieu, and Heritage Theatre in Minnesota, and the Actors Guild of Lexington, KY, among others. Gail Astrid Buckley's (costume design) costumes were most recently seen at The Nora in last season's The Lady With All The Answers and Not Enough Air. She has designed many other productions for the company, as well as at many area theaters, and is an Elliot Norton Award winner. Margo Caddell (lighting design) joins The Nora for the first time with this production having recently designed the lights for Groundswell at The Lyric Stage Company of Boston, and A History of the American Film, directed by Tommy Derrah, for the ART/MXAT Institute. Dewey Dellay (sound design and composer) has worked on many productions with The Nora including Richard McElvain's contemporary adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone. Corrine Lunnin (props coordinator) is also working with The Nora for the first time, having worked previously at The Peterborough Players, and has also done stage and company management.

Conversations with special guests, local academics, and the actors will follow select performances (see list below).

Sunday, Oct.10
Post-show
Sunday Soiree: Congratulate the cast at a complimentary reception.
Thursday, Oct. 14

Post-show
Artists & Audiences: Join the cast in a post-performance talkback
Thursday, Oct. 21
Post-show
Central Salon: This is your theater - join the conversation with CST leadership, with complimentary wine and cheese.
Thursday, Oct. 28
Post-show
Scholar Social: Renowned academics illuminate ideas raised by the production in dialogue with the audience.

A Moon for the Misbegotten plays at Central Square Theater, 450 Mass. Ave. in Cambridge, Thursday, October 7 through Sunday, November 7. Performances are Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 PM, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM, with matinees on Sundays at 2 PM. There will be no Wednesday evening performance on November 3. Tickets are priced at $40; $30 for seniors (ages 60+); $25 for students with a college ID; and $15 for youths (ages 12-18); and can be purchased by calling (866) 811-4111, online at www.centralsquaretheater.org, or at the Central Square Theater box office. For box office hours, group discounts, and more info call (617) 576-9278 x210.

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