Actors Studio Offers Previews of Harold Pinter's OLD TIMES Beginning September 9

It's a special premiere event! The Actors Studio will debut the new production of Harold Pinter's Old Times at The Ridgefield Playhouse before it heads to NYC for its Broadway run September 22 - October 15! The Ridgefield Magazine Broadway and Cabaret Series, partially underwritten by Adam Broderick Salon & Spa, presents Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter's Old Times at The Ridgefield Playhouse on Friday, September 9 at 8pm. This will be an exclusive "sneak peek" and a truly unique collaboration between The Ridgefield Playhouse and the world-famous ACTORS STUDIO. This premiere production of is being developed during a two week intensive workshop here in Ridgefield and will be directed by Actors Studio Associate Artistic Director (and longtime CT resident) Beau Gravitte, with the generous support of Artistic Director Estelle Parsons, under the direction of the Presidents Al Pacino, Ellen Burstyn, and Harvey Keitel. Old Times is a tense, suspenseful drama. Like Pinter's earlier plays, Old Times deals with bare essentials.

There are only three characters: a man named Deeley, his wife Kate, and Anna, a friend of Kate's whom they have not seen for twenty years. What begins as a trip down memory lane quickly becomes something more, as long-simmering feelings of fear and jealousy begin to fuel the trio's passions, sparking a seductive battle for power. This production features actors Chris Stack, Beth Manspeizer and Sayra Player. Media sponsor for this exciting new event is NPR station WSHU 91.1fm.

The Actors Studio, the birthplace and home of the American "Method" style of acting, is known for its commitment to finding the truth-in-the-moment, to the deep and rigorous search for the heart of a character, onstage or on the screen. Its members, past and present, represent a "who's who" of American theatre and film history.

The Actors Studio was founded in New York by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford and Robert Lewis in 1947. For more than six decades it has been devoted to the service and development of theatre artists -actors, directors and playwrights. To a select number of theatre professionals, mainly actors, The Actors Studio offers free Life Membership, with no fee or tuition required, which entitles them to a unique opportunity to explore and improve their craft in a safe, laboratory environment with colleagues with whom they share the same process of work.

Harold Pinter wrote twenty-nine plays including The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming, and Betrayal. He also wrote twenty-one screenplays including The Servant, The Go-Between, The French Lieutenant's Woman, and directed twenty-seven theatre productions, including James Joyce's Exiles, David Mamet's Oleanna, seven plays by Simon Gray and many of his own plays including his latest, Celebration, paired with his first, The Room at The Almeida Theatre, London in the spring of 2000. Pinter was awarded the Shakespeare Prize (Hamburg), the European Prize for Literature (Vienna), the Pirandello Prize (Palermo), the David Cohen British Literature Prize, the Laurence Olivier Award, the Legion d'Honneur and the Moliere D'Honneur for lifetime achievement. In 1999 he was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature. He also received honorary degrees from eighteen universities. In 2005, Harold Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the highest honor available to any writer in the world. In announcing the award, Horace Engdahl, Chairman of the Swedish Academy, said that Pinter was an artist "who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms".

For tickets ($40), call the box office at 203-438-5795, or visit ridgefieldplayhouse.org. The Ridgefield Playhouse is a non-profit performing arts center located at 80 East Ridge, parallel to Main Street, Ridgefield, CT.

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