Neil Simon's JAKE'S WOMEN Comes to The Costa Mesa Playhouse, 2/5-2/28

On February 5, the Costa Mesa Playhouse's 44th season continues with Tony® and Pulitzer Prize-winner Neil Simon's semi-autobiographical examination of dysfunctional relationships between the sexes, JAKE'S WOMEN. 

America's most successful playwright used his own troubled marital history as the basis for this wildly comic and moving study of successful but narcissistic writer Jake, who, still obsessed with the idyllic first wife who died years earlier, now faces a marital crisis with his second wife by conjuring up a series of imaginary encounters with the important women in his life, past and present, including both wives, his daughter both as a child and the young woman she is now, his boisterous sister, and his less-than-supportive analyst. Jake is a man lost in the most terrifying place a writer can imagine—his own mind.

The play is directed by Michael Dale Brown, who last helmed The Playhouse's critically acclaimed 2009 production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Lakewood resident John Sturgeon plays Jake in his second Costa Mesa role, having appeared there previously in Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. He has been a mainstay at Long Beach's Found Theatre for the last decade. Another Found Theatre regular, Costa Mesa resident Kay Richey, who plays Jake's acerbic sister, has performed several times at The Playhouse, most recently in Sordid Lives.

The remaining cast, although new to the Costa Mesa Playhouse, have appeared widely throughout Orange and L.A. Counties and beyond. Cast as Jake's current wife Maggie, Huntington Beach resident Leslie Ivarson, a transplant from Wisconsin, is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Ffrom Oklahoma, now living in Anaheim, Camille Lacey, who plays Jake's late first wife, is a fitness instructor and soccer coach who played a lead role in the film Creepshow 3.

Also in the cast: Brea's Cleta Cohen is a 30-year veteran of local theater; Rene Bordelon, from Anaheim, has appeared at the Maverick Theater, Westminster CLO, and Yorba Linda CLO; Lorelai Hibbard, from Trabuco Canyon, is a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy of New York City; and Newport Beach's Taylor Rich is a former Annie.

JAKE'S WOMEN plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm, February 5 through February 28. Tickets are $18 general admission, $16 for students and seniors (and for all seats at the Feb. 5 preview performance), $23 for the Feb. 6 champagne reception opening night gala, and $13 per person for groups of ten or more.

Reservations can be made on-line at www.costamesaplayhouse.org or by calling 949-650-5269. The Playhouse is located at 661 Hamilton Street in Costa Mesa.

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