The Theatre @ Boston Court to Present COLONY COLLAPSE

The Theatre @ Boston Court presents Colony Collapse, by Stefanie Zadravec, directed by Jessica Kubzansky. This world premiere production opens Saturday, February 20, 2016 at 8pm on the Main Stage at Boston Court Performing Arts Center, 70 North Mentor Avenue in Pasadena.

Narrated by the ghost of a missing 15 year-old girl, and woven together by a chorus of parents of lost and missing children, Zadravec's lyrical, edgy poetry explores the cost one family is willing to pay for a second chance. In an effort to get their lives on track, recovering addicts Mark and Julia have taken over the day-to-day operations of an apple orchard in rural Oregon. With little experience, the couple quickly realizes they are in over their heads, yet they still believe if they produce a viable crop, a new beginning is possible. Set against the contemporary plagues of meth addiction, missing children, and a failing ecology, Colony Collapse is equal parts Greek tragedy and American drama, illuminating the search for humanity in a world with little shelter from harm.

Featuring: Leandro Cano, Julie Cardia, Paula Christiansen, Chris Conner, Adrian Gonzalez, Sally Hughes, Emily James, Jully Lee, Tracey Leigh, Riley Neldam.

Production Staff: Susan Gratch, Scenic Design; Jeremy Pivnick, Lighting Design; Garry Lennon, Costume Design; John Nobori, Sound Design; Jenny Smith Cohn, Properties Design; Kitty McNamee, Choreography; Michael Donovan, Casting Director; Gabe Figueroa, Assistant Director; Matthew Quinlan, Dramaturg; Julie Ouellette, Stage Manager; Ed Krieger, Production Photography.

Stefanie Zadravec is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and recipient of a 2015 Helen Merrill Award. Her plays have been produced and/or developed at The Kennedy Center, New Dramatists, Play Penn, The Lark, The Playwrights Realm, Theater J, Two River Theater Company, The Working Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, San Francisco Playhouse, The Barrow Group, EpicTheatre Ensemble, Quantum Theater, Theater 167, and among others. Honors include: Francesca Primus Prize (The Electric Baby), The Helen Hayes Award (Honey Brown Eyes) an Edgerton Foundation grant, NYFA Fellowship, a NYSCA Artists Grant, Lark Playwrights Fellowship, Playwrights Realm Fellowship, Dramatists Guild Fellowship, Sewanee Writers Conference Fellowship, A Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, Women in Arts & Media Award, and a Ford Foundation Human Rights Commission. Stefanie is an alumnus of The Women's Project Lab, The Lark Playwright's Workshop, and a current writer-in-residence at The Women's Project. Her plays are published by Dramatists Play Service and featured in Best Women's Stage Monologues (Smith & Kraus). Stefanie teaches playwriting at PlayPenn and Primary Stages Einhorn School of Performing Arts.

Jessica Kubzansky has been the Co-Artistic Director of The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena since its inception. Recent world premieres include Luis Alfaro's Mojada; a Medea in Los Angeles, Sheila Callaghan's Everything You Touch, Michael Elyanow's The Children, Jordan Harrison's Futura, Laura Schellhardt's Courting Vampires, Salamone/McIntyre's Gulls (a musical adaptation of The Seagull), Mickey Birnbaum's Bleed Rail, Carlos Murillo's Unfinished American Highwayscape #9 & 32, Jean-Claude van Itallie's Light, Cody Henderson's Cold/Tender (all at The Theatre @ Boston Court). Elsewhere she has directed Jen Haley's Breadcrumbs (Theater 150), Julie Hébert's Tree ([EST/Inside the Ford]), Bob Clyman's Tranced (Laguna Playhouse), Bryan Davidson's War Music (Geffen Playhouse and prior to that, The Echo/Playwrights' Arena at LATC), Tom Jacobson's The Orange Grove, an adaptation of The Cherry Orchard (Playwrights' Arena), Salamone/McIntyre's Moscow (Chekhov Now, NYC, Los Angeles, Edinburgh, etc.), Carol Wolf's The Thousandth Night with Ron Campbell (around the country and internationally), also, Sheila Callaghan's Kate Crackernuts (24th St. Theatre). Other recent work includes: R II (Boston Court), James Still's I Love to Eat (Portland Center Stage), Macbeth (Antaeus Company), The 39 Steps (La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts), Julia Cho's The Language Archive (East/West Players), Theresa Rebeck's Mauritius (Pasadena Playhouse), Tennessee Williams' Camino Real and Hare/Brecht's Mother Courage with Camille Saviola (Boston Court), The Glass Menagerie, Toys in the Attic, Heartbreak House (The Colony Theatre), Amy's View, The Servant to Two Masters, Loot (International City Theatre), Dancing at Lughnasa (La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts), A Moon for the Misbegotten, Joined at the Head (The Laguna Playhouse), Pirates of Penzance (The Boston Publick), Vaclav Havel's The Memorandum, Burn This (Odyssey Theatre) Lulu (Pacific Resident Theatre), The House of Blue Leaves, The Mandrake (West Coast Ensemble) among others. Kubzansky teaches graduate playwrights and directors at UCLA, has her MFA in Direction from the California Institute of the Arts, and her undergraduate degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins and Harvard. She has received many awards and honors, among them the Los Angeles' Drama Critics' Circle's Margaret Harford Award for Sustained Excellence in Theatre. Proud member of SDC.

Colony Collapse is supported in part by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, The Shubert Foundation, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Founding Director Z. Clark Branson, and the generous contributions of The Theatre @ Boston Court supporters and contributors.

Colony Collapse was commissioned by Oregon Shakespeare Festival and developed in partnership with Full Stage USA at New Dramatists, a program made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The Theatre @ Boston Court is the award-winning resident theatre company at Boston Court Performing Arts Center in Pasadena, CA. Jessica Kubzansky and Michael Michetti, Co-Artistic Directors; Michael Seel, Executive Director; Hillary Metcalf Schenk, Managing Director.

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