ANW Presents Shakespeares's MEASURE FOR MEASURE, 925-12/5

A Noise Within (ANW), the acclaimed repertory theatre company, launches 2010-11 season, its 19th, with Shakespeare's stirring classic Measure for Measure directed by Michael Murray, which opens Saturday, September 25 and closes Sunday, December 5, 2010 (previews begin Saturday, September 18).
 
In this intricately woven play, the Duke of Vienna recognizes that through his neglect, society has become a rotted den of iniquity, so he transfers his authority to Angelo, by all accounts an unblemished, morally uncompromising servant of God.  But Angelo's irresistible sexual attraction to Isabel, a novice nun seeking pardon for her condemned brother, transforms saint to beast.  Penned centuries ago, Shakespeare's timeless case study of lethal hypocrisy remains relevant today.  The cast features Robertson Dean (The Duke), A Noise Within Co-Founder/Co-Artistic Director Geoff Elliott (Angelo), Karron Graves (Isabella), William Patrick Riley (Claudio), Stephen Rockwell (Lucio), Mark Bramhall (Pompey) and Jill Hill (Mariana/Mistress).  A Noise Within first performed Measure for Measure in 2003.
 
"We're setting this production of Measure for Measure in the present because it feels like such a modern play," states Murray.  "It's about the tension between religion and secular power, between justice and mercy and, most contemporary, between politics and sex - all issues that are in the news.  Plus the play keeps flipping in many surprising directions, from farce to melodrama to tragedy, like life itself.  There are scenes of intimate and gripping tension between the novice nun, Isabella, and the repressed governor of the state, Angelo, and, at the same time, there's a collection of classic Shakespeare clowns such as Elbow, the constable, and Pompey, the pimp."
 
Noting that this is his first time directing the play, Murray adds, "It's a particular treat to be working with so many of the veteran members of this company.  Having done so many Shakespeare plays at A Noise Within, these actors know the works, they've developed a unique style of comfort and ease with the language.  They are experts at searching out Shakespeare's meanings and celebrating his great imagination, bringing life and zest to these great plays as they put the story right in the audience's lap."
 
The production is part of Shakespeare for a New Generation, a national initiative sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts in cooperation with Arts Midwest.
 
To enhance the theatre-going experience, A Noise Within offers comprehensive study guides on every production, each with a synopsis, director's notes, general theatre lore, links to other resources and detailed information about the playwright, characters, setting, period, costumes, scenic design, music and more.  Measure for Measure's Study Guide along with those for previous A Noise Within productions are available on-line at http://www.anoisewithin.org/education_studyguides.html.  
 
A Noise Within (ANW) is the only year-round classical repertory company in Southern California and one of only a handful in the entire country dedicated solely to producing classical dramatic literature in the repertory tradition of rotating productions with a resident company of professional artists.  Led by Co-Founders and Co-Artistic Directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, A Noise Within has been hailed by critics as "adventurous," "compelling and current," "ingenuity at work," "a bona fide class act," and "what great theatre is all about."  Founded 19 seasons ago, ANW quickly established itself as one of the region's key theatre companies, attracting fiercely loyal audiences and consistently high praise from the media for its productions and as a leading force in arts education.  The company has presented more than 120 plays from the classics of world literature, each season producing works from authors ranging from Shakespeare and Molière to Ibsen, O'Neill and Shaw to Miller and Williams.  ANW's consistent dedication to quality has been rewarded with more than two dozen Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards as well as numerous LA Weekly and Backstage Garland awards.  A Noise Within's next chapter provides the long-awaited opportunity to sink deep and lasting roots when the company moves in 2011 from its long-time base in Glendale to a spectacular, permanent home in a Pasadena mixed-use development at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Sierra Madre Villa Avenue.  The facility, hailed as an anchor in East Pasadena's arts growth, is designed to broaden A Noise Within's artistic possibilities, offer a greater scope of educational opportunities, meet ticket demand and allow the company to expand its role as a leader in the presentation and preservation of classical theatre.
 
Measure for Measure marks the seventh play Michael Murray (director) has directed for A Noise Within.  The others are Much Ado About Nothing, Ghosts, The Night of the Iguana, Romeo and Juliet, A Touch of the Poet and Arms and the Man.  He served as Producing Director of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park for nine years, where he directed more than 25 productions, including Heartbreak House, Sweet Bird of Youth, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, And a Nightingale Sang, Compulsion, The Diary of Anne Frank, Where's Charlie?, The House of Bernarda Alba, Threepenny Opera, Julius Caesar, A Month in the Country and The Baker's Wife.  Murray also co-founded - with Olympia Dukakis and others - and served as Artistic Director of the pioneering Charles Playhouse in Boston, a company that included at various times Al Pacino, Jane Alexander, Jill Clayburgh, Linda Lavin, John Seitz and Ned Beatty.  Murray has also directed at numerous regional and New York theaters such as the Hartford Stage Company, Center Stage in Baltimore, the Philadelphia Drama Guild, the Huntington Theater Company in Boston and the Alaska Repertory Theater.  He previously served as the Blanche, Barbara and Irving Laurie Professor of Theater Arts and Director of the Professional Theater Training Program at Brandeis University.  Murray holds a BA from Catholic University and an MFA from Boston University.
 
MARK BRAMHALL (Pompey), an ANW resident artist, has appeared for the last three seasons as Lucky in the company's critically acclaimed production of Waiting for Godot and also appeared as Dogberry in the spring 2010 production of Much Ado About Nothing and the spring 2009 production of Ghosts.  He began his professional acting career in 1966 as a member of the original company of The American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) in San Francisco.  In five seasons there, he played leading roles under the guidance of some of the country's foremost theatrical directors, including William Ball, Ellis Rabb, Alan Schneider and Nagle Jackson.  In his New York debut, he starred as George in Our Town opposite Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, Estelle Parsons and Jo Van Fleet.  In Los Angeles, he appeared at the Mark Taper Forum in the "New Plays For Now" series, directed by Gordon Davidson.  He abandoned his burgeoning acting career for 17 years to father four daughters and pursue political activism, and, in the throes of mid-life crisis, returned to his art-and his birthplace, Los Angeles-in 1990.  Since then, he has appeared at the Pasadena Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Colony Theatre, Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble, Skirball Cultural Center, Egyptian Arena, Theatre Forty, Tamarind Theatre, Taper Amphitheatre, Theatricum Botanicum, Arizona Theatre Company and Portland Center Stage.  He has been a resident artist at A Noise Within for 16 years, where he has played leading roles in thirty celebrated productions.  Among his favorite roles are Alceste in The Misanthrope, Harpagon in The Miser, Dr. Prentice in What The Butler Saw, Howard in Picnic and Virgil in Bus Stop.  His acting awards and nominations include LA Drama Critics Circle, Ovation, Dramalogue, LA Weekly and Robby honors, as well as industry awards for Books On Tape narration.  Among his film and television roles are All Through The Night, Vanilla Sky, Too Pure, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, Sliver, Fools, One Is A Lonely Number, NYPD Blue, Dark Skies, The Burning Zone, 7th Heaven, X-Files, and recurring roles on Alias, That 70's Show, Days Of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, Passions, and General Hospital.  Bramhall holds a B.A. from Harvard, and has studied at U.C. Berkeley, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (Fulbright Scholar), American Conservatory Theatre, Classical Theatre Lab and Steve Eastin Studio.
 
A Noise Within Resident Artist Robertson Dean (The Duke), who most recently at ANW played the Inspector in Crime and Punishment and Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, has also appeared in the company's productions of The Rehearsal, Oliver Twist, King Henry IV in Henry IV, Part 1, Phaedra, As You Like It, The Tempest, The School For Wives, Twelfth Night, The Price, Macbeth, The Cherry Orchard, Love's Labour's Lost, Pericles, Hayfever, Life is a Dream, Cymbeline, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Taming of the Shrew, and Oedipus the King, among others.  Dean is also noted for recording dozens of books on tape; Audiofile stated, "What distinguishes his work is a judicious use of understatement and careful pacing."  Trained at Yale Drama School, Dean has appeared in Broadway productions of Pygmalion and The Circle.  Off Broadway he performed in The Common Pursuit, The Fairy Garden, Crossfire and Fanshen.  In addition, he has appeared with Yale Rep, American Repertory, Hartford Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Arizona Theatre Company, GeVA, Long Wharf, Baltimore Center Stage, Buffalo Studio Arena, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, Pasadena Playhouse, International Theater Company, Shakespeare Santa Cruz and the Magic Theater in San Francisco.  Dean has played a recurring role on the television series 24, and has appeared on Enterprise, Frasier, Sabrina, Cybill, Star Trek, Working, All American Girl, Dream On, Larroquette, The Bold and the Beautiful and Ugly Betty and enjoyed a seven-year run as Ned on The Young and The Restless.  His film credits include Parole, Here Come The Munsters, Disney's The Red Coat, and the features Money Talks, Bombshell, Vanilla Sky, Star Trek: Nemesis and Forgiving the Franklins (Sundance Film Festival).  He also records many voiceovers, narrations, radio dramas and CD-ROM games.
 
GEOFF ELLIOTT (Angelo) - who this season also co-directs A Noise Within's productions of Great Expectations and Noises Off - is co-founder and co-artistic director of A Noise Within with his wife, Julia Rodriguez-Elliott.  They have co-produced close to 100 productions and directed/co-directed more than 40 for the company.  Elliott has also performed major roles for some of the leading regional theatres in America, including The American Conservatory Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Arizona Theatre Company, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre and California Shakespeare Festival.  He has received three Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle awards and more than a dozen other awards for acting.  His Shakespearean roles include Iago in Othello, Theseus/Oberon in a Midsummer Night's Dream, Coriolanus, Richard in King Richard III and Hamlet.  He has also performed leading roles in classic plays by such authors as O'Neill, Miller, Ibsen, Rostand, Wilde and Williams.  Last season, he directed Richard III, Noises Off, in which he also played the role of Director, and The Playboy of the Western World, in which he played Old Mahon.  Elliott holds a BFA from the University of Florida and an MFA from The American Conservatory Theatre.
 
Karron Graves (Isabella) makes her A Noise Within debut in this production of Measure for Measure.  On Broadway, she appeared in Coram Boy, and has also performed Off-Broadway at the prestigious Manhattan Theatre Club and at Lincoln Center's Newhouse Theatre.  Active in regional theatre as well, Graves has appeared in Doubt, Our Town and An Ideal Husband at Peterborough Players; SITI Co.'s A Midsummer Night's Dream as part of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Trying at Ford's Theatre; Intimations for Saxophone at the Arena Stage; The Glass Menagerie at Actors Theatre of Louisville; Hamlet at the Dallas Theatre Center; Maggie's Riff at the Vineyard; and the Denver Center's Life with Father.  Graves' film credits include The Good Shepherd, directed by Robert De Niro; Mary Warren in The Crucible, directed by Nick Hytner; and The Fig Tree, directed by Calvin Skaggs.  She also also appeared on such television shows as Monk, Guiding Light, Law & Order, Dolphin Cove and Saturday Night Live.  Graves earned an MFA from Yale; and a BA from Princeton.
 
Also making his ANW debut in Measure for Measure is WILLIAM PATRICK RILEY (Claudio).  His extensive credits include playing DJ in Hoover Comes Alive! at La Jolla Playhouse; Curio in Twelfth Night and Byplay in The Antipodes at Shakespeare Santa Cruz; Caliban in The Tempest and Orlando in As You Like It at Shakes-To-Go; and as Konstantin in The Seagull, Kilroy in Camino Real, Rodney in Obscura, Jacques in As You Like It and Guhl in The Physicist, among others, at UCSD/La Jolla Playhouse.  He has BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego.
 
STEPHEN ROCKWELL (Lucio), an A Noise Within resident artist for more than 14 years, has appeared in numerous productions at the repertory theatre company, including as Frederick Fellowes in Noises Off, Hortensio in The Taming of the Shrew, Ensemble in Oliver Twist, Don Carlos in Don Juan, Polixenes in The Winter's Tale, Carrasco in Man of La Mancha, Jamie Cregan in A Touch of the Poet, George F. Babbitt in Babbitt, Captain Macnure/Ensemble in Ubu Roi, Ragnar Brovik in The Master Builder, Roderigo in Othello, Peter Quince in A Midsummer Nights Dream, Rugby in A Flea In Her Ear, Lysander in A Midsummer Nights Dream at The Hollywood Bowl, Orestes in Electra, Swallow in A Wilde Holiday, Junius Brutus in Coriolanus, Deramo in The King Stag, Banquo in Macbeth, Semyon Yepikhodov in The Cherry Orchard, King Ferdinand of Navarre in Love's Labour's Lost, Tom Wrench in Trelawny of the Wells, Clarin in Life is a Dream, Oscar Hubbard in The Little Foxes and Another Part of the Forest, Gentleman Caller in The Glass Menagerie, Joe Gargery in Great Expectations, Randall Utterword in Heartbreak House, Clitandre in The Misanthrope, and more.  Among other acting credits, Rockwell has appeared at the Fremont Centre Theatre, Los Angeles Theatre Center, American Conservatory Theatre and the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival (HVSF).  He has also directed Julius Caesar at the Open Fist Theater, Two Gentleman of Verona at HVSF, and Living Together at Fremont Center Theatre.  His film and television appearances include In Justice, Rodney, The Mikes (Pilot), The Comeback, Hawaii, Malcolm In the Middle, Good Morning Miami, Miss Match, ER, Roswell, M.Y.O.B., The Drew Carey Show and 3rd Rock From the Sun.  He has also been in several national television commercials, most notably in a T-Mobile spot as the father who "catches" his daughter with her boyfriend in the back seat of the car "texting!"  Rockwell earned a BA in Drama from Vassar College and an MFA from American Conservatory Theatre.
 
JILL HILL (Mariana/Mistress), a long-time resident artist with A Noise Within, last season played Brenda Blair in the company's production of Noises Off, and Widow Quin in The Playboy of the Western World.  Her numerous roles with the company include Hortensia in The Rehearsal, Nancy in Neil Bartlett's adaptation of Oliver Twist, Mistress Quickly in Henry IV, Part 1, Hannah Jelkes in The Night of the Iguana, Hermione in The Winter's Tale, Mrs. Purdie in Dear Brutus, Fay in Loot, Deborah in A Touch of the Poet, Queen Rosumund/Anna Stanislas in Ubu Roi, Aline Solness in The Master Builder, Emilia in Othello, Lucienne in A Flea in Her Ear, Mrs. Molloy in The Matchmaker, Virgilia in Coriolanus, Clarice/Smeraldina in The King Stag, First Witch/Lady Macduff in Macbeth, Princess of France in Love's Labour's Lost, Imogen Parrott in Trelawny of the Wells, Estrella in Life is a Dream, Sabina in The Skin of Our Teeth, Mae in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Belle/Charwoman in A Christmas Carol, Bianca in Taming of the Shrew, Geraldine in What the Butler Saw, Teiresias in Oedipus the King, Molly/Mrs. Joe in Great Expectations and Birdie in The Little Foxes and Another Part of the Forest, among others.  She has also appeared in productions with American Conservatory Theatre, Nassau Repertory, Kenyon Festival Theatre, The Westbank (NYC), and The Matrix Theatre (LA).  Television viewers will recognize her from various soap operas and television guest star roles, and her distinct voice can be heard on such audio books as Gapcreek and The Truest Pleasure by Robert Morgan, produced by John Runnette.  She studied at the English Speaking Theatre in Copenhagen and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, earned a BFA from Denison University in Granville, Ohio, and is a graduate and company member of The American Conservatory Theatre.
 
Single Tickets are $46 (Friday and Saturday evenings, Sunday matinees); $42 (Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings, Saturday matinees); and $32 (previews).  Groups (10 or more) are $25, or $30 on Saturday evenings and Sunday matinees; School Groups (10 or more) are $16, or $20 on Saturday evenings and Sunday matinees. 
 
A NOISE WITHIN is located at 234 South Brand Boulevard, Glendale, CA 91204.  To purchase tickets or for a full season brochure, call 818-240-0910 x1 or visit www.ANoiseWithin.org.