CSULB Theatre Arts Department to Stage GOOD BOYS AND TRUE
By: BWW News Desk Apr. 18, 2017
Brandon Hardy leads a privileged life. He is the handsome captain of the football team at St. Joe's School for Boys. He's a perfect son, a standout student with Ivy league dreams. He's following in his father's footsteps and a mother's dream. Then the sex tape is discovered. Circulating through the locker room at St Joe's is a tape that pulls Brandon, his family and his classmates into a spiral of lies, secrets, and life-changing choices. Is it just boys being boys? When is a secret too terrible to even speak its name? Will Brandon stay true to his mother's dream or will he follow in the footsteps of prep school boys of the past?
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is an American playwright, screenwriter, and comic book writer known for his work at Marvel Comics. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and his plays have premiered at South Coast Repertory Theatre, Steppenwolf, and Manhattan Theatre Club. In an interview at Steppenwolf where Good Boys and True premiered in 2008, Aguirre-Sacasa said that his play "is a glimpse of his own experiences at his high school, Georgetown Prep, and that it seeks to question issues surrounding privilege, class, culpability, and inheritance."
Director Hugh O'Gorman is the Head of Acting at California State University Long Beach. He earned a BA in Psychology from Cornell University and an MFA in Acting from the University of Washington. He owns The Praxis Acting Studio in Los Angeles, California where he focuses on the work of Russian theatre artists like Michael Chekhov and Constantin Stanislavski. He has appeared in many Broadway, Off-Broadway, and other regional theatre productions. Good Boys and True is the first play he will direct at CSULB since 2008's The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute.
Director O'Gorman believes Good Boys and True remains as relevant today as when it first opened at the Steppenwolf Theatre nine years ago. Echoing playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's words, O'Gorman says the play "grapples with systemic and structural inequalities in class, gender, race and privilege. Set in the late 1980s behind the ivy-covered walls of the all-boys St. Joe's Catholic Preparatory School, a deeply personal drama unfolds where the institution itself perpetuates a culture of predatory sexual misconduct. In our current dystopian America of 2017 the major themes of this provocative play resonate perhaps more than ever before." Due to the mature themes and graphic sexual content in the play, management at California Repertory advises that the play be for ages 17 and over.
IF YOU GO:
Good Boys and True
Written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Directed by Hugh O'Gorman
At CSULB Theatre Arts, 1250 Bellflower Blvd, Long Beach, CA, 90840
Performances:
Thursday, April 26 at 8:00 pm
Friday, April 27 at 8:00 pm (Opening Night)
Saturday, April 29 at 2:00 pm
Saturday, April 29 at 8:00 pm
Tuesday, May 02 at 8:00 pm
Wednesday, May 03 at 8 pm
Thursday, May 04 at 8:00 pm
Friday, May 05 at 8 pm
Saturday, May 06 at 2:00 pm
Saturday, May 06 at 8:00 pm
Tuesday, May 09 at 8:00 pm (ASL Performance)
Wednesday, May 10 at 8:00 pm
Thursday, May 11 at 8:00 pm
Friday, May 12 at 8:00 pm
Saturday, May 13 at 2:00 pm
Saturday, May 13 at 8:00 pm
Tickets and Information online at web.csulb.edu/colleges/cota/theatre/on-stage-now/index.html. General Admission: $17. Students (w/ID)/ CSULB Faculty & Staff/ Seniors (55+)/ Military: $14. Groups: Groups of 10 or more start at $14/ticket. Performances take place at University Theatre at CSULB, 7th Street and East Campus Drive. Additional Information: This play deals with mature sexual themes and recommended for ages 17 and over.
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