Pacific Resident Theatre Extends SAFE AT HOME: AN EVENING WITH ORSON BEAN

Pacific Resident Theatre (Marilyn Fox, Artistic Director) announces the extension of SAFE AT HOME: An Evening with Orson Bean (SAGE Award/ArtsInLA; Best Solo Performance, "Top Ten" - Stage Raw "Recommended"). Directed by PRT's Guillermo Cienfuegos (The Homecoming and Henry V - CRITIC'S CHOICE - LA Times; Ovation Award, and Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Award for Best Director), performances will continue on January 22nd through March 13, 2016.

A consummate raconteur and undisputed triple threat, Orson Bean has become a familiar name in entertainment to families all over the country, for decades. His "up close and personal" story gives audiences not only a look into the heart of this multi-awarded entertainer, but into a generation that created the foundation for Broadway and Hollywood as it is today.

Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle member and Stage Raw critic Pauline Adamek "Recommended" this production, noting Bean's "remarkable career...best of all is the ease and comfort with which the man entertains us."

Orson Bean starred on Broadway for twenty years, winning a Theatre World Award and garnering a Tony Award nomination; Best Featured Actor in a Musical. He received a SAG Award nomination for his performance in the film BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. Orson's stage career includes starring roles in the Broadway production of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (along with Walter Matthau and Jayne Mansfield), Never Too Late, and Illya Darling. As a comic, he appeared over 200 times on The Tonight Show, approximately one hundred times as substitute host. As a guest star, he was seen on To Tell The Truth for eight years. Bean appeared in TV cult favorites Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Forever Fernwood. For seven years, he portrayed the storekeeper, Loren Bray, on the popular western drama, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Orson recently appeared on Modern Family and played Roy Bender, Karen McCluskey's husband on the three final seasons of Desperate Housewives. He beat Charlie Sheen with a cane on Two and a Half Men, but "it seems to have done Charlie no good," says Bean.

"I was so blown away and deeply moved by Orson's show. It brought me to tears and laughter, almost at the same time. I just kept thinking about it and how I wanted to produce it here at PRT before anybody else could grab it! I believe it could go to Broadway. The upshot: we had such an overwhelming response when we launched this production before the holidays; we've decided to continue with the run through March 13th says PRT's Artistic Director, Marilyn Fox.

The award-winning Guillermo Cienfuegos (Ovation Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Award for Best Director), fresh from his triumphs with Henry V, and The Homecoming helms this new production.

Guillermo Cienfuegos has directed numerous plays at Pacific Resident Theatre, most recently the hit production of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, which was named Critic's Choice by the LA Times, LA Weekly GO! and Ovation Recommended. Cienfuegos also directed last year's production of Shakespeare's Henry V, for which he won the Ovation Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Award for Best Director. The production was also named a Critic's Choice by the LA Times, and was on numerous 'Best of 2014' lists, including on KCRW. In addition, Cienfuegos has directed seven World Premieres for Pacific Resident Theatre, including Keith Stevenson's Ovation-Award-nominated Out There on Fried Meat Ridge Rd., A Fried Meat Christmas, and The Unfryable Meatness of Being, Wendy Johnson's Concealing Judy Holliday and Vince Melocchi's Welcome to Santa. After a successful run at PRT, his production of Vince Melocchi's Julia (which was nominated for three LA Weekly Theatre Awards, including Best Director) transferred to New York's 59E59 Theatre, Off Broadway. Lions, his first collaboration with Melocchi, was nominated for an Ovation Award and later published by Samuel French. Cienfuegos has also directed for the Chalk Repertory Theatre, the Blank Theatre Company and Nom De Guerre, a theatre and film collective, which he co-founded.

Production Team: Elspeth A. Weingarten, Alley Mills (Producers), Rita Overmeyer, Sara Newman-Martins, and Valerie Havey (Associate Producers), and Norman Scott (Lighting Design)

SAFE AT HOME: An Evening With Orson Bean re-opens on Friday, January 22nd and runs at 8pm on Fridays and Saturdays, 3pm Sundays through March 13, 2016. Pacific Resident Theatre is located at 703 Venice Blvd. in Venice, CA 90291. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased online at www.pacificresidenttheatre.com or by calling (310) 822-8392.

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