Sacred Fools Announce Extension of World Premiere Play THE ART COUPLE

Sacred Fools is proud to announce that they have added four more performances to the run of the smash hit The Art Couple! Originally scheduled to close on April 7, the show has been extended for two more weekends and now MUST CLOSE on Saturday, April 21. The added performances are April 13, 14, 20 and 21, all at 8pm.

The Sacred Fools Theater Company is delighted to present the World Premiere of The Art Couple by Brendan Hunt (Absolutely Filthy), directed by Lauren Van Kurin. The comic mayhem begins Friday, February 16 and runs through Sunday, March 17 with performances on Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 7pm (with the exception of Sunday, March 4 - no performance that date). The show will be performed in the Black Box Theater of the Broadwater Theater Complex.

Long before Felix met Oscar, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin were ill-fitting roommates in the south of France; a fateful co-habitation that would change the face of art - and Van Gogh's face, too. It's a lesser-known tidbit of theatre history that these two masters were also the subjects of Neil Simon's original draft of The Odd Couple. Sacred Fools now presents the first-ever performance of this abandoned script, and the odd tale of how it was written. Based on an untrue telling of a true story.

Production Team and Cast

Playwright Brendan Hunt appears in The Art Couple as Vincent van Gogh. He also appeared in the last Sacred Fools show he wrote, Absolutely Filthy, which garnered him an L.A. Weekly Award for Leading Male Performance, a Spirit of the Fringe Best Performance (Male) award, plus L.A. Weekly Award nominations for Playwriting and Male Comedy Performance. His recent solo show Still Got It was named Best Solo Show of the 2016 Hollywood Fringe Festival. Hunt is a veteran of many Sacred Fools shows including Savin' Up for Saturday Night (Ovation Award winner for Best Actor in a Musical), titular characters in The Poe Show and The Swine Show, plus most recently nabbing an Ovation Award nomination for his performance as Yorick in Skullduggery, the musical prequel to Hamlet.

Director Lauren Van Kurin is a veteran of the Sacred Fools stage, having appeared in or directing multiple storylines in Serial Killers, (such as playing Jane Austen in last season's winning storyline Jane Austen's Emma Frankenstein), as well as appearing in Oscar Wilde's A Woman of No Importance. She is also a longtime collaborator with Hunt, having directed him in his aforementioned Hollywood Fringe show Still Got It, and having been directed by him in King of Kong: A Musical Parody, which she co-wrote and performed with Amber Ruffin, music by David Schmoll. King of Kong was the winner of the Serial Killers season 2013 playoffs at Sacred Fools, won Best Overall Musical at the New York Fringe Festival in 2014 and then won Best Musical at the Hollywood Fringe 2015. The Art Couple marks her debut directing a mainstage show.

Producer Bruno Oliver has worn many hats for the company over nearly two decades. Producer credits at the Fools include A Gulag Mouse and last season's Rose and the Rime. As an actor, a sampling of his Fools credits includes Timon of Athens, Dracula: A Musical Nightmare and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? He is also the current President of the Board of Directors.

The design and production team for The Art Couple is a mixture of Sacred Fools company members, associates and newcomers. Set Design is by DeAnne Millais, Costume Design by Linda Muggeridge, Sound Design by Ben Rock, Projection Design by Corwin Evans (fresh off his Ovation Award win for the Soul City production Plasticity), Lighting Design by Andrew Schmedake (who also just won an Ovation Award for 33 Variations at the Actors Co-op), Properties Design by Ashley Crow with Fight Choreography by Trampas Thompson.

Joining Hunt in the cast for The Art Couple are Bryan Bellomo, Clayton Farris, Ryan Patrick Welsh, Marie-Francoise Theodore, Kristyn Evelyn, Laura Harrison and Joel Scher. The understudy cast consists of James Kirkland, Peter Fluet, Adam Meredith, Andrew James Villareal, Angela Sauer, Emily Clark, Madeleine Heil and Ryan Gowland.

Donate What You Can Performance - Friday, February 23

It's "Pay What You Can" with a twist! Half of all proceeds for this performance will be donated to WriteGirl, a creative writing and mentoring organization that promotes creativity, critical thinking and leadership skills to empower teen girls. "Never underestimate the power of a girl and her pen."

Additional Programming at Sacred Fools

Also, during The Art Couple run, our long-running late-night show Serial Killers continues its 13th season. Finishing its run on the same weekend The Art Couple opens in the Broadwater Main Stage is the West Coast Premiere of Denim Doves (see previous press release). There will also be fresh installments of our ongoing shows Ten Tops and We The People, press releases forthcoming on both. For more information on these and other upcoming performances, please visit www.sacredfools.org.

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