Broward Stage Door Theatre to Present THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO, 11/15-12/31

It's December 1939 in Atlanta, Georgia. Gone with the Wind is having its world premiere, and Hitler is invading Poland, but many of Atlanta's German Jews are much more concerned with who is going to Ballyhoo, the social event of the season. The Last Night of Ballyhoo centers around Atlanta's Freitag family - and as events take various unexpected turns, the family is pulled apart and then mended together with plenty of romance, revelations, and comedy along the way.

The Broward Stage Door Theatre will present The Last Night of Ballyhoo from November 15th through December 31st. The play, by Alfred Uhry, won the 1997 Tony Award for Best Play, the Drama League Award, and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Broadway Play.

"I'm always drawn to plays that show us what happens when cultures collide," explains the show's director Hugh Murphy. "The Last Night of Ballyhoo is a perfect example of that, doubled. First you have the tension of the Freitags, a Jewish family living in the Deep South. Then into that family comes Joe Farkas, an outsider from the North, who represents another source of tension. Wrap all of that in the excitement of Atlanta on the weekend that Gone With The Wind opens. Originally written for the Cultural Olympiad that went along with the Atlanta Olympics, Ballyhoo is about assimilation, about how we perceive the "other", and finally, about the meaning of family. It's one of Alfred Uhry's most universal works and continues to delight audiences."

Alfred Uhry is one of very few writers to receive an Academy Award, Tony Awards (2), and the Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing. The Last Night of Ballyhoo is the second play in what is known as Uhry's 'Atlanta Trilogy'. The first in the series, Driving Miss Daisy, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1988, and the third, the 1998 musical Parade, about the 1913 trial of Jewish factory manager Leo Frank, earned Uhry a Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical.
The cast of The Last Night of Ballyhoo includes Larry Bramble, Janet Weakly, Alex Salup, Greyssan Felipe, Miki Edelman, Mary Sansone, and Stephen Kaiser.

The Last Night of Ballyhoo will run from November 15 through December 31st at The Broward Stage Door Theatre in Coral Springs. The theatre is located at 8036 Sample Road, in Coral Springs.

Tickets for The Last Night of Ballyhoo are $38; $16 student tickets are also available. Tickets may be purchased at the Broward Stage Door Theatre box office at 954-344-7765 or on line at http://www.stagedoortheatre.com

For more information about The Last Night of Ballyhoo and/or The Broward Stage Door Theatre, please visit www.stagedoortheatre.com.

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