Once In a Lifetime Kicks Off Asolo Rep’s Repertory Season 1/6-2/29

Asolo Repertory Theatre's rep season begins on January 6, 2012 with the opening of Broadway
legends Kaufman and Hart's ONCE IN A LIFETIME. The play follows three down-and-out vaudeville performers that abandon their struggling act in New York to make it big under the bright lights of Hollywood.

The hit 1952 movie musical Singin' In the Rain borrows heavily from ONCE IN A LIFETIME's vaudevillian to Talkies storyline, while Kaufman and Hart's production takes the actors from New York all the way to California via a Pullman car.

Directed by American Conservatory Theater's Associate Artistic Director Mark Rucker, ONCE IN A LIFETIME is kicking off the rep season in a big way with 19 actors playing over 70 roles. ONCE IN A LIFETIME will run January 6, 2012 through February 29.

Previews begin January 4. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Asolo Rep Box Office at 941.351.8000 or at www.asolorep.org.

"We are about to launch our most exciting rep season yet with the celebratory American play about the beginning of show business as we understand it in America, ONCE IN A LIFETIME. We have brilliant designers coming in, an amazing director and talented actors. It's going to be a truly fantastic beginning to a thrilling season," said Producing Artistic Director Michael Donald Edwards.

ONCE IN A LIFETIME was Kaufman and Hart's first collaboration, and for the next 10 years they rejuvenated the American theatre, creating and producing work such as Pulitzer Prize winner You Can't Take It With You and the ever popular The Man Who Came to Dinner, which was made into a motion picture starring Orson Welles, Joan Collins and Don Knotts. Director Mark Rucker's recent work includes Once In a Lifetime, Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet, The Rainmaker and The Beard of Avon all at the American Conservatory Theater, as well as work at Yale Rep, The Intiman
Theatre, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival and more. Rucker's feature film, Die, Mommie,Die! won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

"I have been fascinated by old Hollywood films since I was a little boy. As a teenager on a school theatre tour in London, I saw a production of the play and have dreamed of doing it since then. While this fall was the first time that I had directed a full production of Lifetime, I have worked on it a few times with students in the past. This is the best experience that I've had directing ONCE IN A LIFETIME, and I'm very privileged to be able to work with this cast. This is a wonderful combination of young actors and veteran actors and it's the best I've seen here at Asolo Rep," said
Rucker.

Rucker's production will utilize period film clips and picturesque projects to portray the beginning of the golden age of Hollywood and the transition from silent films to the "talkies." With 21st
century multimedia aspects, audiences will be transported to 1930s Hollywood all within the Mertz Theatre. Set Design is by Erik Flatmo, the 1930s Hollywood costumes are by Alex Jaeger and the lighting design is by Burke Brown.

The projection design for the ONCE IN A LIFETIME media projections are by Austin Forbord.

The cast includes resident actors David Breitbarth (12 Angry Men, Men of Tortuga), James Clarke (Deathtrap, 12 Angry Men), Doug Jones (La Bête, Equus) and Carolyn Michel (Deathtrap, The Imaginary Invalid) as well as familiar faces in guest artists Jason Bradley (George Lewis in ONCE IN A LIFETIME, Boeing Boeing) and Kate Hampton (The Innocents, Las Meninas). Also joining the cast are Chicago-based actors Hillary Clemens (May Daniels) and Andrew Carter (Jerry Hyland) and the FSU/Asolo Conservatory third year MFA students.

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