SEVEN GUITARS Opens People's Light & Theatre's 2012-13 Season Tonight, 9/12

People's Light & Theatre presents August Wilson's Seven Guitars, running tonight, September 12-October 7, 2012 on the Main Stage. Jade King Carroll directs. People's Light & Theatre is located at 39 Conestoga Road, Malvern, Penn. For tickets call 610.644.3500 or visit PeoplesLight.org.

Abbey Adams, Artistic Director at People's Light, comments "We are proud to be opening our 2012-2013 season with the first production in our history by the great American playwright August Wilson. Seven Guitars is filled with the funny, sweet, mythic qualities of Wilson's best work. And we are so pleased Jade King Carroll is back to direct a stellar cast in this epic story of love and yearning."

Seven Guitars is set in May of 1948 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Penn., where Wilson was born and raised, and all of the action takes place in the backyard of a house shared by several of the characters in the play. The play centers around Floyd Barton, a blues guitar player on the threshold of success. Influenced by the narrative structure of a short story by Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges, Wilson crafts this story as a memory play and we begin after Floyd's funeral and then flashback to events leading to his death. Throughout the play, characters battle with questions of ambition, love, death, heritage, faith, and individual as well as cultural legacies as all of them struggle to achieve their dreams and find their place in the world.

August Wilson is best known for his History or Pittsburgh Cycle, a series of 10 plays with one play set in each decade of the 20th century. This cycle, comprised of a play for each decade of the 20th century, has garnered numerous prestigious awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes of five nominations and nine Tony Award nominations for Best New Play. Seven Guitars was the 6th play of this cycle produced on Broadway. It is arguably Wilson's most musical play. For Wilson, music-particularly the blues-holds signification cultural value which he characterizes as "an expression of our people and our response to the world.

This will be People's Light's first production of a play by August Wilson, a poet-turned-playwright born and raised in Pittsburgh who literally changed the face of American theatre. As the most produced playwright in the 1990s, his prominence gave rise to many African American stage actors, such as Ruben Santiago-Hudson, who won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Canewell in the 1996 Broadway production of Seven Guitars. Jade King Carroll, returning to direct her third show here at People's Light, is a mentee of Santiago-Hudson. They met during the 2006 NYC revival of the play, which he directed and she assistant-directed. In 2010, Carroll's connection to Wilson's legacy was formally acknowledged as she was awarded the Paul Green Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Professional by The August Wilson Estate.

This play is a celebration of the community, but also explores the struggles of individuals in their search for the American dream. At the core of the play is a way money serves as a tragic weapon against the souls of these characters. The lack of it, the want of it, and the treatment of others based on it. Seven Guitars speaks in a spirited, sexy, poetic way about how money and related concepts of success and happiness shape the identity of the characters and in turn our American identity.

Seven Guitars won a New York Drama Critics Circle Award and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award, and Drama Desk Award.

Seven Guitars previews tonight, September 12th and Thursday, September 13th at 7:30 pm and Friday, September 14th at 8:00 pm. The play opens on Saturday September 15th at 8:00 pm and runs through October 7th. Audiences are encouraged to join the artists for a conversation about the production after performances on September 20th, 27th and October 4th.

Single tickets range in price from $25 – $45. For tickets, call the Box Office at 610.644.3500. Special discounts are available for groups of 10 or more. For more information or to purchase group tickets, call 610.647.1900 x134 or email charles@peopleslight.org.

Subscription tickets are still available for the 2012-2013 Season. Productions in the 6-Play Series include Seven Guitars (September 12-October 7, 2012), Aladdin: A Musical Panto (November 14, 2012-January 6, 2013), The Winter's Tale (January 31-March 3, 2013), The Trip to Bountiful (March 13-April 7, 2013), Barcelona (May 29-June 23, 2013) and Noises Off (July 10-August 4, 2013). Productions in the PNC Arts Alive Discovery Series include Mark Twain: Sacred Cows Make the Best Hamburgers (October 10-November 4, 2012), Aladdin: A Musical Panto (November 14, 2012-January 6, 2013) and Stargirl (April 20-May 12, 2013).

Actors, prices, productions, performance dates and times are subject to change. Additional service charges will apply. Contact the Box Office for more details.

People's Light, a professional, not-for-profit theatre in Chester County, Pennsylvania, makes plays drawn from many sources to entertain, inspire, and engage our community. We extend our mission of making and experiencing theatre through arts education programs that excite curiosity about, and deepen understanding of, the world around us. These plays and programs bring people together and provide opportunities for reflection, discovery, and celebration. Founded in 1974, we produce seven to nine plays each season, in two black box theatres with 350 and 170 seats respectively, mixing world premieres, contemporary plays, and fresh approaches to classic texts for our 6-Play and Discovery Series.

August Wilson is one of our preeminent American Playwrights. He is best known for his Pittsburgh Cycle –10 plays that explore the African American experience with a play set in each decade of the 20th century. He has garnered numerous awards including 2 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, a Tony Award for Best Play, 7 New York Drama Critics Circle Awards, 2 Drama Desk Awards, 2 Outer Critics Circle Awards, Great Britain's Oliver Award, and the National Humanities Medal. His plays are known for their lyrical richness and for providing the marginalized with a ground on which to stand.

Jade King Carroll (Director): People's Light & Theatre, Joe's Pub, Juilliard, Perseverance, 59E59, Intar, Urban Stages, Barrow Group, CitiParks Summer Stages, Theatre Row, Penn State, Passage Theatre, The Lark, Primary Stages, Time Warner New Play Festival, PlayPenn, Dramatist's Guild, and many others. Awards: TCG New Generations Future Leader, Paul Green Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Professional from The August Wilson Estate, New York Theatre Workshop Fellow. Recently, she was the Associate Director for A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway.

Maechi Aharanwa (Vera): Credits include OFF BROADWAY: Mother Courage, Macbeth, The Blacks, Trojan Women (Classical Theatre of Harlem), The Beyonce Effect (The Fire This Time Festival); REGIONAL: Antigone (Quintessence Theatre Group), Miss Julie (New Day Repertory), A Women Called Truth (Open Eye Theater); JUILLIARD: Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Cherry Orchard, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, Farragut North, Julius Caesar. TELEVISION/FILM: 30 Rock, Mercy, Silver Sling. Maechi co-writes and produces the web series Shi*ty Fabulous Lives. TRAINING: Juilliard. www.maechi.net

Nyahale Allie (Ruby): Most recently appeared in Dominique Morisseau's Follow Me to Nellie's. Developmental works include: Pussy Valley (Lark Theater Lab) Saturday Night/Sunday Morning (McCarter Theater Lab) and Blacken the Bubble. Television credits include Law and Order and TNT's Rizzoli and Isles. A proud native of Detroit, MI, and Howard University Alumni (BFA).

Francois Battiste (Canewell): Broadway: Magic/Bird, Prelude to a Kiss. Off Broadway: Brokeology, The Good Negro (Obie Award) Ten Things to Do Before I Die, Merchant of Venice and The Winter's Tale (Shakespeare in The Park). Regional: Williamstown, Sundance, Chicago Shakespeare, Goodman Theatre, Victory Gardens, Lookingglass. TV: Person of Interest, Are We There Yet?, The Good Wife. Film: Delivering the Goods, One Week. In 2012: Men In Black III, You Bury Your Own. Training: BADA at Oxford, Juilliard.

Lou Ferguson (Hedley): Last seen at PLTC in Of Mice and Men and at The Wilma in Coming Home. Broadwaycredits include Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running, and Playboy of the West Indies. Regional credits include Everyman, Les Blancs, Night of the Iguana, The Hasty Heart,and Oedipus the King. TV credits include Law & Order, Another World, and General Hospital.Film credits include Attica, The Interpreter, Maid in Manhattan, I Like It Like That, and No Place to Hide.

Melanye Finister (Louise): Melanye was last seen at PLTC playing Aldonza Dulcinea in Don Quixote. She is a Teaching Artist and resident company member at People's Light since 1991. She has also worked for Arden Theatre Company, Flashpoint Theatre Company, InterAct Theatre Company, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Venture Theatre and The Walnut Street Theatre. Melanye is a board member at Stockton Rush Bartol and holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University.

Morocco Omari (Floyd Barton): Broadway: A Streetcar Named Desire. Regional: Race at St.Louis Rep, Space and Intimate Apparel at SteppenwolfTheatre, Blues for An Alabama Sky and The Ballad of Emmett Till at Goodman Theatre, Trust and Fedra at Lookingglass Theatre, Elmina's Kitchen at Congo Square, Radio Golf atPittsburgh Public, and Virginia Stage Company,TV credits include: Prison Break, Judging Amy, 24, Frasier, recurring roles on N.C.I.S, Joan of Arcadia, L.A. Dragnet, and Girlfriends.

Brian Anthony Wilson (Red Carter): Brian feels fortunate to be returning to PLTC. Seven Guitars marks his seventh production from August Wilson's 20th Century Cycle. He has portrayed Gabriel, Lyons, Boy Willie, Avery, Herald Loomis, Hambone, King Hedley II & Becker at various Regional & Local Theatres. Film: Limitless, Law Abiding Citizen, Six Degrees of Hell, Keeping The Faith, The Postman. TV: Unforgettable, Law & Order: S.V.U., Outlaw, The Sopranos and The Wire. Coming up: Assasin at InterAct and Act II Playhouse in 2013.

To post a comment, you must register and login.