Theatre Exile Presents Saturn Returns, Closes 5/22

Theatre Exile concludes its 2010-2011 season with Saturn Returns (April 28 - May 22), by Noah Haidle. Saturn Returns launches audiences into a bittersweet orbit of memory, longing and love with the same offbeat, savagely funny exploration into loneliness that made Haidle's Mr. Marmalade an audience favorite. Theatre Exile's production offers a re-imagining of the play after Haidle re-wrote the piece in London last fall. Exile's production marks the American Premiere of the re-worked script.

Haidle's elegantly structured tale, which The Guardian said "exudes a sense of pleasurable melancholy," focuses on three pivotal days in the life of Gustin Novak, at the ages of 28, 58 and 88. Around him circle The Shadows of his wife, his daughter, his caretaker and his former selves. As his past plays out before him again and again, Gustin pits his wicked sense of humor and sharp wit against the pain of endless goodbyes. "Haidle's most prodigious gift may be his psychological sophistication. Beautifully written...the limpid play is really a haunting, in which Haidle finds a way of dramatizing the presence of absence in all of us." (The New Yorker)

Theatre Exile's long-time Associate Artistic Director Brenna Geffers makes her Exile directing debut by assembling a cast of all-star Exile veterans. Harry Philibosian stars as the sharp-tongued 88-year-old Gustin. Joe Canuso takes on the widowed but un-wilting 58-year-old incarnation of Gustin, and David Raphealy plays the newly married 28-year-old Gustin. Amanda Schoonover who starred as Lucy in Mr. Marmalade, again creates the perfect Haidle heroine, playing Gustin's wife, daughter and caretaker who whirl in and out of his memories.

Amongst them, the cast has performed in over two dozen of Exile's most memorable shows, from Belmont Avenue Social Club to Killer Joe to GlenGarry Glenn Ross to Mr. Marmalade, to Hunter Gatherers.

Saturn Returns begins previews on April 28, opens on May 4 (press night, 8:00 p.m.), and closes on May 22, 2011. [A full performance schedule follows in the fact sheet below.] All performances will be held at Christ Church Neighborhood House (20 N. American Street, Philadelphia). Tickets are $18-$40, with special discounts for students and seniors, and are available online at www.theatreexile.org or by calling the Exile Box Office at (215) 218-4022.

About the Cast

A Philadelphia theater icon, Harry Philibosian portrays Gustin at age 88. He has appeared with Theatre Exile in GlennGarry Glenn Ross for which he earned two Barrymore Awards, The Frank and Harry series, Belmont Avenue Social Club, Live at the Apollo Diner, Burkie, The Gin Game, and Hearts & Soles. Philibosian has also performed with Interact Theatre Company, Lantern Theater Company, The Wilma Theater, Walnut Street Theatre, Arden Theatre Company, The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre, Act II Playhouse, and 1812 Productions, among others.

Theatre Exile's Producing Artistic Director Joe Canuso takes on the role of Gustin at age 58. He was part of the Barrymore Award-winning ensemble of Glengarry Glen Ross and was nominated for a Barrymore Award for Outstanding Direction of a Play for Killer Joe. In 2009 Philadelphia Weekly named him Best Director for Blackbird. Canuso has directed many of Theatre Exile's shows including Noah Haidle's Mr. Marmalade, Pretty, Pretty or The Rape Play, Red Light Winter, Full Figured/Loves to Dance, The Philly Fan, Last Call, The Gin Game, and Belmont Avenue Social Club, among many others. He has also appeared as an actor in several Exile productions including Princess Ivona, Bug, American Buffalo, and most recently the world premiere of Bruce Graham's Any Given Monday, which received the Barrymore Award for Best New Play.

David Raphaely makes his Theatre Exile debut as Gustin at age 28. His Philadelphia credits include the Barrymore-nominated If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (Arden), The Eclectic Society (Walnut Street), Sleeping Beauty and A Prayer for Owen Meany (Arden), House Divided (InterAct), and eleven productions with The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre.

Amanda Schoonover portrays all of the female characters in the play. Schoonover is a six-time Barrymore Award nominee, receiving two awards for her work as Dottie in Exile's own Killer Joe. She was also a finalist for the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist for the 2009-2010 season. She has worked with many theaters in the region, including Arden Theatre Company, People's Light & Theatre, Bristol Riverside Theatre, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Lantern Theater Company, Azuka Theatre, and New City Stage.

About the Production Team

Director Brenna Geffers has emerged as a tour-de-force artist of adventurous and teeth-baring theater. She serves as the Associate Artistic Director for Theatre Exile and is directing her first full production for the company. She also serves as literary manager for EgoPo Classic Theater, is a founding member for Wandering Rom Players, and is an adjunct instructor for Temple University where she earned her MFA in directing. Her notable credits include: Marat/Sade and Waiting for Godot with EgoPo, A Coupla' White Chicks Sitting Around Talking and Pterodactyls with New City Stage, Mud with Wandering Rom and Cabaret with Temple University and Prince Music Theater.

The production team creating Gustin's home in three different decades includes set designer Daniel P. Boylen who is a Temple University faculty member and has designed for Goodspeed Opera House, McCarter Theatre, and Pennsylvania Ballet, among others. Lighting designer Paul Moffitt's work has been seen in Exile's Mr. Marmalade and Blackbird, as well as with companies such as The Wilma Theater, Philadelphia Theatre Company, and Headlong Dance Theatre. Costume designer Brian Strachan is the Costume Director at University of the Arts and has worked with Philadelphia Shakespeare, EgoPo, New City Stage, and others. Sound designer Matt Lorenz most recently worked with Geffers on New City Stage's Pterodactyls, in addition to productions with the Lantern and Mauckingbird Theatre Company.

About the Playwright

At the young age of 32, Noah Haidle has already created an impressive body of work. His plays, which include Mr. Marmalade, Persephone or Slow Time, and Women and Criminals, have been seen at Lincoln Center Theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Long Wharf Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, as well as others around the country and abroad. He has taught playwriting at Princeton University, The Kennedy Center and in Kenya and Uganda as part of The Sundance Theatre Institute. He is a graduate of Princeton University and The Juilliard School, where he was a Lila Acheson Wallace playwright-in-residence. He is the recipient of three Lincoln Center Le Compte Du Nuoy Awards, the 2005 Helen Merrill Award for emerging Playwrights, the 2007 Claire Tow Award, and an NEA/TCG theatre residenCy Grant. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

About Theatre Exile

Theatre Exile is a nonprofit theater company dedicated to enhancing the cultural experiences of all Philadelphians through the staging of works that engage the imagination and challenge the expectations of a commercial theater. By producing risky and challenging plays that contain a sense of true Philadelphia grit and passion, Theatre Exile has proven to be a place where local artists can take their biggest risks. Exile matches cutting-edge scripts with Philadelphia's top talent, continually bringing immediate and dangerous performances to audiences and presenting the voices of today's most gifted playwrights.

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