Arizona Theatre Co Opens 52nd Season With Karen Zacarias' New Comedy NATIVE GARDENS

Arizona Theatre Company (David Ivers, Artistic Director; Billy Russo, Managing Director) lifts the curtain on Scene in America, the theme for its 52nd season and the first reflecting Ivers' influence and impact, with Karen Zacarías' hilarious new comedy that's anything but neighborly, Native Gardens, Sept. 8-29 at the Temple of Music & Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. in Tucson.

Single tickets are now on sale at the box office and through the website, www.arizonatheatre.org as are a range of flexible season-ticket packages for the six shows or combination of them. Single tickets prices start at $25 including fees. Additional fees may apply. Group ticket prices start at $30 for groups of 10 and more.

The 2018/2019 season is dedicated to Geri Silvi, ATC's long-time Box Office Manager in Phoenix. The season is sponsored by I. Michael and Beth Kasser.

"Native Gardens is a comedy that explores how a common disagreement between well-meaning neighbors about gardening can explode into a primal and absurd battle where no one comes out smelling like a rose," Zacarías said. "I am so excited to share this play with Arizona audiences and watch how people 'root' for the different characters, arguments and alliances."

"Native Gardens is a comedy planted in difficult, painful issues. But Zacarias is a populist and compassionate writer, and she finds a lot of political strength in those qualities," Chris Jones wrote in the Chicago Tribune. Channing Gray called it a "neighborly clash of cultures loaded with laughs" in the Providence Journal.

Directed by Jane Jones, who is making her ATC debut, the story revolves around high-powered lawyer Pablo (Keith Contreras) and his wife, Tania (Arlene Chico-Lugo), a doctoral candidate, who are working toward the American Dream.

They move into a well-to-do, mostly white Washington, D.C. neighborhood where the neighbors are an old-school, well-established D.C. couple, Frank (Bill Geisslinger) and Virginia Butley (Robynn Rodriguez) with a prize-worthy English garden.

A delicate agreement over a long-standing fence line soon spirals into an all-out ludicrously comic border dispute, exposing both couples' notions of race, taste, class and cultural privilege.

"This brilliant comedy looks at the fast-receding ideal that we should be able to live next door to each other, whatever our background, age and politics - even as they play rightly observes that harmony cannot exist without some willingness for self-examination, especially on the side of the fence where historical privilege has resided," Ivers said.

Looking at the overall six-play season, Ivers added that the season "will offer a kaleidoscope of reactions and explorations of the American experience, themes of literal and metaphorical family and views of the world we live in. Our theme, Scene in America, resonates in each and every play."

Native Gardens will be followed by Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End, by Margaret Engel and Allison Engel, directed by Casey Stangl (Tucson: Oct. 20-Nov. 10); The Music Man, Music and Lyrics by Meredith Willson, Book by Meredith Willson and Franklin Lacey, directed by David Ivers (Tucson: Dec. 1-30). Two Trains Running, by August Wilson, directed by Lou Bellamy (Tucson: Jan. 19-Feb. 9); American Mariachi, by José Cruz González (Tucson: March 9-30) and Things I Know to be True, by Andrew Bovell, directed by Mark Clements (Tucson: April 20-May 11).

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