TEN CHIMNEYS to Open at Artists Rep, 4/23

Artists Rep is thrilled to present the West Coast premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher's play Ten Chimneys from April 23 through May 26, 2013. This revealing comedy peers into the backstage lives of Broadway power-duo Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne and summers spent at their legendary Wisconsin estate, Ten Chimneys.

"What the Vatican is to Catholics, Ten Chimneys is to actors," said Carol Channing, one of the Lunts' many guests to the elaborate country home.

Love triangles and family dysfunction unfold when the rehearsal process for the 1938 Broadway production of Chekhov's The Sea Gull becomes a true-to-life plot. Brimming with theatre lore, Jeffrey Hatcher's new play is a heartwarming and hilarious look into the real depths of truth, loyalty and love in private lives behind the curtain.

Ten Chimneys is incoming Artistic Director Dámaso Rodriguez's directorial debut at Artists Rep. Artistic Director Allen Nause set aside this comedic love letter to the stage for the person who would take over the reins of the theatre company.

"Hatcher's Ten Chimneys is an extremely insightful, witty and sophisticated play filled with meta-theatrical treats. We watch actors playing famous characters who happen to be actors playing characters rehearsing a play-within-a-play with characters playing actors playing characters," said Rodriguez at the production's first rehearsal. "The play is a subtly self-referential hybrid of a Noel Coward light comedy, Chekhovian tragi-comedy and backstage biography that reveals much about the often-blurry line between an artist's personal and professional life."

Ten Chimneys is written by Jeffrey Hatcher and directed by Dámaso Rodriguez. Featuring: Alfred Lunt - Michael Mendelson - Artists Rep Resident Artist; Lynn Fontanne - Linda Alper; Uta Hagen - Abby Wilde; Hattie Sederholm - JoAnn Johnson; Sydney Greenstreet - Todd Van Voris - Artists Rep Resident Artist; Carl Sederholm - Chris Harder; and Louise Green - Sarah Lucht.

Performance Dates: April 23 - May 26; Wednesday through Sunday at 7:30pm, Sunday at 2:00pm. Opening Night is Friday, April 26 at Artists Repertory Theatre - Alder Stage (16th and Morrison St.). Tickets: $25-$50. Box Office: 503.241.1278 or www.artistsrep.org.

Jeffrey Hatcher wrote the stage play Compleat Female Stage Beauty, which he later adapted into a screenplay, shortened to just Stage Beauty (2004). He is the author of Ten Chimneys, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Ella and co-author of Work Song: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright and Tuesdays with Morrie - all of which have been seen on Arizona Theatre Company's stages. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was also staged at Carolina Actors Studio Theatre in Charlotte in 2011. Mr. Hatcher authored the book for the Broadway musical Never Gonna Dance. Off-Broadway, he has had several plays produced, including Three Viewings and A Picasso at Manhattan Theatre Club, Scotland Road and The Turn of the Screw at Primary Stages, Tuesdays with Morrie (with Mitch Albom) at Minetta Lane Theatre, Murder by Poe and The Turn of the Screw with The Acting Company, Neddy at The American Place Theatre and Fellow Travelers at Manhattan Punchline. His plays - among them, Compleat Female Stage Beauty, Mrs. Mannerly, Murderers, Mercy of a Storm, Smash Armadale, Korczak's Children, To Fool the Eye, The Falls, A Piece of the Rope, All the Way with LBJ, The Government Inspector and Work Song (with Eric Simonson) - have been seen at such theatres as Yale Repertory Theatre, The Old Globe, South Coast Repertory, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Intiman Theatre, Florida Stage, The Empty Space, California Theatre Center, Madison Repertory Theatre, Illusion Theater, Denver Center Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Coconut Grove Playhouse, Asolo Repertory Theatre, City Theatre, Studio Arena Theatre and dozens more in the U.S. and abroad. Mr. Hatcher wrote the screenplays for Stage Beauty, The Duchess and Casanova, as well as authoring episodes of the Peter Falk series Columbo. He is a member and/or alumnus of The Playwrights' Center, The Dramatists Guild of America, Writers Guild of America and New Dramatists.

Dámaso is Artists Rep's incoming Artistic Director. He is a Co-Founder of Furious Theatre Company, an ensemble-driven theatre committed to daring, socially relevant new plays of visceral impact, where he served as Co-Artistic Director from 2001-2012. From 2007-2010 he served as Associate Artistic Director of the Pasadena Playhouse, where he directed main stage productions and oversaw programming for The Playhouse's Second Stage, including its Hothouse New Play Development Program. His directing credits include work at the Pasadena Playhouse, Intiman Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Laguna Playhouse, A Noise Within, The Theatre@Boston Court, Odyssey Theatre, The Blank Theatre, The Road Theatre and Furious Theatre. Dámaso is a recipient of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, the Back Stage Garland Award, the NAACP Theatre Award, and the Pasadena Arts Council's Gold Crown Award. In 2010, Furious Theatre Company was named to LA Weekly's list of "Best Theatres of the Decade." In 2012, he was honored as a finalist for the Zelda Fichandler Award. He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. Recent productions: Ruth & Augustus Goetz' The Heiress (starring Richard Chamberlain), Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (starring Kelly McGillis) and Austin Pendleton's Orson's Shadow (starring Sharon Lawrence) at the Pasadena Playhouse; the reading of Steven Drukman's The Prince of Atlantis for the Pacific Playwrights Festival at South Coast Repertory, Clifford Odets' Paradise Lost at Intiman Theatre; Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, Tennessee Williams' The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms, Bernard Shaw's The Doctor's Dilemma at A Noise Within. Furious Theatre credits include the Los Angeles premieres of Craig Wright's Grace, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's Boom and Hunter Gatherers, Bruce Norris' The Pain and the Itch, Yussef El Guindi's Back of the Throat, Richard Bean's The God Botherers, Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things, and the world premieres of Alex Jones' Canned Peaches in Syrup and Matt Pelfrey's An Impending Rupture of the Belly and No Good Deed, among many others. His film directing credits include the darkly comic feature Pure Shock Value, which was selected as the Centerpiece Film of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, and episodes of the web series A G.A.N.G. by screenwriter Matt Pelfrey (MTV's Skins). More information at: www.damaso-rodriguez.com.

Now celebrating its 30th season, Artists Repertory Theatre is the longest-running professional theater company in Portland. Artists Rep strives to challenge artists and audiences with plays of depth and vibrancy in an intimate setting. Artists Rep explores the strengths, frailties, and diversity of the human condition primarily through regional premieres, commissioned works and selected classics appropriate to contemporary issues.

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