Burning Coal Theatre's THE HERETIC Opens Tonight

Burning Coal Theatre Company will open its 17th season with the U.S. Premiere of The Heretic, a rollicking comedy by Richard Bean. The production will run September 12 - 29, 2013 at the Murphey School, 224 Polk Street, Raleigh, NC. Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2 pm. Sunday, September 15 at 2 pm is our 'Pay What You Can' Day. That performance will also be Audio Described. Tickets are $25, $20 for seniors (65+) and $15 for students and active military. All tickets are $15 on Thursday evenings. For reservations and information, please call 919-834-4001 or visit www.burningcoal.org. Don't forget our first Friday, 9/13, is our gala! Plenty of free food and drink before the show, plus chat with the cast in the lobby over cake and coffee after!

Richard Bean's The Heretic won the Evening Standard Award in 2011 as "Best New Play of the Year" in London. Bean's other play that year,One Man, Two Guv'nors was a huge hit at The National Theatre and on the West End, but it was his compact comedy, The Heretic, which surprised everyone when it took top honors (in a tie with Bean's own One Man, Two Guv'nors). Burning Coal Theatre Company is proud to present its U.S. premiere. Burning Coal's Artistic Director, Jerome Davis, will direct.

Professor Diane Cassel is a firm believer in science and the rigorous pursuit of the facts. But when her university is up for a big grant, it begins to apply pressure to Diane in an effort to keep her from publishing her most recent set of findings. At home, her teenage daughter Phoebe, despite Diane's liberal parenting, has taken to hurting herself and mooning over an underachieving undergraduate. Can Diane hold to her beliefs or, like a modern day Galileo, will she recant both her faith in Science and her trust in Phoebe?

Jerome Davis is Burning Coal Theatre Company's founding artistic director. He has worked at Trinity Repertory Company (Providence), People's Light & Theatre Company (PA), New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, Phoenix Theatre (SUNY/Purhchase), Wellfleet Harbor Actors' Theatre (Cape Cod), Columbia University, and Soho Rep, New Dramatists, Avalon Rep and Mint Theatre (NYC). Originally from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, he studied in New York with Uta Hagen, Nikos Psacharapolous and Julie Bovasso. For Burning Coal, he has directed Rat in the Skull, Pentecost, The Steward of Christendom, Winding the Ball, Night and Day, The Weir, Jude the Obscure, Parts 1 & 2 (world premiere), Company, The Prisoner's Dilemma (US premiere), The Shape of the Table (US premiere) and last season's Shining City. He recently directed Of Mice & Men at the Temple Theatre, See How They Run at Sandhill Rep, Twelfth Night for Apex High School and Benjamin Britten's Turn of the Screw for NC Opera. He co-wrote The Man Who Tried to Save the World with Floraine Kay, presented in Burning Coal's 2003/2004 season.

Dr. Diane Cassell will be played by Julie Oliver of Raleigh, NC. Julie has appeared in many productions with Burning Coal, including Jude the Obscure, Much Ado About Nothing, Brigadoon, Good and Hair. Phoebe will be played by Emilie Stark-Menneg Blum of Boston, Mass. Emilie has appeared with Burning Coal in Hysteria, Limbo (US premiere) and Much Ado About Nothing. Professor Kevin Maloney will be played byHolden Hansen, who teaches at UNC-Pembroke. Holden has appeared at Burning Coal in The Seafarer, Inherit the Wind and 90 in 90 (world premiere). Geoff Tordoff will be played by Mark de la Salle, a newcomer to the Triangle theatre world. Catherine Tickell will be played by Emelia Cowans of Raleigh. Emelia most recently appeared at Burning Coal in Crowns and Gee's Bend. She is best known around town as the WRAL Lottery Lady!

The scenery and lights will be designed by Cornell University's Ed Inteman (Brigadoon, Good, The Lovesong of J. Robert Oppenheimer). Sound will be designed by Raleigh's Aharon Segal (Ruined) and props will be created by Raleigh's Elizabeth Newton (Shining City). The production stage manager is Raleigh's Adam Budlong (Inherit the Wind).

Photo by: The Right Image Photography, Inc.

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