Capital Stage Presents HUNTER GATHERERS 5/14-6/27

Capital Stage continues as Sacramento's "home of the premieres" with its presentation of Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's hilarious and outrageous Hunter Gatherers. Winner of the 2006 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award and Will Glickman Award, Hunter Gatherers was included in every Bay Area media's list of best plays for 2006. Besides the Bay Area, Hunter Gatherers has been a huge hit with critics and audiences from LA to Philadelphia and Seattle to Dallas.

"Outrageously libidinous knockabout farce meets penetrating social satire in Peter Nachtrieb's hilariously revelatory comedy." - San Francisco Chronicle

A hilariously savage dinner with friends is the setting of the Sacramento premiere of Hunter Gatherers by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. An urban evening finds Pam and Richard hosting their best friends, Wendy and Tom, for an annual get-together. An animal sacrifice kicks off the evening, followed by a little more sex, violence, deception, wrestling and dancing than at previous parties. The line between civilized and primal man will be blurred. Hunter Gatherers is a dark comedy described as Lord of the Flies meets Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Performances for Hunter Gatherers will begin with four previews on Friday, May 14 at 8pm; Saturday, May 15 at 7pm; Sunday, May 16 at 2pm; and Thursday, May 20 at 8pm, and will open on Friday, May 21, 2010 at 8pm. Performances continue through June 27, 2010. (There will be no performances Memorial Day Weekend, May 27-30, due to the annual Jazz Festival in Old Sacramento.) Showtimes will be Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 7pm and Sundays at 2pm. Tickets range from $25-$32. Discount tickets are available as follows: Preview Tickets: $15; Student Tickets on Thursdays and Fridays: $12; Senior Tickets on Sunday Matinees: $20; and Group Rates available for parties of 12 or more. Tickets are currently available at the Capital Stage Box Office, by phone at 916-995-5464 or online at www.capstage.org. The Pilothouse Restaurant offers a specially priced $29 three-course dinner for theatre patrons; Pilothouse reservations can be made through the box office.

The Playwright
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb was born in San Francisco and grew up in Mill Valley. Mr. Nachtrieb graduated from Brown University with a degree in Theater and Biology, and earned his MFA in Creative Writing from SF State in 2005. His play, Colorado had its full world premiere at Impact Theatre in 2006. His first full length play, Meaningless, has won multiple awards, received its world premiere at Chicago's Bailiwick Repertory Theatre August 2004, where it earned rave reviews. His one act, Multiplex, was produced at the Bruno's Island New Plays Festival in San Francisco, and was part of SFSU's mainstage season in 2003. His short play, Self Help, won an Emerging Playwright Award from SF's Playground Theatre. Mr. Nachtrieb's play, Hunter Gatherers had a sellout three-month world premiere run the summer of 2006, produced by Killing My Lobster. Its early development was supported by a Tournesol Emerging Playwrights Residency at the Z Space, the New Works Fund, a grant program of Theatre Bay Area and was part of the 2005 Bay Area Playwright's Festival. It was performed on Cape Cod at W.H.A.T. in summer of 2007. Mr. Nachtrieb's play boom had its world premiere at Ars Nova in New York and had productions at DC's Woolly Mammoth, Seattle Rep, Cleveland Public Theatre and Sacramento's B Street Theatre. Mr. Nachtrieb's most recent play, TIC, had its world premiere with Encore Theatre with whom he has received an Emerging Playwright Award from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. It played in January 2009 in San Francisco. He has received a commission from South Coast Rep, and wrote for the 2009 Humana Festival Anthology.

The Cast
Hunter Gatherers will include Katie Rubin (Speech & Debate) as Wendy, Greg Parker (I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change) as Tom, Kelley Ogden co-founder of Sacramento's KOLT Run Creations as Pam and Bay Area favorite Cassidy Brown as Richard. Capital Stage Artistic Associate Jonathan Williams (Dirty Story, Boy Gets Girl) directs.

WARNING: This play contains adult subject matter, and although it is hilarious, it's probably not suitable for those under the age of 17.

Capital Stage Company's mission is to be a dynamic leader in the evolution of the contemporary live theatre landscape in the Capital region and to passionately engage audiences in the art of live storytelling with bold, innovative plays performed by professional artists, in an intimate, up close setting. With a strong commitment to expanding the base of working artists in the greater Sacramento region, we shall develop a company of actors, directors, writers, designers, and technical staff who are dedicated to bringing bold, lively productions of contemporary and classic plays to our community.

While part of the mission of any theater company is to entertain its audience, we at Capital Stage feel strongly that the productions we mount address issues that are vital to understanding the society we live in and ourselves as human beings in that society. We address themes of power and manipulation in relationships between men and women, children and parents, and organizations and individuals. We invite audiences to question the ethics and meaning of art, the definitions of sanity and intelligence, and the line between exploitation and legitimate relationship. We believe that in a large and growing urban environment, where individuals and groups are constantly bombarded with information and demands for decisions, the need for thoughtful examination of our interactions in society has never been greater.

Capital Stage Company's mission is to be a dynamic leader in the evolution of the contemporary live theatre landscape in the Capital region and to passionately engage audiences in the art of live storytelling with bold, innovative plays performed by professional artists, in an intimate, up close setting. With a strong commitment to expanding the base of working artists in the greater Sacramento region, we shall develop a company of actors, directors, writers, designers, and technical staff who are dedicated to bringing bold, lively productions of contemporary and classic plays to our community.

While part of the mission of any theater company is to entertain its audience, we at Capital Stage feel strongly that the productions we mount address issues that are vital to understanding the society we live in and ourselves as human beings in that society. We address themes of power and manipulation in relationships between men and women, children and parents, and organizations and individuals. We invite audiences to question the ethics and meaning of art, the definitions of sanity and intelligence, and the line between exploitation and legitimate relationship. We believe that in a large and growing urban environment, where individuals and groups are constantly bombarded with information and demands for decisions, the need for thoughtful examination of our interactions in society has never been greater.

Capital Stage is a 501(c)(3) not for profit organization.

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