Photo Flash: BETHANY Begins Performances Tonight at The Old Globe - Meet the Cast!

The Old Globe today announced the complete cast and creative team for the West Coast premiere of Laura Marks's powerful new play Bethany. Directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch, Bethany will run today, Jan. 25 - Feb. 23, 2014 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Preview performances run Jan. 25 - Jan. 29. Opening night is Thursday, Jan. 30 at 8:00 p.m. Meet the cast and creative team in the photos below!

In Bethany, Crystal and Gary live in a nice home in the suburbs. Only it's not theirs. In fact, they didn't know each other before they moved in, and the story of how they got there is the beginning of Crystal's plan to get her life back on track. Between her job at the Saturn dealership, her new housemate's conspiracy theories, and the motivational speaker who just might buy that sports car, this new drama will take you on the ride of your life, with a woman willing to take on anything and everything...all for someone named Bethany.

Jennifer Ferrin makes her Globe debut as Crystal. Ferrin currently stars as Louise Ellison on AMC's hit Wild West drama "Hell on Wheels" and is a two-time Emmy Award nominee for her recurring role on "As the World Turns." Among her extensive theater, film, and television credits, Ferrin was part of the original Broadway cast of the smash comedy The 39 Steps.

The cast of Bethany also features Carlo Albán (Gary), DeAnna Driscoll (Shannon), Amanda Naughton (Patricia), James Shanklin (Charlie), and Sylvia M'Lafi Thompson (Toni).

The creative team includes Lauren Helpern (Scenic Design), Sarah J. Holden (Costume Design), Japhy Weideman (Lighting Design), Leon Rothenberg (Original Music and Sound Design), J. David Brimmer (Fight Director), Caparelliotis Casting (Casting), and Diana Moser (Stage Manager).

Playwright Laura Marks is the author of Bethany, which premiered Off Broadway at New York City Center Stage II, produced by the Women's Project, and was directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch. Bethany was nominated for the 2013 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, won the Leah Ryan Prize for Emerging Women Writers, was a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist, was published in Methuen's American Next Wave anthology in the U.K., and was chosen by John Guare as runner-up for Yale University's David C. Horn Prize. Her other plays include Mine, produced last year in Chicago by The Gift Theatre Company, and Gather at the River, recently workshopped at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Her other honors include a 2012 Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, a 2013 Lilly Award, a 2013 award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, two Lecomte du Noüy Prizes, and a two-year residency in The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group. Her plays have been developed at The Public Theater, The Juilliard School, Women's Project, LCT3, The Black Dahlia Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Royal Exchange Theatre, HighTide Festival Theatre, The Wilma Theater, LArk Theatre Company, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Partial Comfort Productions, Prospect Theater Company, and more.

Director Gaye Taylor Upchurch has directed the Off Broadway productions of Laura Marks's Bethany (Women's Project, Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Play), Lucy Thurber's Stay (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), and Simon Stephens' Harper Regan and Bluebird with Simon Russell Beale (Atlantic Theater Company). Her work has been seen at Culture Project, La Mama, and Lincoln Center Institute, among others, and she has developed new work at New Dramatists, New York Stage and Film, The Kennedy Center, Playwrights' Center, Lincoln Center Theater's Directors Lab, and SPACE on Ryder Farm. She worked with Sam Mendes as associate director on The Bridge Project's productions of The Cherry Orchard, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, and As You Like It (Brooklyn Academy Of Music, The Old Vic, International Tour).

Tickets to Bethany can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE, or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park. Performances begin on Jan. 25 and continue through Feb. 23. Ticket prices start at $29.

Photo Credit: Jim Cox

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