SPIT LIKE A BIG GIRL Begins Previews 5/14 At Rubicon Theatre In Ventura

Rubicon Theatre Company continues its "Brave New World" Season with the charming and eccentric one-woman play SPIT LIKE A BIG GIRL. The play will begin previews Thursday, May 14, open on Saturday, May 16 and run through Sunday, June 7, 2009 at the Rubicon Theatre, 1006 E. Main Street in Ventura.

Clarinda Ross, a Drama-Logue award winner for Best Actress in a solo performance, wrote and stars in this quirky and highly personal family memoir. We meet Carl, a university professor whose legacy for his daughter is little bits of wisdom she finds in his journals; Clarinda, who copes with her father's loss while raising a daughter who is developmentally disabled; and her daughter Clara, who desperately wants to be a "big girl" but still clings to her mother's hand. SPIT LIKE A BIG GIRL deals with growing up southern, the death of her father and raising her mentally disabled daughter.

Clarinda grew up in Boone, North Carolina where both her parents were professors at Appalachian State University. Her father, the late Carl A. Ross Jr., was Chairman of the Appalachian Studies Department at ASU and her mother Charlotte is a renowned storyteller in the region. This backdrop is interwoven throughout SPIT LIKE A BIG GIRL. The impetus for the play was when Clarinda shared with a director friend how she had accidently come across her father's journals. The friend got her to a theatre with a stool, where Clarinda sat, flipped through the journals and read a story here and there. "Spit Like A Big Girl is essentially a love letter from a daughter to her father, a father I lost suddenly in my 20's before I was ready to say goodbye," said Ross.

CLARINDA ROSS (Herself) graduated from Appalachian State with a B.A. in theatre. She furthered her studies at the ALLIANCE THEATRE in Atlanta and at the Conservatory program at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. She has worked at many major regional theatres including The Alley Theatre (Houston), and spent four years as a leading lady with the Atlanta Shakespeare Company. Her first feature film was Blue Sky with Tommy Lee Jones and Jessica Lange directed by the late great Tony Richardson. Other film credits include Fluke with Matthew Modine and Eric Stoltz, The Sky Is Falling and View From The Top with Gwyneth Paltrow. Her television appearances include: Judging Amy, E.R., Drew Carey, The Client, The District, In The Heat of The Night, I'll Fly Away, and several movies of the week, most notably the Emmy award-winning Stolen Babies with Mary Tyler Moore. Ms. Ross received an individual artist grant from the NEA at age 23 and developed her first one-woman play, From My Grandmother's Grandmother Unto Me, based on her southern ancestors. Grandmother was a runaway hit at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, and represented the U.S.A. in two Cultural Olympiads; Lillehammer, Norway in 1994 and Atlanta in 1996. Clarinda also starred in the movie version of Grandmother, for PBS directed by John David Allen. Ms. Ross is on the National Council of Actors' Equity Association. She has three children, Clara, Frank, and Gus and is married to the actor, Googy Gress. She and her family divide their time between North Carolina and Santa Monica, California. 

Jenny Sullivan (Director) recently directed Rubicon's critically and box office acclaimed production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. For Rubicon, she has also directed Hamlet, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Tuesdays with Morrie. She directed The Clean House, Dublin Carol and The Memory of Water at Ensemble Theatre in Santa Barbara; the West Coast Premiere of Jane Martin's Flags; Death of a Salesman with Stuart Margolin and Wendy Phillips at AUM in Alabama; and The Dresser with Len Cariou and Granville Van Dusen at Manitoba Theatre Centre. Other Rubicon credits include Happy Days with Robin Pearson Rose; Defying Gravity with Harold Gould, Stephanie Zimbalist and many of her favorite actors; Art with Cliff DeYoung, Joseph Fuqua and Bruce Weitz; Dancing at Lughnasa with Susan Clark, Bonnie Franklin and Stephanie Zimbalist; The Rainmaker with Stephanie Zimbalist; The Little Foxes with Linda Purl; two casts of Ancestral Voices; Love Letters with Jack Lemmon and Felicia Farr; and Old Wicked Songs with Harold Gould. Jenny was Associate Director for the L.A. production of The Vagina Monologues. Also in L.A., she directed premieres of Ad Wars, The Cat's Meow. Against the Glass, The Awful Grace of God: a Portrait of RFK and Bicoastal Woman.

Her World Premiere production of The Baby Dance began at Pasadena Playhouse and moved to Williamstown Theatre Festival, Long Wharf Theatre (CT Critics' Directing Award) and the Lucille Lortel Theatre Off-Broadway. In six seasons at Williamstown, Jenny directed MACS (A Macaroni Requiem), Defying Gravity, Hotel Oubliette, Dirt and The Ferry Back. Regional credits include work at San Jose Rep, and Access Theatre and the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara. Jenny's film credits include "Access All Areas" and "The Next Best Thing" (in which she directed her father Barry). Rubicon produced the World Premiere of Jenny's play J for J with Jeff Kober and the late great John Ritter, which subsequently played at the Court Theatre in L.A. Jenny was appointed Rubicon's first Artistic Associate in 2003.

SPIT LIKE A BIG GIRL features Scenic by Thomas Giamario, Lighting Design by Nick McCord, Multimedia Design by Quin Mark Cabalquinto, Sound Design by David Beaudry, and Production Stage Management by Christina M. Burck.
SCHEDULE AND PRICING

SPIT LIKE A BIG GIRL previews Thursday, May 14 and Friday, May 15 at 8:00 p.m. and opens Saturday, May 16 at 6:30 p.m. Opening Night tickets are $95 and include a pre-show champagne reception, the opening performance and an after-party. Regular performances of SPIT LIKE A BIG GIRL continue through June 7 on Sundays at 2:00 p.m. ($49), Wednesdays at 2:00 p.m. ($39) and 7:00 p.m. ($49), Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. ($49), Fridays at 8:00 p.m. ($54), and Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. ($49) and 8:00 p.m. ($59). Seniors ages 65+ save $5 per ticket. Student and equity tickets are available for $20 with ID.

Discounts of up to 20% are available for groups of 12 or more, and group organizers receive one free ticket. To purchase single tickets or discounted group tickets, call the Rubicon box office at (805) 667-2900. To purchase tickets online, go to www.rubicontheatre.org.

Special performances include:
Opening Night/Saturday, May 16: Rubicon Theatre hosts a pre-show champagne reception at 6:30 pm before the seven o-clock curtain. Following the opening performance of the show, guests are invited to an after-party with cast, crew and local dignitaries.

Talkback Wednesday: a chance to talk with the director and cast immediately after the 7:00 pm performance on Wednesday, May 20.

All performances are at Rubicon Theatre, an intimate former church built in the 1920s. The theatre is located at 1006 E. Main Street (the corner of Main and Laurel) in Ventura's Downtown Cultural District.

FOR TICKETS
Ticket prices $39 to $54; Balcony VIP Seating at $65. Please call Rubicon Theatre Company's box office at (805) 667-2900 or visit www.rubicontheatre.org

 

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