Star-Studded Cast, Creative Team Announced for Globe Favorite THE BLAMELESS

The Old Globe today announced the complete cast and creative team of the world premiere of Nick Gandiello's touching and timely drama The Blameless, which was developed in a reading in the Globe's Powers New Voices Festival last year.Gaye Taylor Upchurch (The Last Match, Bethany) returns to the Globe to direct.

The Blameless will play February 23 - March 26, 2017 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Previews run February 23 - March 1. Opening night is Thursday, March 2 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets start at $29 and are on sale now to the general public.

The Blameless is a compassionate and moving look at the power of familial bonds in the most extraordinary of circumstances. The boisterous Garcia family has always tackled their days with warmth, humor, and tough love. But today is no ordinary day. Struggling to recover from a painful event in their past, they must find a way to hold everything together as they welcome to dinner the one man who might help them heal-or reopen their wounds.

The cast includes Amara James Aja (Globe's Macbeth and Love's Labor's Lost, current student of the Shiley Graduate Theatre Program) as Howard Harper, LIZA COLÓN-ZAYAS (world premieres of Pulitzer Prize winners Water by the Spoonful and Between Riverside and Crazy) as Amanda Garcia, Antoinette Lavecchia (Broadway's A View from the Bridge, world premiere of Ken Ludwig's A Comedy of Tenors) as DiAna Garcia, Frank Pando (A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway, Agent Frank Grasso on "The Sopranos") as Alex Garcia, Stephen Barker Turner (Dead Poets Society, The North Pool, and Race Off Broadway) as Drew Davis, and Carmen Zilles (Off Broadway's Scenes from a Marriage directed by Ivo Van Hove and Small Mouth Sounds) as Theresa Garcia.

The creative team includes Andrew Boyce (Scenic Design), David Israel Reynoso (Costume Design), Bradley King (Lighting Design), Ryan Rumery (Sound Design), Caparelliotis Casting (Casting), and Amanda Salmons (Production Stage Manager).

"Nick Gandiello has crafted something very special with The Blameless," said Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. "All of us know the Garcias, the central family in the play. They are our neighbors and our friends: a snapshot of many families in our country. Confronted with an act of violence, they determine to move forward in faith and hope, and that choice makes for a moving and compassionate evening of drama. Our goal in producing bold new plays like Nick's is to bring the theatre's powers of empathy to the great debates of our day, and the remarkably talented director GT Upchurch and her superb cast will do exactly that. I'm honored to share this vital new American work with our audiences."

Additional events taking place during the run of The Blameless include:

· INSIGHTS SEMINAR: Tuesday, February 28, 2017, at 5:30 p.m.
An opportunity to closely connect with productions both onstage and backstage. A panel selected from the artistic company of each show (playwrights, actors, directors, designers, and/or technicians) engages patrons in an informal and illuminating presentation of ideas and insights to enhance the theatregoing experience. Reception at 5:00 p.m. FREE.

· SUBJECT MATTERS: Saturday, March 4, 2017, following the 2:00 p.m. matinee.
Explore the ideas and issues raised by a production through brief, illuminating post-show discussions with local experts, such as scientists, artists, historians, and scholars. Subject Matters will ignite discussion, bring the play's concerns into sharp focus, and encourage you to think beyond the stage! FREE.

· POST-SHOW FORUMS: Tuesdays and Wednesdays, March 7, 8, 14, 15, 22, and 23, 2017.
Join us after the show for an informal and enlightening question-and-answer session with cast, crew, and/or Globe staff members. Get the inside story on creating a character and putting together a professional production. FREE.

Single tickets to The Blameless start at $29 and can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE [234-5623], or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park. Discounts are available for full-time students, patrons 29 years of age and under, seniors, military members, and groups of 10 or more. Performances begin on Thursday, February 23 and continue through March 26, 2017. Performance times: Previews: Thursday, February 23 at 8:00 p.m.; Friday, February 24 at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday, February 25 at 8:00 p.m.;Sunday, February 26 at 7:00 p.m.; Tuesday, February 28 at 7:00 p.m.; and Wednesday, March 1 at 7:00 p.m. Opening night is Thursday, March 2 at 8:00 p.m. Regular Performances: Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:00 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8:00 p.m., Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. There will be an additional matinee performance on Wednesday, March 15 at 2:00 p.m. and no matinee performance on Saturday, March 18.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Nick Gandiello (Playwright) is a playwright, screenwriter, and teaching artist based in New York. His plays include Oceanside (Merrimack Repertory Theatre), The Wedge Horse (Fault Line Theatre), Sunrise Highway (Ojai Playwrights Conference), Black Fly Spring (Xavier University),Swept (Williamstown Theatre Festival), At the Finish (Smith and Kraus's The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2014), and Teeming Shore (The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2015). Mr. Gandiello was the 2015 Page 73 Productions Playwriting Fellow and was the winner of the 2016 Marin Theatre Company David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize. He is an alumnus of the Ars Nova Play Group. His work has been developed or presented by Manhattan Theatre Club, Lark Play Development Center, The Flea, Samuel French's Off Off Broadway Festival, Capital Stage, Premiere Stages, and Wide Eyed Productions, among others. For the screen, he developed and shot a television pilot, "Substance," with Ready Set Go! Productions. Mr. Gandiello was the Literary Manager of Young Playwrights Inc. from 2012 to 2015 and is the Associate Artistic Director of Writopia Lab's Worldwide Plays Festival. He received his M.F.A. from The New School for Drama.

Gaye Taylor Upchurch (Director) made her Globe debut in 2014 directing Laura Marks's Bethany, and earlier this year she directed Anna Ziegler's The Last Match. Ms. Upchurch has directed the Off Broadway productions of Nancy Harris's Our New Girl, and Simon Stephens'sHarper Regan and Bluebird with Simon Russell Beale (Atlantic Theater Company), Bethany (Women's Project Theater, Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Play), and Lucy Thurber's Stay (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater). Regionally Ms. Upchurch directed the world premieres of Clare Lizzimore's Animal (The Studio Theatre, Helen Hayes Award nomination for Outstanding Director of a Play) and Melissa Ross's Of Good Stock (South Coast Repertory), and at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival she directed An Iliad (also at West Point) and As You Like It, which she is reimagining for the Folger Theater in Washington, DC. She most recently directed Kathleen Turner in The Year of Magical Thinking at Arena Stage. Ms. Upchurch has developed new work at New Dramatists, New York Stage and Film, The Kennedy Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Playwrights' Center, and SPACE on Ryder Farm. She is an alumna of the Women's Project Theater Directors Lab, The Drama League, and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

The Tony Award-winning Old Globe is one of the country's leading professional regional theatres and has stood as San Diego's flagship arts institution for over 80 years. Under the leadership of Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, The Old Globe produces a year-round season of 15 productions of classic, contemporary, and new works on its three Balboa Park stages: the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the 600-seat Old Globe Theatre and the 250-seat Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, both part of The Old Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, and the 605-seat outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, home of its internationally renowned Shakespeare Festival. More than 250,000 people attend Globe productions annually and participate in the theatre's artistic and arts engagement programs. Numerous world premieres such as the 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Bright Star, Allegiance, The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and the annual holiday musical Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! have been developed at The Old Globe and have gone on to enjoy highly successful runs on Broadway and at regional theatres across the country.

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