Aurora Adds Second Extension of Edward Albee's A DELICATE BALANCE

Critics and audiences alike have struck a perfect balance with Edward Albee's A DELICATE BALANCE. Due to popular demand, Aurora Theatre Company announces that it will add an additional second week of performances of its current hit production of A DELICATE BALANCE, the company's 20th anniversary season opener; the production, originally extended through October 16, will now extend through October 23.

Aurora Theatre Company Artistic Director Tom Ross helms this Pulitzer Prize-winning brutal comedy of manners, featuring Aurora co-founder Ken Grantham, the company's first leading lady Kimberly King, and Jamie Jones in her Aurora Theatre Company debut, along with Bay Area favorites Anne Darragh, Charles Dean, and Carrie Paff. A DELICATE BALANCE plays at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley now through October 23 (second extension added performances: October 18, 7pm, October 19, 8pm, October 20, 8pm, October 21, 8pm, October 22, 8pm, October 23, 2 and 7pm). For tickets ($10-48) and information the public can call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org.

Tobias and Agnes are a long-married couple living in the suburbs. With several bedrooms and a well-stocked liquor cabinet, their home provides a refuge of sorts, and a measure of comfort, to their friends and family. Over the course of two evenings however, the "delicate balance" of their uneasy existence begins to topple. Agnes' alcoholic sister, Claire, has already set up camp, and when their adult daughter comes home after her fourth failed marriage, and lifelong friends Harry and Edna arrive on their doorstep, frightened and seeking sanctuary from an unnamed terror, the many well-mannered and well-masked feelings finally erupt. A DELICATE BALANCE is a sharp, witty examination on the limits of our responsibility to others, including family and friends, how hard it is to hold everything together, and how easily everything can all fall apart.

A DELICATE BALANCE premiered on Broadway in 1966 with a cast featuring Hume Cronyn as Tobias and Jessica Tandy as Agnes. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1967, the first of three Pulitzer's Albee received for his work, and received the 1996 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.

About A DELICATE BALANCE, Robert Hurwitt of the San Francisco Chronicle said, "Stage it with a delicate balance between acid comedy and deep empathy - as Tom Ross has at the Aurora Theatre - and you've got an Edward Albee drama for the ages...The cast, handled by Ross like a chess master, keeps finding deeper textures in each of its three acts." Likewise, Karen D'Souza at the San Jose Mercury News/Bay Area News Group declared, "In Tom Ross' exquisite revival, [A Delicate Balance] reveals itself to be every bit as bracing and intoxicating as the hooch these characters throw back in every scene. A perfectly orchestrated symphony of bitterness and loss, ‘A Delicate Balance' qualifies as a potent way to ring in the Aurora Theatre Company's 20th anniversary season." Chad Jones at Theater Dogs noted, "[Tom] Ross' ‘Balance' is one of those wonderful Aurora experiences - a cracking good play with a strong director at the helm and intricate performances that blur the line between theater and reality theater," while Clinton Stark at Stark Insider agreed, "Aurora's 20th season premiere...[is] indeed a blow-your-mind affair."

Following A DELICATE BALANCE, Aurora Theatre Company continues its 20th anniversary season in November with a re-imagined production of THE SOLDIER'S TALE, an innovative collaboration with former San Francisco Ballet dancer Muriel Maffre, followed by the Bay Area Premiere of Obie-winning playwright Annie Baker's BODY AWARENESS in January, directed by Joy Carlin. Founding Artistic Director Barbara Oliver returns to the company to helm Margret Schaefer's Aurora-commissioned World Premiere translation of Arthur Schnitzler's fin-de-siècle gem ANATOL in April. The 20th anniversary season concludes in June with Aurora Theatre Company's World Premiere play commission, SALOMANIA, written and directed by Mark Jackson.

Nominated for 15 and winner of 8 Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for 2010, Aurora Theatre Company continues to offer challenging, literate, intelligent stage works to the Bay Area, each year increasing its reputation for top-notch theater. Located in the heart of the Downtown Berkeley Arts District, Aurora Theatre Company has been called "one of the most important regional theaters in the area" and "a must-see midsize company" by the San Francisco Chronicle, while The Wall Street Journal has "nothing but praise for the Aurora." The Contra Costa Times stated "perfection is probably an unattainable ideal in a medium as fluid as live performance, but the Aurora Theatre comes luminously close," while the San Jose Mercury News affirmed "[Aurora Theatre Company] lives up to its reputation as a theater that feeds the mind," and the Oakland Tribune declared "it's all about choices, and if you value good theater, choose the Aurora."

 

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