Aurora Theatre Company to Stage THE LETTERS, 4/17-5/25

As a special addition to the 22nd season, Aurora Theatre Company presents its first fully-staged production in the company's new second stage performance space, Harry's UpStage, located in the Nell and Jules Dashow Wing. Award-winning Bay Area auteur Mark Jackson returns to the company to direct this sixth addition to the season, John W. Lowell's suspenseful psychological thriller THE LETTERS, featuring Beth Wilmurt (The Eccentricities of a Nightingale) and Michael Ray Wisely (The Arsonists).

A nimbly executed game of cat-and-mouse, THE LETTERS, dubbed "a duel of wits at the crossroads of art and politics" by the Los Angeles Times, and "a personal, Pinteresque dance of menace" by the Chicago Tribune, is a riveting two-person drama that lays bare a vivid slice of paranoid life under Stalin. Set in a 1930s Soviet era office, the director in a nameless government agency engages in an "interview" with one of his employees. Anna, a demur buttoned-down servant of the state, has no idea as to why she has been called into the office of her superior. She is wary and tight-lipped, as her job, the systematic practice of censorship and disinformation, has taught her to take nothing at face value. As she tries to figure out the reason for the meeting, details gradually begin to emerge and suspicions are directed towards her. The director seems to have a hidden agenda, or is it Anna who has an agenda of her own?

DATES:
Previews: April 17, 18, 19, 23 at 8pm; April 20 at 2pm
Opens: April 24, 2014
Closes: May 25

SHOWS:
Wednesday through Saturday at 8pm; Sunday at 2pm

For tickets (General $32; Subscribers $28) the public can call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org. Half-off tickets for Under 30, student, and group discounts available.