MTC Kicks Off 50th Season with AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

Marin Theatre Company opens its 50th Anniversary Season with Tracy Letts' August: Osage County. The play debuted at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, IL, moving directly to Broadway in 2007.

Following its TONY Award-winning NYC run, the production began its US National Tour in 2009. It has since enjoyed successful runs at theatres around the world, however MTC's production will be one of the first professional productions in the Bay Area since the Broadway tour in 2009.

Misery Loves Family

August: Osage County delivers the perils and pitfalls of a family's relationships with each other and the struggles of addiction. When alcoholic patriarch Beverly Weston goes missing, his daughters Barbara, Ivy and Karen reluctantly return home to their mother Violet - cancer-stricken, drug-addled, and a bigger piece of work than ever. With in-laws, cousins, grandchildren and new beaus in tow, the entire Weston clan makes the journey to the family home, where old grievances are aired, family secrets are spilled, and cutting remarks-especially those from Violet-take deadly aim. Featuring a cast of Marin Theatre favorites, and in its first Bay Area professional production since the Broadway tour in 2009, Tracy Letts' dark comedy is an acidic and acerbic take on the juicy American family drama.

Marin Theatre Company's own Jasson Minadakis to Direct

MTC's Jasson Minadakis is directing this delicious family dramedy play in his tenth season as artistic director at MTC. His directing credits here include The Invisible Hand, Anne Boleyn, The Convert, The Whale, Failure: A Love Story, the world premiere of Lasso of Truth,The Whipping Man (San Francisco Bay Area Critics Circle Awards for best production and best acting ensemble), Waiting for Godot, Othello, the Moor of Venice, The Glass Menagerie, Edward Albee's Tiny Alice, the world premiere of Seagull, Happy Now, Equivocation (SFBATCC Award for best director), the world premiere of Sunlight, Lydia, The Seafarer, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, A Streetcar Named Desire, said Saïd, Love Song and The Subject Tonight is Love.

Special Recognition for August Lighting Designer Kurt Landisman

It is with immense pride that we congratulate our dear friend and long-time local Lighting Designer Kurt Landisman for the incredible amount of work he has put into designing shows over the years at MTC. Especially because August: Osage County will be the fiftieth show he has designed for us going into this, MTC's 50th Anniversary Season! The past 49 shows he has designed are as follows (in chronological order, from oldest to most recent): The Guardsman; Uncle Vanya; The Broken Jug; Orphans; Born Yesterday; Lend Me a Tenor; The Women; Inspecting Carol; Shadowlands; A Perfect Ganesh; Wilder, Wilder, Wilder; Picnic; All in the Timing; Kindertransport; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Becket; Company; The Puppetmaster of Lodz; Spring Storm; The Crucible; The Hairy Ape; Lady in the Dark; Fugitive Kind; Wonderful Town; Me and My Girl; Life X 3; Beggar's Holiday; Displaced; River's End; The Subject Tonight is Love; Frozen; Orson's Shadow; Said Said; Lovesong; What the Butler Saw; Lydia; The Seafarer; Equivocation; Tiny Alice; Happy Now?; August Wilson's Seven Guitars; Othello; Topdog / Underdog; Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol; August Wilson's Fences; The Whale; Choir Boy; Swimmers; Anne Boleyn.

Partnership with UrbanSitter Helps More People Attend Plays at MTC

MTC is pleased to continue to partner with UrbanSitter, a website and app that helps busy parents find trusted babysitters and nannies, to enable the numerous young families in the Bay Area to attend live theater more easily. Jump starting our 50th Season, UrbanSitter will provide babysitters for MTC's Sitter Saturday event for August: Osage County on Saturday, September 23, at 1:00 pm. Read David Templeton's feature about this partnership in the North Bay Stage and Screen here.

More about Playwright Tracy Letts

Tracy Letts is an American Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and actor born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a long time member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Additional accolades include: the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play for Bug in 2004; TONY Award for Best Lead Actor in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play for Steppenwolf's Broadway revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in 2013; and the Drama Desk Special Award for The Realistic Joneses and The Open House in 2014.

To post a comment, you must register and login.