TheatreFIRST Announces 15th Anniversary Season

TheatreFIRST announces its 15th Anniversary Season running from January 2009 to June 2009, comprised of a staged reading series and revival of a Pinter masterpiece. TheatreFIRST continues its active pursuit of a permanent Downtown Oakland location, a space that will serve as home for TheatreFIRST and for other Oakland-based arts organizations. Each day we grow closer to this goal. TheatreFIRST looks forward producing to a full season of 3 shows beginning Fall 2009 to Summer 2010.

The 2009 season begins with a 4-play staged reading series in January - February 2009. The season centerpiece is OLD TIMES by acclaimed playwright Harold Pinter starring L. Peter Callender in the intimate performance space at the Berkeley City Club in April 2009.

"I am thrilled to bring celebrated actor L. Peter Callender back to our company after directing him in his award-winning performance in World Music" says Dylan Russell, TheatreFIRST's Artistic Director. "Peter is a local treasure and we are so privileged to have him with us once again."

TheatreFIRST 15th Anniversary Season features the first major Bay Area revival of Harold Pinter's haunting classic OLD TIMES since 1998. In 1971, The Observer said of the play "Wonderfully taut, comic and ominous, OLD TIMES shows Pinter more and more himself and less like any other playwright writing today." More than thirty-five years later, Pinter's plays continue to intrigue and challenge audiences. This unique and haunting play is part mystery drama, part homage to the ghosts of the past and the fiction of memory. Harold Pinter is widely viewed as the most influential and accomplished playwright in postwar Britain and was awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature.

L. Peter Callender is an Associate Artist with California Shakespeare Theatre; his numerous productions at Cal Shakes include: An Ideal Husband, King Lear, Man and Superman, As You Like It, Nicholas Nickleby, The Importance of Being Earnest, Julius Caesar, Richard II, Twelfth Night, A Winter's Tale. At Berkeley Rep: Major Barbara, Spunk, Galileo, The Oresteia. At A.C.T.: A Streetcar Named Desire, Tartuffe, Insurrection: Holding History. Aurora Theater: Saint Joan, Permanent Collection. On Broadway: Prelude to a Kiss. NY Public Theater: Caucasian Chalk Circle, Twelfth Night. Shakespeare Santa Cruz: Taming of the Shrew, A Doll's House. Magic Theatre: A Question of Mercy, Rust. TheaterFIRST: World Music (Bay Area Critics Award). Thick Description: Richard III, Blade to the Heat. TheatreWorks: Radio Golf. Mr. Callender is the recipient of several Dean Goodman awards, an Elly Award, SF Bay Guardian Goldie Award and the East Bay Express Best of the East Bay Award.

TheaterFIRST 2009 Season
Staged reading Series
Mid-January to Mid-February 2009
Location: TBA
Sunday Afternoons at 2pm

OLD TIMES
Written by Harold Pinter
Featuring L. Peter Callender
Thursday, April 2nd through May 3rd.
TheatreFIRST @ Berkeley City Club
2315 Durant
Berkeley, CA 94704

Tickets for OLD TIMES will become available in early December by calling THEATREFIRST Ticket Services at 510.436.5085.
Box Office and Information: 510 436 5085
www.theatrefirst.com

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