Intiman Concludes 2009 Season With ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS 10/2-11/15

Intiman Theatre, under the leadership of Artistic Director Bartlett Sher and Managing Director Brian Colburn, concludes its 2009 mainstage season with Robert E. Sherwood's Abe Lincoln in Illinois, directed by Intiman Associate Director Sheila Daniels. Performances will begin at Intiman Theatre, 201 Mercer Street at Seattle Center, on Friday, October 2 and continue through Sunday, November 15 at 2 pm. The first press performance is Friday, October 9 at 8 pm. The pay-what-you-can performance is Wednesday, October 7 at 7:30 pm. Tickets are available from www.intiman.org or 206.269.1900. Please see the Fact Sheet at the end of this release for the full schedule and complete ticketing information.

The production features Erik Lochtefeld as Abe Lincoln, Mary Jane Gibson as Mary Todd Lincoln and R. Hamilton Wright as Stephen A. Douglas, and a company from every generation of Seattle's theatre community: Hans Altwies, Clayton Corzatte, Susan Corzatte, Philip Davidson, Angela DiMarco, Langston Emerson Guettinger, Russell Hodgkinson, Reginald André Jackson, Peter Dylan O'Connor, Hannah Robinson, Jose Rufino, Matt Shimkus, Richard Nguyen Sloniker, Adam Standley, Kate Wisniewski and musician John Ackermann.

Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning play spans the years in which Abraham Lincoln grew to take responsibility for his conscience and his country. Lincoln lived much of his life in contradictions. He was a social man, but did not seek company; a citizen who possessed great ambition but also longed for the simpler life of a country lawyer; an antislavery moderate who made an (at times reluctant) journey to his destiny as America's Great Emancipator.

Produced in the year of the Lincoln Bicentennial, Sherwood's play focuses on critical moments in Lincoln's own life, as he grew into an American hero because of friends and a community that pushed him to find his voice as a man, a politician and a leader. He chose to embrace hope and fight for all people-and changed the course of the nation. A city-wide initiative, the American Cycle is a catalyst for local civic dialogue, with free-standing events for artists, diverse audiences, students and different communities offered at a wide range of accessible locations that encourage conversation and debate about what it means to be a hero today, when our country is faced with its own extreme challenges and choices.

Robert E. Sherwood (1896-1955), an original member of the Algonquin Round Table, was honored three times with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama: for Idiot's Delight (1936), Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1939) and There Shall Be No Night (1941). During World War II he served as a speechwriter and advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt, holding the position of Director of the Overseas Branch of the Office of War Information. In 1949 he received the Pulitzer Prize for biography for Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History, an account of FDR's foreign policy during World War that drew on the papers of Roosevelt advisor and New Deal architect Harry Hopkins. He was one of the writers of the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca and he won the 1946 Best Screenplay Academy Award for The Best Years of Our Lives.

Abe Lincoln in Illinois features Erik Lochtefeld as Abe Lincoln. An original cast member of Mary Zimmerman's Tony Award-winning Metamorphoses on and off-Broadway, he has been seen at Seattle Repertory Theatre in Metamorphoses and The Secret in the Wings. Mary Jane Gibson, who plays Mary Todd Lincoln, wrote and performed in Anaphylaxis (Artistic Pick, 2003 Seattle International Fringe Festival) and, with Nicole duFresne, wrote and performed in Burning Cage (Artistic Pick, 2002 SIFF). Her other Seattle credits include work with ACT, Seattle Shakespeare Company and Seattle Children's Theatre. R. Hamilton Wright, who plays Stephen A. Douglas, has been a professional actor in Seattle for more than 30 years.

Sheila Daniels directed Crime and Punishment and A Streetcar Named Desire at Intiman, where she serves as Associate Director. The creative team includes scenic designer Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams, costume designer Melanie Taylor Burgess, lighting designer L.B. Morse, composer and sound designer Gretta Harley (who also did arrangements for period music used in the production), music director John Ackermann and dialect coach Lisa Norman. The New York casting is by Janet Foster, C.S.A. and the stage manager is Amy Poisson.

Intiman's American Cycle includes numerous community conversations that are free and open to the public. Events are also offered in private venues, reaching out to people for whom there is otherwise little or no access to the arts. Current and upcoming programs include:

Intiman is inviting the citizens of King County to "Nominate a Hero" and help us identify and honor people who dedicate their time and energy to bettering our world. Submissions of 500 words or less should be submitted to hero@intiman.org by Oct. 20. Candidates will be considered by a panel of community leaders who have dedicated their time to working for positive change. The chosen heroes will be honored before the matinee performance of Abe Lincoln in Illinois on Sunday, November 8-the anniversary of the date Lincoln was re-elected for his second term in office in 1864.

Front Porch Theater offers opportunities for the public to be "cast" as Abe Lincoln and other characters for an informal, 40-minute reading of excerpts from the play. A discussion follows during which participants can talk about critical issues today. Each reading includes a raffle for tickets to the production. An updated calendar of events is maintained on www.intiman.org.

Each season, diverse teens from Cleveland and Roosevelt High Schools audition to be part of Rough Eagles, one of the most popular American Cycle programs. (The name combines the two school mascots, the Roosevelt Rough Riders and the Cleveland Eagles.) This year, eight students from the two schools will work with Seattle artist Marya Sea Kaminski on an original play inspired by the question of what it means to be a hero today. Their play will be presented on the set of Abe Lincoln in Illinois on Monday, October 26 at 7 pm.

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