UNDO Opens Annex Theatre's 26th Season, Now thru 2/16

Undo, the first full-length play from local playwright, actor and dramaturg Holly Arsenault, opens Annex Theatre's 26th season, running tonight, January 18th-February 16th.

What if you had to invite everyone you know to witness the most painful moment of your life? Undo imagines a world where divorce involves a formal ritual of division that goes far beyond splitting assets and signing papers.

A dark, funny play about religion, family and forgiveness, Undo chronicles the day of Rachel and Joe Pfieffer's divorce. Fueled by grief, desire, long-kept secrets, humiliation and booze, the couple and their families come together to witness the dissolving of the union.

Undo is the first full-length play from local playwright, actor and dramaturg Holly Arsenault. Arsenault's short play, 24 Pictures of a Pilot, was produced at Live Girls! Theatre, and went on to be a finalist for the Heideman Award at the National Ten-Minute Play Contest at Actors' Theatre of Louisville. It was published in Rain City Projects' Manifesto Series V.2: Vivid Impact, edited by Steven Dietz. Dietz called 24 Pictures of a Pilot "a masterful example of narrative's power to allure, betray, and seduce us."

The world premiere production of Undo is directed by Erin Kraft, whose recent credits include: Paul Mullin's Ballard House Duet for Custom Made Plays/Washington Ensemble Theatre, Joanna Horowitz's 100 Heartbreaks for Bumbershoot, Emily Schwend's Bloom for Live Girls! Theatre, and Kelly Kitchen's adaptation of The Secret Garden with Book-It All Over. Kraft is a member of the artistic staff at Seattle Repertory Theatre.

The large, multi-generational cast of Undo is: Sydney Andrews (Seattle Shakespeare Company's Antony and Cleopatra), Ashton Hyman (Seattle Repertory Theatre's Clybourne Park), Marty Mukhalian (Seattle Shakespeare Company's Pygmalion), NiCK Edwards (Book-It Repertory Theater's Circumbendibus: The Hunger Lounge), Samantha Leeds (Macha Monkey's Sweet Nothing), Zoey Belyea (upstart crow's Titus Andronicus), Barbara Lindsay (Cthulu), Mark Waldstein (Balagan's Spring Awakening), Jillian Vashro (Annex Theatre's Penguins), Tom Fraser (Catapult Theatre's Tigers Be Still), Amy Hill (Seattle Shakespeare Company's Pygmalion), and introducing Ian O'Malley as The Boy with the Glass.

With its relatable characters, universal themes, and slightly twisted but utterly believable reality, Undo is touching and darkly beautiful story of people at their most vulnerable and human.

Annex Theatre is a democratic collective of theatre artists dedicated to creating bold new work in an environment of improbability, resourcefulness and risk. Annex Theatre produces new plays by living playwrights, radical reinterpretations of classic scripts, and ensemble-generated non-linear spectacles. Now in its new Capitol Hill venue, Annex originally opened its doors in 1987 in a former dance studio on 4th Avenue in downtown Seattle. Since then the theater has produced hundreds of world and Northwest premieres.

Cast:
Sydney Andrews as Rachel Mendelssohn Pfieffer
Zoey Belyea as Melita Johnson
NiCK Edwards as Ari Goldstein
Tom Fraser as Ozzie Mendelssohn
Amy Hill as Siobhan Doyle
Ashton Hyman as Joe Pfieffer
Samantha Leeds as Naomi Mendelssohn
Barbara Lindsay as Joan Wolofsky Mendelssohn
Marty Mukhalian as Adine Wolofsky
Jillian Vashro as Hannah Mendelssohn
Mark Waldstein as Abe Pfeiffer
and
Ian O'Malley as The Boy with the Glass

Artistic Team:
Assistant Director: Kaytlin McIntyre
Lighting Designer: Michael Chinn
Sound Designer: Kyle Thompson
Set Designer: Catherine Cornell
Costume Designer: Doreen Sayegh
Props Designer: Katie McKellar
Dance Coach: Crispin Spaeth
Stage Manager: Christa Luckenbach

Undo performs January 18th-February 16th. Thursday - Saturday 8pm. Tickets $5-$20. All Thursdays Pay-What-You-Can. For more information, visit www.annextheatre.org. Annex Theatre is located at 1100 E. Pike Street.

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