Pallas Theatre Collective Stages SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER, Now thru 6/1

Pallas Theatre Collective is delighted to present She Stoops to Conquer at the Anacostia Arts Center from today, May 14th to ­June 1st, 2014.

She Stoops to Conquer is a play that parodies extremes. At one end, a love of material elegance, sophistication, and excess; at the other, the appreciation of the simple albeit plain or even base country life. In the end, a balance between the two must be found for the characters to achieve happiness. The idea of battling extremes is particularly resonant in Washington D.C.'s political and social culture today. In recent years, radicalism in political parties has brought government to a screeching halt. Gentrification continues to push the middle class and poor further out of the city limits and rearrange the social and cultural geographies of the capital.

Director Ann Marie T. Saunders, renowned Washington D.C. theatre scholar, sets this production in the city of Washington in the early 1820s, a time of equally polarizing cultural influences. A British Restoration comedy, She Stoops to Conquer was extremely popular with American audiences in theearly 19th Century likely because of its resonance with local contemporary culture. The divide between intellectual elitism and the "common man" was epitomized in the Andrew Jackson's election to the Presidency in 1828. Drawing historical parallels between our productions and our contemporary place and time, Pallas's production of She Stoops to Conquer promises to be both hilarious and thought-­provoking!

The cast includes:

Charles Marlow ­ David Mavricos
Miss Constance Neville ­ Chelsea Mayo*
Miss Kate Hardcastle ­ Laura Rocklyn*
Mrs. Hardcastle ­ Melissa Robinson
Mr. Hardcastle ­ Frank Mancino
George Hastings ­ Andrew Keller

Tony Lumpkin ­ Joel Ottenheimer
Sir Charles ­ Zach Brewster­Geisz
Ensemble/Miss Neville Understudy ­
Emily Sucher Ensemble/Miss Hardcastle
Understudy ­ Kathleen Mason
Ensemble ­ Dane Petersen
Ensemble ­ Lily Kerrigan
Ensemble ­ Jeremy Hunter
*indicates member of Pallas Collective

She Stoops to Conquer runs through June 1st at Anacostia Arts Center 1231 Good Hope Road, SE Washington, DC 20020. Tickets are $20 for the general public and are available at www.pallastheatre.org/tickets.

About Pallas Theatre Collective: Pallas Theatre Collective (PTC) exists to be an incubator for talented and visionary artists, providing resources and a home for theatrical practitioners in the Washington, D.C. area, and around the United States. PTC's mission includes two hallmarks: (1) a desire to workshop new original musicals, and (2) a desire to assist in the development of creative individuals who seek to grow artistically and explore new approaches, processes, and forms of dramatic expression. PTC desires to 'stand in the gap' for those artistic works and individuals who seek to move forward artistically, and be a community that nurtures and facilitates that growth.

Pictured: Laura Rocklyn as Miss Hardcastle and Chelsea Mayo as Miss Neville. Photo by Teresa Castracane Photography, LLC.

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