THEATRE + COMEDY

Main Street Theater’s hit production of Clifford Odets’ masterpiece Awake and Sing! is extending through June 14. Added performances are Sunday, June 7 at 7:30pm (this follows the already scheduled 3pm matinee that day), Saturday, June 13 at 8pm, and Sunday, June 14 at 3pm and 7:30pm.

Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal praised the production in a review on May 22 , saying, “Not only is Main Street Theater’s ensemble cast at home with every line, but they put across the play’s angry warmth so believably that you’d think you were sitting at the table with them. . . . Main Street’s Awake and Sing! gets it on the nose.”

Main Street Theater concludes its 2008-2009 season with Clifford Odets’ masterpiece Awake and Sing! Originally produced on Broadway in 1935 with Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Luther Adler, and other members of the Group Theatre, Main Street’s production has previews May 2, 3, and 6 and opens Thursday, May 7, and runs through June 7 at Main Street Theater – Rice Village, 2540 Times Blvd. (There is no performance Friday, May 8.)

“All of the characters in Awake and Sing!
share a fundamental activity:
a struggle for life amidst petty conditions.”
--Clifford Odets

About Awake and Sing! and Clifford Odets
“Do what is in your heart, and you carry in yourself a revolution,” says Jacob, the quiet and misunderstood patriarch of this Jewish family in 1935 in the Bronx.

Clifford Odets’ passionate, tumultuous, and ultimately hopeful Awake and Sing! tells the story of Bessie Berger and her boisterous family as they struggle with poverty and the hardships of the Great Depression. Full of life and fervor, Awake and Sing!, creates a rich and lasting tribute to the dreams and aspirations of America’s working class. In a departure from his usual role as director of this period-style comedy, Steve Garfinkel will appear as Jacob, a role originated by Morris Carnovsky and played in the 2006 Broadway revival by Ben Gazzara.

Clifford Odets was a founding member of the famed Group Theatre, for whom he wrote Awake and Sing!, Waiting for Lefty, Till the Day I Die and Golden Boy among many others. He also wrote for Hollywood (including “The Sweet Smell of Success”) and continued his playwriting career into the 40’s and 50’s with The Big Knife and The Country Girl.

About the Production
Director Cheryl L. Kaplan returns after directing Wendy Wasserstein’s Third at MST earlier this season. In addition to Steve Garfinkel, Luisa Amaral-Smith, last seen in MST’s production of The Light in the Piazza, plays his daughter Bessie, and Natalie Arneson plays her daughter Hennie. The rest of the cast includes Walter Baker, George Brock, Jamie Geiger, Josh Morrison, Charles Swan, and Jack Young.

The design team includes Trey Otis (set and properties design), Margaret Crowley (costume design), Daniel Polk (lighting design), and Craig Seanor (sound design). Janel J. Badrina is the production stage manager.

Main Street Theater is funded in part by grants from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.

Previews
May 2, 3 and 6, 2009

Performances
May 7 - June 7, 2009

Performances are on Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm. Tickets range from $26 - $36 and are on sale in person at the Main Street Theater Box Office, 2540 Times Blvd., via phone at 713.524.6706, or online at www.mainstreettheater.com.

This play contains mature themes and may not be appropriate for younger audiences.

Children under the age of 5 are not allowed in the theater.

Rice Prof to Lead Post-Play Discussion at Main Street Theater
May 17, 2009
Main Street Theater adds an educational dimension to its programming with its new series of post-performance discussions with actors, directors, and theater experts. The talkbacks will follow the second Sunday matinee in each production’s run.

For the upcoming production of Clifford Odets’s 1934 masterpiece Awake and Sing!, the talkback will follow the Sunday matinee on May 17. Main Street Theater’s Director of Education, Troy Scheid, hosts Rice University Professor Christina Keefe and the production’s director Cheryl L. Kaplan in a discussion with the audience of the economic and social circumstances that inspired Odets to write Awake and Sing!; the influence of the Group Theatre, which first produced the play; and the play’s relevance today.

About Christina Keefe

Christina Keefe, Lecturer in the Theatre Program at Rice University, has been a professional actor for over 20 years, working both in New York and regionally at such theaters as The West Side Arts, The Wilma Theatre, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Lyric Stage, and The Warehouse Theatre. She has taught acting, voice, movement, and directed for Duke University, Lehigh University, University of Houston, Muhlenberg College and DeSales University. Christina has also served as Artistic Associate at both the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival and The Warehouse Theatre.

Christina has studied with Stella Adler. She received her BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and her MFA from the University of South Carolina. She has completed the Shakespeare Intensive with Shakespeare & Co. and has a certificate from the British American Drama Academy. Christina also has her own private voice practice working with Houston professionals and teaches Ashtanga and Hatha yoga. She is a member of Actors’ Equity, Screen Actors Guild and the Voice and Speech Trainers Association.

Pictured above:  Moe (Jamie Geiger, kneeling) and Hennie (Natalie Arneson, standing).  Photo by www.RicOrnelProductions.com.