Oak Park Festival Theatre to Present Edward Albee's SEASCAPE, 3/16-4/21

Oak Park Festival Theatre continues its 2012-2013 season by staging Edward Albee's comedy/fantasy/satire, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Seascape at the Madison Street Studio Theatre. Directed by Stephanie Shaw, the production will feature Artistic Director Jack Hickey as Charlie, OPFT veteran Mary Michell as Nancy, Alee Spadoni as Sarah, and Dan Toot as Leslie.

In the play, a married couple - Nancy and Charlie - visit the seashore and engage each other in an uneasy duet: dissecting the complications of retirement, rehashing their long partnership, and confronting the natural beauty that surrounds them. They are soon joined by two well-spoken, curious sea-lizards, Sarah and Leslie, who have surfaced from the depths of the ocean to master the art of the handshake, study life on terra firma, and discuss their own struggle to understand evolution with their new, human, friends.

Unquestionably one of the most bizarre and entertaining American plays of the last half-century, Seascape straddles the uneasy line between two habitats where two couples discover that, on land or sea, survival is predicated on conflict, compromise and a series of mutations.

Mr. Albee has long been hailed as one of the true geniuses of the American stage, having written some of the last century's more indelible pieces of theatre including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Zoo Story, Three Tall Women, The Goat (or Who is Sylvia?) and A Delicate Balance, the latter of which also garnered Mr. Albee a Pulitzer Prize. As a modern commentator on the complications of interpersonal relationships, Mr. Albee knows no peer.

This production reunites Mr. Hickey and Ms. Michell who last appeared together on the Festival Theatre stage in Belinda Bremner's critically-acclaimed production of Brian Friel's Faith Healer in 2011. This production marks Stephanie Shaw's debut as a director for Oak Park Festival Theatre. Andrew Hildner, Festival Theatre's set designer for Beyond the Fringe and Someone Who'll Watch Over Me returns to create the seashore for this production and Claire Chrzan, also an OPFT veteran from Someone will supply the lighting design.

Previewing March 14-15, 2013, Seascape opens on Saturday, March 16 at the Madison Street Studio Theatre, 1010 Madison Street, Oak Park and runs through Sunday, April 21, 2013. Performances are Thursdays - Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p.m.

Ticket prices are $25 for adults, $20 seniors (60 and over) and $15 for students with ID. Tickets also may be purchased by calling the box office at 708-445-4440, by e-mailing Tickets@OakParkFestival.com, or going online to OakParkFestival.com. Group rates are available.

Season subscriptions, totaling $60 ($45 for seniors 60 and over) to OPFT's three-play 2013 season, are also available. This includes Seascape and our two summer shows, Peter Shaffer's highly fictionalized but brilliantly rendered interpretation of the infamous Mozart-Salieri rivalry, Amadeus directed by renowned Chicago director Joanie Schultz, as well as one of the best loved of all William Shakespeare's comedies, Twelfth Night, directed by Rasaka Theatre Artistic Director Lavina Jadhwani.

Oak Park Festival Theatre - Oak Park's only Equity theatre and the Midwest's oldest professional theatre performing the classics outdoors - is currently celebrating its 39th year of theatrical excellence and is embarking on its third year-round season producing outstanding productions of the plays of William Shakespeare and other classical authors, as well as important contemporary plays by some of the world's greatest playwrights.

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