For immediate release:
CHAPEL HILL – It’s back – the innovative, intimate PRC 2 second stage series, presented by PlayMakers Repertory Company, where timely plays take the audience around the globe – from LA to Zimbabwe, New York City to Iraq – and each performance includes a second act of engaging community dialogue. Last year’s inaugural season was a sold-out smash. Be there when the conversation begins again with “In the Continuum,” onstage September 10 – 14, 2008.
“In the Continuum” is the powerful story of two black women, one in South Central Los Angeles and the other in Harare, Zimbabwe, and how their simultaneous HIV diagnoses bring the international AIDS epidemic down to very human terms.
The New York Times described playwrights Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter as “a pair of fiercely talented young women.” According to NPR, “each (actor in their play) goes on a personal journey, encountering various characters and cultural bias as they try to come to grips” with their situation. Hailed by The New York Times as one of the Ten Best Plays seen Off-Broadway in 2005, “In the Continuum” has gone on to become an international event.
The New York Times also called “In the Continuum” “moving, smart, spirited and powerfully funny,” saying it “leaves behind a warm afterglow of human struggles explored, illumined, and embraced” – “altogether engrossing.”
Liesl Tommy will direct PlayMakers’ production. Her extensive regional and New York theatre credits include dual world premieres of “The Good Negro” at New York’s Public Theatre and the Dallas Theater Center, as well as shows at the Sundance Theatre Institute, Hartford Stage, Berkshire Theatre Festival, The Juilliard School, and NYU’s Strasberg Institute, among many others.
Because of the demand for tickets to this popular series, PlayMakers has added Sunday evening performances to the run of each PRC² production. Shows will be at 8 p.m. nightly and 2 p.m. on September 14, in the Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Center for Dramatic Art on Country Club Road. Tickets are $24 to $32, and may be purchased at www.playmakersrep.org or by calling (919) 962-PLAY.
Each performance will be followed by engaging audience/panel discussion. Persons interested in participating as panelists during the series should contact Jeff Meanza, PlayMakers director of education and outreach, at (919) 962-2491, meanza@email.unc.edu.
Rounding out PRC2 this season are “The Young Ladies Of…,” featuring playwright/performance artist Taylor Mac (January 7-11, 2009) and Heather Raffo’s “9 Parts of Desire” (April 22-26.) Visit the PlayMakers website for information and tickets to these shows, as well as PlayMakers 2008-2009 mainstage season, which will open with the Shakespearean epic adventure “Pericles,” to be staged Sept. 24 to Oct. 12.
Based in UNC’s College of Arts & Sciences, PlayMakers is the Carolinas’ premiere resident professional theatre company. New York’s Drama League named PlayMakers one of the “best regional theatres in America.” Support for PlayMakers’ PRC2 comes from the North Carolina Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
PlayMakers contact: Connie Mahan, (919) 428-1744, cmahan@email.unc.edu