ERRATICA comes to Capital Stage

Announcement from Capital Stage

ERRATICA,
An Academic Farce

July 11 - August 2, 2009

Capital Stage will make theatrical history with its first World Premiere production when "Erratica, An Academic Farce" by Reina Hardy opens on Friday, July 17, 2009.

"Erratica" is Capital Stage's first world premiere production to come out of the company's Playwrights' Revolution project. In 2007, Capital Stage was awarded a $40,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation to create and develop the Playwrights' Revolution. The goal is to celebrate new works and to encourage the creation of bold, powerful new plays for the American theatre. Each year, several new plays are selected to participate in a series of roundtable and staged readings. "Erratica" is the first of these plays to receive a fully-mounted professional production.

The Playwright

Reina Hardy is a playwright with credits in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Orlando and Muncie, Indiana. Look for her poems in various magazines; look for excerpts from her plays in "Audition Arsenal" and "The Ultimate Audition Book" (both from Smith and Kraus), and look for her theatre reviews on the Sun Times website.

Once, she resolved to see a show in every Chicago fringe venue during the course of a year. Her failure is chronicled at wayoffloop.blogspot.com. Reina, a 2003 graduate of Columbia University and a 2011 MFA candidate at Ohio University, is also founder and artistic director of the Viola Project (violaproject.org), Chicago's best Shakespeare performance workshop for girls.

The Play

Professor Samantha Stafford is trying to write a book on Shakespeare. But one of her students is madly in love with her, her publicist wants her to do something more commercial, and she is persistently haunted by an entity claiming to be the ghost of Christopher Marlow. Meanwhile, Jack Hooper, a librarian who just might be a match for Dr. Stafford, has lost a prized manuscript to a mysterious thief. It's all connected. But how?

Michael Stevenson (Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Bad Dates) directs Capital Stage Artistic Director Stephanie Gularte (Fool For Love, Dirty Story), local favorites Jamie Jones (Dinner With Friends), and Eric Wheeler (Dinner With Friends, The Complete History of America (abridged)) and newcomers Stephanie Altholz and Danny Webber.

Performances will begin with three previews on Saturday, July 11 at 7 pm, Sunday, July 12 at 2 pm, and Thursday, July 16 at 8 pm, and the play will open on Friday, July 17, 2009 at 8 pm. Performances continue through August 2, 2009.

Showtimes will be Thursdays to Sundays as follows: Thursdays and Fridays at 8 pm; Saturdays at 7 pm , and Sundays at 2 pm. Ticket prices range from $24-$32. Discount tickets are available as follows: Preview tickets: $15; Thursday student tickets: $12; Sunday matinees senior tickets: $18; Group rates available for groups of 15 or more. Tickets are currently available at the Capital Stage Box Office, 916-995-5464 or online at www.capstage.org. The Pilothouse Restaurant offers a specially priced menu for theatre patrons; Pilothouse reservations can be made through the box office.

Erratica is underwritten by Downey Brand and Wells Fargo.