March 4, 2003
Contact: Susan Gwynne
(805) 893-2098
e-mail: gwynne-s@sa.ucsb.edu

The Acting Company returns with terrific young actors in the California premiere of Studs Terkel’s American Dreams: Lost and Found

Summary Facts:

• The Acting Company
• Studs Terkel’s American Dreams: Lost and Found
• America’s foremost touring repertory theatre
• Returning to UCSB after its sold-out success The Taming of the Shrew in March 2002
• Wednesday, April 9 / 8 pm
• UCSB Campbell Hall
• General: $28/$25, UCSB students: $19/$16
• Tickets/information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535

The Acting Company, America’s foremost classical touring repertory theatre, will present the California premiere of Studs Terkel’s American Dreams: Lost and Found on Wednesday, April 9 at 8 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall. This drama is a new adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning interviewer Studs Terkel’s nonfiction collection originally published in 1980. The New York Times called American Dreams, “The best of Terkel’s works. A stirring, hopeful book.” Terkel’s real-life stories defy our stereotyped expectations and locate the humanity underneath the skin of his wide-ranging subjects. Whether the interviewee’s goal is to run a small-town newspaper, own a piece of land, build a fourth television network or become the best bodybuilder in the world, Terkel gleans highly dramatic, funny and powerful tales from each encounter. These tales are compiled in Peter Frisch’s moving adaptation that The Acting Company brings to life through scenes and song, vividly capturing the simple dreams and grand aspirations of us all.

The Acting Company was founded in 1972 by current Producing Director Margot Harley and the late John Houseman to present superior productions of classic and contemporary plays as a means to build a discerning national audience for theater, thereby helping preserve and extend our cultural heritage. The Company also provides continuing opportunities for young actors to practice their craft, nurturing the growth and development of generations of theater artists, including distinguished alumni like Frances Conroy, Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, David Ogden Stiers and Jeffrey Wright. The Miami Herald declares, “Customary though this observation has become, it must be repeated: The Acting Company is one of this country’s most exciting, creative and impressive theater companies.”

Perhaps the greatest oral historian in the United States, Studs Terkel is the author of eight books of history, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Good War, a memoir entitled Talking to Myself and the just-published Will the Circle Be Unbroken? His other books include Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great American Depression and Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel about the American Obsession. His daily show on WFMT in Chicago was carried on radio stations throughout the world until last year, when Terkel retired in order to archive his massive collection of interviews currently based at the Chicago Historical Society.

Peter Frisch, the adapter of American Dreams, has directed over 150 productions in the New York and regional theater. He has been Producing Director of the Hyde Park Festival Theatre, Resident Director with the Berkshire Theatre Festival and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of American Playwrights Theatre in Washington, DC. His macabre comedy Deadication, won a “Best of the Fest” Award at the Seattle Film Festival and his work in the theater has received the Joseph Jefferson, Outer Circle and Helen Hayes Award. Frisch has been Chair of the famed Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and held posts at The Juilliard School, Harvard University, Boston University and Cal Arts. He is currently working locally on the Granada Theatre renovation.

The director of American Dreams Rebecca Guy, a former member of The Acting Company, is entering her fifteenth season as Artistic Director of the Chautauqua Conservatory Theater Company at the Chautauqua Institution. She served as Artistic Associate of the Ark Theater Company in New York and has directed at The Sundance Institute, The Juilliard School, Opera Theatre of Rochester, Circle-in-the-Square Theater School, and Sarah Lawrence College, among others. She is a project director and teacher at The Juilliard School Drama Division and is on the faculty of the Barnard College-Columbia University Theater Department.

The audience is invited to remain after the performance to take part in a Meet-the-Artists discussion. In Arts & Lectures’ on-going effort to make our events accessible to all who wish to enjoy them, American Dreams: Lost and Found will be a signed performance. Sign language interpretation is made possible by the California Arts Council in collaboration with the National Arts and Disability Center and by the Santa Barbara Foundation’s Access Theatre Endowment Fund.

American Dreams: Lost and Found is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures. Arts & Lectures began its long history of presenting The Acting Company in April of 1975 when the troupe performed Edward II, The Time of Your Life and She Stoops to Conquer. The Acting Company’s most recent performances at Campbell Hall have been The Rivals in April 2000 and a sold-out shows of The Comedy of Errors in April 2001 and The Taming of the Shrew in March 2002. The Acting Company’s residency is funded in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment of the Arts, a federal agency. Tickets are $28 and $25 for the general public and $19 and $16 for UCSB students.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Susan Gwynne at (805) 893-2098.