For immediate release!

Rude Guerrilla presents William Finn and James Lapine’s musical comedy A NEW BRAIN May 30!

Rude Guerrilla Theater Company is pleased to announce William Finn and James Lapine’s musical comedy A NEW BRAIN as the fifth production in its eleventh season. Gordon writes music for a corny children’s television show and he’s on deadline. The show’s demanding star—a singing frog named Mr. Bungee—wants a song about spring from him…yesterday; his lover is living the good life and out sailing; his best friend and business manager needs to talk about his career over lunch; his mother is nagging him; and Gordon has a splitting headache. What happens next in this hit cult musical is beautiful, inspiring, heart-breaking and wickedly funny.

Directed by Patrick Pearson, the production opens Friday May 30, 2008 and runs thru July 6 for 17 performances at 202 N. Broadway, in Santa Ana. Show times are Friday and Saturday nights at 8:00 pm., with Sunday matinees at 2:30 p.m. PLEASE NOTE: The theater will be dark Friday, July 4^th, for Independence Day.

$30 Opening Night Gala May 30 tickets include champagne and hors d'oeuvres courtesy of Bistro 400. For all other performances, tickets are $25 general admission, $20 for seniors and a cheap $15 for students with an ID.

William Finn is the writer and composer of Falsettos, for which he received two Tony Awards, Best Book of a Musical (with James Lapine) and Best Original Score. He has also written and composed In Trousers, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, two Los Angeles Drama Critics Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, the Lucille Lortel Award and Guggenheim Fellowship in Musical Composition). Mr. Finn wrote the lyrics to Graciela Daniele’s Tango Apasionado (music by the great Astor Piazzolla) and, with Michael Starobin, the music to Lapine’s version of The Winter’s Tale. His musical Romance in Hard Times was presented at The Public Theater. Recently, he wrote Painting You for Love's Fire,a piece commissioned and performed by the Acting Company, based on Shakepeare's sonnets. For television, Mr. Finn provided the music and lyrics for the Ace Award-winning HBO cartoon “Ira Sleeps Over,” “Tom Thumb and Thumbelina,” “Pokey Little Puppy’s First Christmas” and, with Ellen Fitzhugh, two “Brave Little Toaster” cartoons. Mr. Finn has written for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and The New Yorker. A graduate of Williams College, where he was awarded the Hutchinson Fellowship for Musical Composition, Finn now teaches a weekly master class at the NYU Tisch Graduate Program in Musical Theatre Writing. His most recent projects include Elegies, A Song Cycle (Lincoln Center) and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee which is currently running on Broadway and has been produced nationally and internationally as well.

James Lapine: Broadway (as book writer and director): Sunday in the Park With George, Into the Woods, Passion, Falsettos (with William Finn), Dirty Blonde (by Claudia Shear and conceived with her); as director: Golden Child, The Diary of Anne Frank, Amour, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Off-Broadway: wrote the plays Table Settings; Twelve Dreams; Luck, Pluck and Virtue; The Moment When; and Fran's Bed. Three Tony Awards, five Drama Desk Awards, a Pulitzer Prize with Stephen Sondheim for Sunday in the Park With George.

“I first heard the music ten years ago when I ordered the CD from Amazon.com, “says director Pearson. “I initially knew nothing about the show, just what I had heard in the 30 second sound clips on the website, so listening to the CD was this amazing trip -- a joyful ride into the wonderfully human world created by William Finn.  When I found out the show was autobiographical, it took on an even deeper meaning, impressing me how the author took what was potentially daunting subject matter and infused it with such humor, comedy, and love. 

The quality of the music led me to make the decision to not have a conventional orchestra for the show, but to have all ten of the actors play their own instruments.  This way, all of the music comes from them.  The ten multi-talented actors act, sing, dance and provide the instrumentation, creating a very unique experience for the audience: a blend somewhere between a musical and a concert. “

The cast of ten includes Jeff Aiken, Jesse Bradley, Kathlyn Etter, Ashley Kane, Aimee Karlin, Gregg Hammer, Luke Jacobs, Andrew Roubal, Ryan Wagner, Courtney Walton. The Musical Director  is Gregory Nabours, the Lighting Designer is E.J. Brown, Stage Manager is Tina-Marie Silva and Assistant Stage Manager is Jennifer Archuleta.

If you'd like to arrange an interview with the cast or director, or want more information, reservations or complimentary press passes, please call 714-547-4688, send us an email at Rudegrrlla@Aol.com or visit Rude Guerrilla’s website at http://www.rudeguerrilla.org

 AND

Rude Guerrilla presents the Orange County Premiere of Craig Wright’s drama ORANGE FLOWER WATER June 7!

Rude Guerrilla Theater Company is pleased to announce the Orange County Premiere of Craig Wright’s tense domestic drama ORANGE FLOWER WATER as the sixth production in its eleventh season and the second in its critically-acclaimed Second Stage Series. Married couples David and Cathy and Brad and Beth live with their children in relative peace…until two of them begin an adulterous affair. Through a series of scenes taking place on or around a single bed, we see the painful unraveling of both marriages and, eventually, the construction of a fragile, but new, beginning.

Directed by RGTC member Sharyn Case, the production opens Saturday June 7, 2008 and runs thru July 6 for 10 performances at 202 N. Broadway, in Santa Ana. Show times are Saturday nights at 4:30 pm. And Sunday evenings at 7:00 p.m. PLEASE NOTE: This production contains nudity, sexual situations and adult language.

Tickets are $20 general admission, $15 for seniors and a cheap $10 for students with an ID.

Craig Wright’s play RECENT TRAGIC EVENTS was seen in an extended run at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC and was produced this season by Playwrights Horizons with Heather Graham in the lead. His newest play MELISSA ARCTIC, a contemporary adaptation of the WINTER’S TALE, premiered at the Folger Theatre. MAIN STREET, adapted from the Sinclair Lewis novel, was commissioned and premiered by the Great American History Theatre. ORANGE FLOWER WATER has been produced around the country, most recently at Steppenwolf in an extended engagement that led the Chicago Sun-Times to name it one of the Best of the Year. His play THE PAVILION has received dozens of productions at theatres that include City Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Stages Rep, The Jungle and the Globes Theatres. His play MOLLY’S DELICIOUS has been done at the Arden, the Sanford Meisner Center and others. He has received several grants and awards over the years, including fellowships in playwriting from the McKnight Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Minnesota State Arts Board; a Pew Charitable Trust/Playwrights’ Center Collaboration Grant in 1995, 1996 and 1998; a Jerome Fellowship in 1989 and 1991; and a Barrymore Award for Excellence in Theatre nomination for Best New Play for MOLLY’S DELICIOUS. RECENT TRAGIC EVENTS was a finalist for the American Theatre Critics New Play Award and the Helen Hayes Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play. Publications include MAIN STREET by Playscripts, Inc., MOLLY’S DELICIOUS by Dramatic Publishing and various selections in Smith & Kraus’ The Best Stage Monologues book series in 1997 and 1999. ORANGE FLOWER WATER is included in a Smith & Kraus Best Play collection. THE PAVILION, ORANGE FLOWER WATER and RECENT TRAGIC EVENTS are published by Dramatists Play Service. Mr. Wright’s current projects include commissions from the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Woolly Mammoth and Actors Theatre of Louisville. He received an Emmy nomination for his SIX FEET UNDER episode “Twilight” and has just completed his second season with the show which will begin airing on June 13th. In addition to being a playwright, over the last fifteen years Mr. Wright has worked as a fishmonger, advertising copywriter, hotel developer and Director of Development for Camp Heartland, the world’s largest camp for kids with HIV/AIDS. As the co-leader of the alternative rock band, The Tropicals, Mr. Wright has toured with Grammy-nominated Semisonic, and The Tropicals’ first release, Live At The Jungle, was named one of the Top 10 local releases by every leading Twin Cities’ newspaper and weekly. As a member of the band Kangaroo he has released two albums, Phantom and the brand new Skyscraper Spaceship. A graduate of United Theological Seminary, Mr. Wright lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Lorraine LeBlanc, and their son.

 “ORANGE FLOWER WATER is a story about our search for something else, something new,” says director Case. “We think we want this or that to make us happy...and we either put up with what we have because it’s safe and known or we run from thing to thing, from relationship to relationship, thinking we can find that sublime happiness somewhere else. 

The two couples in this piece are not unique; we see people like them every day. The honesty of the playwright’s characters and writing set the experience of directing this production apart for me. The play may move you to tears, disgust, anger or sympathy.  But you will feel something.”

The cast of four includes Rude Guerrilla Company Members Jay Michael Fraley (last seen in STRANGERS, BABIES) and Ryan Harris (last seen in SAN DIEGO). Making their Rude Guerrilla debut with this production is Susan Daniels and Kirsten Kuiken. The Lighting Designer is E.J. Brown and the Assistant Director is Peter Balgoyen.

If you'd like to arrange an interview with the cast or director, or want more information, reservations or complimentary press passes, please call 714-547-4688, send us an email at Rudegrrlla@Aol.com or visit Rude Guerrilla’s website at http://www.rudeguerrilla.org