OUT OF THE CITY
by Leslie Ayvasian
directed by Murphy Davis
WHEN: OCTOBER 27-NOVEMBER 13, 2016; Thursday through Saturday at 7:30pm and Sunday at 3pm during the first weekend of a run, and Friday at 7:30pm, Saturday at 3pm and 7:30pm, and Sunday at 3pm during the second and third weekends.
WHERE: The Mill Hill Playhouse is located at 205 E. Front Street, at the corner of Montgomery Street in Trenton, NJ.
TICKETS: 20 - $33 ($38 Saturday night). Student, group and senior discounts available.
To purchase tickets call (609) 392-0766, or visit www.passagetheatre.org. Free guarded on-street parking.
Passage Theatre Company, Trenton’s Barrymore Award-winning theatre company, will open its 2016-2017 season with Leslie Ayvazian’s smart and thoughtful comedy Out of the City.
Can one kiss change the whole picture? When two married couples in their 60s take a trip to celebrate a milestone birthday, they start pondering elusive romance and what comes next. This unorthodox romantic comedy, proves that rejuvenation can be found at any age.
Passage has previously presented four of Leslie Ayvazian’s plays: High Dive, Rosemary and I, Lovely Day and most recently Mention My Beauty as part of last season’s Solo Flights Festival. This production reunites the cast of a one-night-only performance in 2015: Ms. Ayvazian, Passage’s Artistic Director June Ballinger, Ken Land, and Grant Shaud.
“We’re excited to have our Artistic Director June Ballinger perform on Passage’s stage once again in this somewhat unorthodox comic production alongside playwright and actress Leslie Ayvazian,” says Damion Parran, Passage’s Managing Director. “This pairing, coupled with performances from Ken Land and Grant Shaud, will surely inspire belly laughs as well as recognition in all who see Out of the City.”
Leslie Ayvazian is the author of 8 full-length plays and seven one-act plays, published variously by Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service. Some have been included in annual anthologies of best plays. Nine Armenians won the John Gassner/Outer Critics Circle Award for best new American play, The Roger L. Stevens Award, and second place for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Rosemary and I received an honorable mention from the Susan Smith Blackburn jury.
June Ballinger has worked on Broadway, off-Broadway, regional theatre and television, and has performed in many new works at theatres nationwide such as New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Actors Theatre of Louisville, Primary Stages, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, The Kennedy Center, New Harmony Theatre and Passage Theatre. She was a founding ensemble member of the Magic Carpet Play Company in San Francisco and was in the original Broadway cast of Pack of Lies starring Rosemary Harris. She is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC since 1993, a member of NYC’s The Actors Center, and Artistic Director of Trenton’s Passage Theatre Company since 1997. She also teaches acting to young adults and senior members of the Greater Trenton community.
Ken Land has appeared on Broadway in Promises, Promises, The Scarlet Pimpernel (all three versions), Victor/Victoria with Julie Andrews and Liza Minnelli and How The Grinch Stole Christmas at Madison Square Garden. Off-Broadway: The Gig (Manhattan Theatre Club), Orin Scrivello, D.D.S. in Little Shop of Horrors (Orpheum Theatre), and The Death of Von Richthofen as Witnessed from Earth (Public Theatre).
Grant Shaud’s credits include Broadway: Relatively Speaking (three plays by Woody Allen, Elaine May, and Ethan Coen), Torch Song Trilogy (Harvey Fierstein). Off-Broadway: Writers Block (Woody Allen), Atlantic Theater Co., The Starry Messenger (Kenneth Lonergan) The New Group, Four Dogs and a Bone (John Patrick Shanley) Manhattan Theatre Club, After Ashley (Gia Gianfriddo) Vineyard Theatre, The Favor (Leslie Ayvazian) The Ensemble Studio Theatre, and others. Regional: Out of the City (Leslie Ayvazian) Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Lowell, MA, Laughing Wild (Christopher Durang) Tiffany Theatre, Los Angeles, Out, Philadelphia Theater Co. Grant is a member of The Ensemble Studio Theatre (NYC).
Passage Theatre’s mainstage season is made possible in part by the N.J. State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the NEA; the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; Princeton Area Community Foundation; The City of Trenton; WIMG 1300; The Curtis McGraw Foundation; The James Kerney Foundation; PNC Bank; Trenton Thunder; Janssen Pharmaceuticals; Mary O. Borden Foundation; Otsuka Pharmaceutical; George A. Ohl Trust and Wells Fargo; Investors Bank Foundation; The Garfield Foundation; NJ Council for the Humanities; The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey; The Shubert Foundation; and Mary G. Roebling Foundation.