Colony Theatre Presents YEAR ZERO, Opens 6/4

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The Colony Theatre is thrilled to present the first production of its 37th season of shows - its first ever with six productions instead of five. The production is the West Coast Premiere of YEAR ZERO, written by Michael Golamco and directed by David Rose. YEAR ZERO will preview on Wednesday, June 1; Thursday, June 2; and Friday, June 3 at 8:00pm and will open on Saturday, June 4 at 8:00pm and continue through Sunday, July 3 at The Colony Theatre, 555 North Third Street (at Cypress) adjacent to the Burbank Town Center.

How do you move forward in life when you're stuck where you are? In Long Beach, CA, two young Cambodian-Americans search for an answer. Vuthy is a lonely 16-year-old who loves hip hop and Dungeons & Dragons. His ambitious older sister is starting to veer from her steadfast path to higher education and assimilation. With great humor and a modern sensibility, Year Zero sensitively explores how to escape a painful past while honoring the legacy of one's own history. It's a contemporary comedic drama about reinvention, redemption, and finding where we belong. (This play contains strong language.)

The award-winning Colony Theatre was founded in 1975 as a 99-seat Equity-waiver theatre in Silver Lake. Over the years the company was so successful artistically, and built such a large subscriber base, that in 2000 it was able to move into a 270-seat theatre created for it by the City of Burbank, becoming one of only 5 mid-size professional theatres in the LA area that produce a year-round season of plays and musicals, and that employ actors under contract with Actors' Equity Association. Since the move to Burbank, The Colony was named one of "25 Notable U.S. Theatre Companies" by the Encyclopedia Britannica Almanac for 8 years in a row and voted "Best Live Theatre in LA" in The Daily News 2006 Readers' Choice poll. The company's audience is so loyal that in an era when subscription is declining dramatically, and when the industry-wide "gold standard" renewal rate of 80% is considered unattainable, for the past two seasons The Colony has achieved a subscription renewal rate over 90%. In the coming year, at a time when many theatres are shortening their seasons and canceling performances, The Colony is expanding, for the first time in its history presenting six shows instead of the usual five.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM

MICHAEL GOLAMCO (Playwright) is an LA-based playwright and screenwriter. His play Year Zero received acclaimed productions at the Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago (Jeff Nomination for Best New Work and Grand Prize Winner of Chicago Dramatists' Many Voices Project) and at Second Stage Theatre in New York. His play Cowboy Versus Samurai has had several productions since its premiere in New York City, including in Canada and Hong Kong. As a screenwriter, Michael's film Please Stand By was presented at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival's On Track film development program, and his short film, Dragon of Love, was awarded Best Short Film at the Hawaii International Film Festival and ran in regular rotation on the Sundance Channel. Michael is the recipient of the 2009 Helen Merrill Award and is a member of New Dramatists and Center Theatre Group's Writers Workshop. He is currently working on new play commissions for South Coast Repertory and Second Stage Theatre.

David Rose (Director) has staged over 25 productions since he became a company member in 1990, including Visiting Mr. Green, Mary's Wedding, and The Voice of the Prairie. Other Colony productions include Almost, Maine, "Master Harold" ... and the boys (NAACP Theatre Award nomination), ...Young Lady From Rwanda, Billy Bishop Goes to War, Sherlock's Last Case, the L.A. Premiere of The Drawer Boy, Fuddy Meers, The Nerd, The Man Who Came to Dinner, the World Premiere of Bea[u]tiful in the Extreme, Our Country's Good (six L.A. Ovation Award nominations, Drama-Logue Award), the L.A. Premiere of The Living, The Front Page (L.A. Weekly Award - Revival Production of the Year), You Can't Take it With You (Drama-Logue Award), June Moon, and the West Coast Premiere of Peccadillo. He also directed Second Stage productions of True West, Baby With the Bathwater, and I Can Fit My Fist in My Mouth. As an actor, David has appeared at The Colony in Bedroom Farce (Drama-Logue Award), Mornings at Seven, The Clearing, Incident at Vichy, Einstein and the Polar Bear, and Pastoral.