Fountain Theater Announces Its 2009 Season Of New Plays

The multiple award-winning Fountain Theatre is excited to announce its 2009 Season of new plays. Following on the heels of the critically acclaimed, twice-extended run of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean, just nominated for 8 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle awards and continuing through February 22, will be three new plays, including two West Coast premieres and a Los Angeles premiere: Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler (March 21-May 3); Coming Home by Athol Fugard (Summer, 2009); and Shining City by Conor McPherson (Fall, 2009). In addition, The Fountain's popular Forever Flamenco! dance series, which continues on the first, third and occasional fifth Sunday of every month at the intimate Fountain venue, has been selected by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission to present an all-star Forever Flamenco! extravaganza at the Ford Amphitheatre on August 1; and The Fountain will re-mount last season's successful The Accomplices by Bernard Weinraub for an eight-week run at the Odyssey Theatre (April 25-June 14).

"As our country celebrates a new season of hope, vitality and renewal, it's exhilarating to dedicate our new season to premiering three new plays by important playwrights for Los Angeles audiences," says Fountain co-artistic director Stephen Sachs.

The Fountain Theatre was honored this month with a combination of 9 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle nominations and 4 LA Weekly Award nominations for its productions of Victory by Athol Fugard and Gem of the Ocean by August Wilson.

Housed in a charming two-story complex in Hollywood, California, The Fountain Theatre is one of the most successful intimate theaters in Los Angeles, providing a nurturing, creative home for multi-ethnic theater and dance artists. Activities include a year-round season of fully produced new and established plays; The Fountain's bi-weekly Forever Flamenco! series, now in its seventh year; a New Plays developmental series; Educational Outreach Programs; and off-site presentations/tours. Fountain Theatre productions have won more than 160 awards for all areas of production, performance, and design, and The Fountain Theatre is the only intimate theater to win the Ovation Award for Best Production of a Play four times. Fountain projects have been seen in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Florida, New Jersey, Minneapolis and Edinburgh. Recent highlights include its Off-Broadway production of Exits and Entrances in New York, worldwide readings/productions/tours of What I Heard About Iraq, the Ovation Award-winning Joe Turner's Come and Gone, the three-city tour of Sonidos Gitanos, the making of Sweet Nothing in my Ear into a movie for TV on CBS, and the recent Canadian premiere of Miss Julie: Freedom Summer in Vancouver and Toronto. The Fountain has been honored with a Certificate of Appreciation from the Los Angeles City Council for demonstrating years of artistic excellence and "enhancing the cultural life of Los Angeles."

The 2009 Season is as follows:

THROUGH FEBRUARY 22: Gem of the Ocean by August Wilson - Nominated for 8 LADCC Awards
The Fountain Theatre's critically acclaimed production, directed by Ovation Award-winner Ben Bradley, has been extended in honor of Black History Month. The haunting tale of a spiritually tormented young man who pays a visit to Aunt Ester, a former slave, on the eve of her 287th birthday received rave reviews in the Los Angeles press: "Thrillingly staged" - Los Angeles Times, "A surefire crowd-pleaser" - Daily Variety; "Critic's Pick... Jabs at the soul and cracks the heart open" - Back Stage.

March 21 through May 3 (previews March 14-20): Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler
Who really discovered the secret of life? Rosalind Franklin was a brilliant and passionate young scientist whose groundbreaking study led to the historic discovery of DNA. But did her male colleagues steal her data and claim credit for themselves? Simon Levy directs the West Coast premiere of Ziegler's moving and compelling drama about scientific intrigue and competition - and a woman's life in a man's world. Based on a true story, Photograph 51 was the winner of the 2008 STAGE International Script Competition.

SUMMER 2009: Coming Home by Athol Fugard
The Fountain Theatre continues its unique relationship with one of the world's greatest living playwrights. Athol Fugard returns to characters he created in Valley Song to take a contemporary look at his native South Africa. Stephen Sachs directs Ovation Award-winner Deidrie Henry (Yellowman) and LADCC Award nominee Adolphus Ward (Gem of the Ocean) in the West Coast premiere of Fugard's newest play, in which Veronika Jonkers returns to her beloved grandfather's farm with a young son and the powerful hope to change their lives.

FALL 2009: Shining City by Conor McPherson
Morlan Higgins and William Dennis Hurley (Exits and Entrances) star in the Los Angeles premiere of a modern-day ghost story, a Tony Award nominee for Best Play by one of Ireland's hottest and most important young playwrights. Set in Dublin, a middle-aged businessman seeks help from a new therapist, claiming to have seen the ghost of his wife who was recently killed in a car crash. What begins as an unusual encounter between strangers becomes a struggle between the living and the dead that will redefine both men for the rest of their lives. Stephen Sachs directs.

AUGUST 1, 2009: Special Event - Forever Flamenco! at the Ford Amphitheatre. The Fountain is honored to be selected by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission to present a special evening representing Forever Flamenco! at the 1245-seat John Anson Ford Amphitheatre as part of the County-sponsored Summer Partnership Program. Since 2003, Forever Flamenco! at The Fountain Theatre has been presenting a roster of world-class Flamenco dancers, singers and musicians drawn from the rich pool of Flamenco artists in Southern California, with additional guest artists brought from San Francisco, Albuquerque and Spain. Forever Flamenco! at the Ford will be an "all-star" performance with eleven great Flamenco artists representing both the new wave of young talent and seasoned, classic performers. The evening will be directed by guitarist Antonio Triana, Jr.

ONGOING: Forever Flamenco! at The Fountain Theatre (1st, 3rd and occasional 5th Sunday each month)
Now in its sixth smash year at the Fountain, Forever Flamenco is a live concert of a Flamenco cuadro or group, consisting of one or two guitarists, a singer, three dancers, and often a percussionist. With the roster constantly changing with every show, each performance is unique and offers a different "mix" of Flamenco artists - some local, some invited from cities around the United States, some visiting from Spain. The Fountain Theatre's intimate setting provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see world-class Flamenco up close, making it ideal to experience maximum Flamenco intensity. The LA Weekly has honored The Fountain Theatre as "L.A.'s most significant venue for flamenco."

JUST ADDED: APRIL 25- JUNE 14 (preview April 24): The Accomplices by Bernard Weinraub
The Fountain Theatre will remount last season's hit play, which The Fountain will produce at the Odyssey Theatre. What the U.S. government and American Jews did - and didn't - do to help Jews fleeing the Nazis is the subject of this blistering account, based on the true story of Jewish activist Hillel Kook (aka Peter Bergson), by former New York Times political reporter Bernard Weinraub. In 1940, Hillel Kook arrived in the U.S. fresh from the underground resistance in Palestine. Changing his name to Peter Bergson, he sought aid for the rescue of European Jews from the Nazis. Shocked to find himself blocked by both the Roosevelt administration and the Jewish establishment, Bergson spearheaded an extraordinary campaign of public rallies, hard-hitting newspaper advertisements and lobbying in Congress in his one-man fight to save millions and end the conspiracy of silence and inaction that continues to haunt us to this day.

For more information about The Fountain Theatre's 2009 Season, call (323) 663-1525 or go to www.FountainTheatre.com.