SEXSTING Makes West Coast Premiere with Katselas Theatre Tonight

Winning a Guthrie Theatre commission, and chosen for development by The Katselas Theatre Company's INKubator program, the West Coast Premiere of SEXSTING is the inaugural production for KTC's 2013 season. Opening at the popular Skylight Theatre Complex tonight, February 23rd, the stellar cast includes Gregory Itzin (Tony, Drama Desk, and Emmy Award nominee), JD Cullum (Stones in His Pockets-Mark Taper Forum, Of Equal Measure-Kirk Douglas Theater), The Cripple of Inishmaan (Geffen Playhouse).

Based on true events: Predator or prey? Posing as a 14-year-old girl, an FBI agent goes online with unexpected results as seductions are being carefully plotted. Can a man be arrested for a fantasy, for an intention? Who draws the line between fantasy and crime?

DORIS BAIZLEY (Playwright) is a founding member of LA Theater Works. At the Mark Taper Forum she served as Dramaturge for the Other Voices Program and, for seven years, was resident playwright for the Taper's Improvisational Theater Project for young audiences. Currently, Doris leads a playwriting workshop at East West Players' David Henry Hwang Writers' Institute. The first incarnation of her play SEXSTING, written in collaboration with Oakland criminal defense attorney Susan Raffanti, won the 2004 Guthrie Theater/Playwrights' Center "Two-Headed Challenge" development grant and was produced by the Salt Lake City Acting Company in 2007. Selected plays include Mrs. California (CBS/Dramatists Guild Award), Catholic Girls, (LA Dramalogue Award), Tears Of Rage (recorded on L.A. Theatre Works' "The Play's the Thing" with Frances Conroy, Barbara Bain, Anthony Edwards and Ping Wu), Guns, a musical with music by Harry Aguado, which will be presented by KTC later this season. Daniel In Babylon, Agnes Smedley: Our American Friend, and an adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol have been performed at US regional theaters such as Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, National Theater of the Deaf, and internationally at the Semafor Theater in Prague and the Icon Theater in Taipei. Selected screenplays: Until She Talks (with Pamela Reed, directed by Mary Lampson, American Playhouse, 1984), nominated for Best American Playhouse Screenplay Land Of Little Rain (with Helen Hunt, directed by Evelyn Purcell, American Playhouse 1987), winner of Denver Center for the Performing Arts Best Western Screenplay.

SEXSTING opens tonight, February 23, 2013 and runs 8pm Fridays & Saturdays, and 7pm Sundays through April 14, 2013. The Skylab Theatre Complex is located at 1816 1/2 N. Vermont, LA, 90027. Tickets are ($30 - $34). Reservations: 702 KTC-TKTS (702-582-8587) or online at www.katselastheatre.com.

"The Guthrie Theatre and The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis commissioned a play for collaboration between a playwright and someone from outside the theatre. The contest was called "The Two Headed Challenge," and SEXSTING won. Criminal defense attorney Susan Raffanti told me about an influx of FBI Internet sex sting cases she and her colleagues were handling and the description of these cases quickly led to discussions of identity, guilt, sexuality, and justice. Text and subtext, brought intrigue and legal dilemma. Through KTC's INKubator series, I was able to re-write and fully develop the piece around its essential conflict." - Playwright Doris Baizley

JIM HOLMES (Director) is a multi-award winning director (including Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for his direction of Avenue A), whose work has been seen regionally and in New York, Off Broadway at the 29th Street Repertory Theatre. He spent seven seasons at the New Mexico Repertory Theatre, where he directed Brecht's Happy End and Shakespeare's Othello as well as playing a host of classical and contemporary roles, including the role of "Jerry" in the world premiere of Mark Medoff's Stumps. His film The Corndog Man, an independent feature, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Jim directed the short film Mystery Cave, which premiered at the Filmstock International Film Festival in England. Jim received his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts.