This preview has been provided by Burning Coal Theatre Company.

 

Raleigh, NC.  Burning Coal Theatre Company, in collaboration with The Delta Boys, continues its Wait Til You See This! (second stage) season with Brian Friel’s Molly Sweeney by Brian Friel.  The production will run September 29 – October 9, 2011 at the Murphey School, 224 Polk Street, Raleigh, NC.  Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm (September 29  – 30, October  1, 6 – 8, 2011) and Sundays at 2 pm (October  2, 9, 2011).  All tickets are $10.  For reservations and information, please call 919.259.0812 or email the Delta Boys at deltaboystheater@gmail.com.  For more information on this play, please visit www.burningcoal.org

This play takes the place of the previously announced Philoktetes by John Jesurun. 

About Molly Sweeney

Molly Sweeney has been without sight since she was ten months old.  Told by her husband, her surgeon, and by Molly herself, the story of her passage from blindness to sight is a moving meditation on worlds of the sightless, the seeing, and of those lost in-between.  Molly Sweeney was written in 1994 and premiered at Dublin’s Gate Theatre before a successfully run at London’s Almeida Theatre in a production starring Catherine Byrne and directed by the playwright.   The play’s New York premiere occurred in 1996, at the Roundabout Theatre.  The play was inspired by an article written by Oliver Sachs (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat) entitled “To See and Not See”.

About Brian Friel

Brian Friel was born in Ireland in 1929.  He has written more than 30 plays, including the critically acclaimed Philadelphia, Here I Come!, Faith Healer, Translations and Dancing at Lughnasa.  He founded the Field Day Theatre Company with frequent collaborator, the actor Stephen Rea.

About the Director

Kathryn Milliken LeTrent (Director).  Other work with Burning Coal include the World Premier of Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts by Angus Maclachlan, the first, second and fourth annual Kidswrite! Festivals and Wait ‘Till You See This co-productions with the Delta Boys of Howie the Rookie and The Cherry Orchard.  Other directing credits include Suspense, Fool for Love,‘Art’, This is Our Youth and Easter.  Kathryn holds a B.F.A. in Drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and is a graduate of The Stella Adler Studio of Acting.

About the Cast and Crew

Samantha Corey Molly Sweeney).  Samantha is currently Company Manager at Burning Coal Theatre Company.  Shows with Burning Coal include: Enron (Raptor Puppet Designer), Blue (Assistant Director), Crowns (Assistant Musical Director), Pornography (Sister), The Shape of The Table (Youth Leader), and To Kill A Mockingbird Tour (Mayella/Miss Maudie). Other shows include: Somewhere Out There with Urban Garden (Actor/Trapeze Artist), Playground with The Distillery Theatre (Puppet Designer), A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Town of Cary (Moth). .

Lucius Robinson (Frank Sweeney) is a Delta Boy and earned his B.A. in Performance Studies from UNC-Chapel Hill. Favorite credits include Howie The Rookie, Cymbeline, Vertigo, Eurydice, Metamorphoses, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Number, Goodnight Everything and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He recently spent a month studying at the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theater.

Stephen LeTrent (Mr. Rice) is a company member at Burning Coal, where he has appeared in numerous production, most recently The Shape of the Table (American premiere) and Twelfth Night.  Stephen appeared with the Delta Boys in Howie the Rookie and The Cherry Orchard.

Andy Hayworth (Stage Manager) rejoins The Delta Boys after working on The Cherry Orchard some years ago with the boys.  Andy works all over the Triangle as a stage manager, director, and sporadically as an actor.  His mother says he is “the most excellent stage manager in the world.”  In just this past year, Andy appeared as both Juliet and Ophelia in Theatre in the Park’s fall production of The Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged).  He also directed Justice Theater Project’s production of Tuesdays with Morrie.

For further information, please contact Burning Coal’s managing director, Simmie Kastner, at 919.834.4001 or visit our website at www.burningcoal.org.

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Burning Coal Theatre Company is Raleigh’s small, professional theatre.  Burning Coal is an incorporated, non-profit [501 (c) (3)] organization. Burning Coal’s mission is to produce literate, visceral, affecting theatre that is experienced, not simply seen. Burning Coal produces explosive reexaminations of overlooked classic and modern plays, as well as new plays, whose themes and issues are of immediate concern to our audience, using the best local, national and international artists available. We work toward a theatre of high-energy performances and minimalist production values. The emphasis is on literate works that are felt and experienced viscerally, unlike more traditional linear plays, at which audiences are most often asked to observe without participating. Race and gender non-specific casting is an integral component of our perspective, as well as an international viewpoint.