PALO ALTO, CA (July 12, 2012) – TheatreWorks, the nationally acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, presents the regional premiere of the recent Broadway hit TIME STANDS STILL, by Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies (Dinner with Friends, Brooklyn Boy). This riveting work, an insightful portrait of a couple grappling with the wounds of war, will be helmed by Leslie Martinson and stars Rebecca Dines and Mark Anderson Phillips in the pivotal roles of the photojournalist and war correspondent, with Rolf Saxon and Sarah Moser completing the cast. TIME STANDS STILL runs August 22 – September 16, 2012 (press opening August 25) at TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. For tickets ($23-$73) and information the public may call (650) 463-1960 or visit www.theatreworks.org.
The latest work by Donald Margulies, TIME STANDS STILL explores the challenges facing two longtime partners at a crucial juncture in their lives. Sarah, a thrill-seeking photojournalist, and James, her foreign correspondent lover, have recently returned from a harrowing stint covering the war. As they struggle to piece their lives back together, the desire to move forward clashes with the instinct to stay comfortably – or even uncomfortably – in place. Told with disarming wit and keen insight, TIME STANDS STILL shows a fiercely intelligent couple stumbling for answers when a relationship must accommodate the mistakes of the past, the reality of the present, and the uncertainty of the future.
TheatreWorks has assembled a stellar cast for this engaging drama, reuniting Rebecca Dines (as “Sarah Goodwin” ) and Mark Anderson Phillips (as “James Dodd") last seen together in TheatreWorks’ The 39 Steps in 2011. Ms. Dines’s TheatreWorks history spans 20 years and includes roles in Distracted, Twentieth Century, The Elephant Man, and Living Out, among others. She has also appeared at South Coast Repertory Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and San Jose Repertory Theatre, among others. Also a favorite of local audiences, Mark Anderson Phillips has been seen in Sense and Sensibility, Snow Falling on Cedars, Opus, Theophilus North, The Grapes of Wrath, Arcadia, and Proof at TheatreWorks, as well as in roles at Center Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theater, Marin Theatre Company, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Magic Theatre, and Arizona Theatre Company.
TheatreWorks also welcomes Rolf Saxon as “Richard Ehrlich” and Sarah Moser as “Mandy Bloom.” Founder of the Berkeley Mime Troupe, Mr. Saxon’s credits include West End productions of Chicago, Laughter on the 23rd Floor with Gene Wilder, The Seven-Year Itch, Lost in Yonkers with Rosemary Harris, and The Graduate with Linda Gray, as well as roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Jewish Theater, and UK tours of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and Jerry Springer – The Opera. Film credits include Entrapment, Saving Private Ryan, and Mission: Impossible, among others. Mr. Saxon previously appeared at TheatreWorks in The Chosen. TheatreWorks newcomer Sarah Moser has appeared in productions at California Shakespeare Theatre, Magic Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, City Lights Theater Company, and Pear Avenue Theatre.
The TheatreWorks production of TIME STANDS STILL includes scenic design by Erik Flatmo, costume design by Anna Oliver, lighting design by Mike Palumbo, and sound design by Greg Robinson.
Playwright Donald Margulies received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Dinner With Friends, which also received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play, an Outer Critics Circle Award, the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, and a Drama Desk Award nomination. His other plays include Shipwrecked!, Brooklyn Boy, Sight Unseen (OBIE Award), Collected Stories, God of Vengeance, Two Days, The Model Apartment (OBIE Award), The Loman Family Picnic, What’s Wrong With This Picture?, Broken Sleep: Three Plays, Found a Peanut, Pitching to the Star, Resting Place, and Luna Park. Currently, he is adapting the novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides into an HBO miniseries.
TheatreWorks Associate Artist Leslie Martinson, who helmed the company’s acclaimed 2010 production of Superior Donuts and last season’s West Coast premiere of The Pitmen Painters, returns to the director’s chair with the regional premiere of TIME STANDS STILL. Martinson has been a director and administrator at TheatreWorks for over 25 years. Her directing credits for the company include The Grapes of Wrath (co-directed with Artistic Director Robert Kelley), the Bay Area Premiere of Putting it Together, and the West Coast Premieres of The Boys Next Door, Brilliant Traces, If We Are Women, Theophilus North, and The Voice of the Prairie, among others. A graduate of Occidental College, she was a Watson Fellow, a member of Lincoln Center Directors' Lab, a member of the LaMaMa International Directing Symposium, and has served on Theatre Bay Area's Theatre Services Committee since 2002. In 2009, she was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in Stage Direction from the Arts Council of Silicon Valley for artistic achievement and community impact. She leads master classes, workshops, and panels for many Bay Area universities, academies, and theatre companies.
With some 100,000 patrons per year, TheatreWorks has captured a national reputation for artistic innovation and integrity, often presenting Bay Area theatregoers with their first look at acclaimed musicals, comedies, and dramas, directed by award-winning local and guest directors, and performed by professional actors cast locally and from across the country. A home for artists developing new works, it was at TheatreWorks that Memphis, the 2010 Tony Award-winning musical now completing its third year on Broadway and currently on its first U.S. tour, was first workshopped and received its world premiere.
