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Thursday–Saturday @ 8pm
Wednesdays @ 8 pm
May 6, 13, 20
Sunday Matinees @ 2pm
April 31
May 3, 10, 17, 31
June 7, 21
Sunday Evenings @ 7pm
April 26;
May 24; June 14
Student & SAG/Equity/ AFTRA performance:
Friday evenings $15
May 1, 2 @ 8pm; May 3 @ 2pm, May 24 @ 7pm, June 5 @ 8pm
(Post show discussions can be requested by groups of 15 or more by
calling the box office at 310-477-2055 ext 2.
Wed/Thurs/Fri: $25.00
Sat/Sun: $30.00
Student tickets on Fridays for $15.Group sales available by calling the box office.
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A Number
Written by Caryl Churchill
Directed by Bart DeLorenzo
Starring:
John Heard and Steve Cell
"Wildly hilarious!" -BACK STAGE CRITIC'S PICK
"Highly entertaining...Charmingly witty...Do see this one!" -Tolucan Times
"A jolly good evening of fun!" -Stagehappenings.com
The invaluable British playwright Caryl Churchill has not begun to stop surprising and unbalancing theatergoers. A NUMBER is a gripping dramatic consideration of what happens to autonomous identity in a world where people can be cloned and asks you to ponder a threat to the very cornerstone of Western civilization since the Renaissance: the idea of human individuality, a subject she manages to probe in depth in a merehour of spartan sentences and silences. It is hard to think of anothercontemporary playwright who combines such economy of means and breadth of imagination.
“Churchill proceeds to ask question after question about genes, free will, the impact of upbringing and environment and human identity itself. She is never preachy or dull, always terse, suggestive and arresting. There is, after all, no more original and skillful dramatist at work.” –The London Time
 Playwright Caryl Churchill was born on 3 September 1938 in London and grew up in the Lake District and in Montreal. She was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she read English. Downstairs, her first play, was written while she was still at university, was first staged in 1958 and won an award at the Sunday Times National Union of Students Drama Festival. She wrote a number of plays for BBC radio including The Ants (1962), Lovesick (1967) and Abortive (1971). The Judge's Wife was televised by the BBC in 1972 and Owners, her first professional stage production, premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in the same year.
She was Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court (1974-5) and spent much of the 1970s and 1980s working with the theatre groups 'Joint Stock' and 'Monstrous Regiment'. Her work during this period includes Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (1976), Cloud Nine (1979), Fen (1983) and A Mouthful of Birds (1986), written with David Lan. Three More Sleepless Nights was first produced at the Soho Poly, London, in 1980.
Top Girls brings together five historical female characters at a dinner party in a London restaurant given by Marlene, the new managing director of 'Top Girls' employment agency. The play was first staged at the Royal Court in 1982, directed by Max Stafford-Clark. It transferred to Joseph Papp's Public Theatre in New York later that year. Serious Money was first produced at the Royal Court in 1987 and won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy of the Year and the Laurence Olivier/BBC Award for Best New Play. More recent plays include Mad Forest (1990), written after a visit to Romania, and The Skriker (1994). Her plays for television include The After Dinner Joke (1978) and Crimes (1982). Far Away premiered at the Royal Court in 2000, directed by Stephen Daldry. She has also published a new translation of Seneca's Thyestes (2001), and A Number (2002), which addresses the subject of human cloning. Her new version of August Strindberg's A Dream Play (2005), premiered at the National Theatre in 2005.
Caryl Churchill lives in London. Her latest play is Drunk Enough to say I Love You? (2006), which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in Winter 2006.
About the Director
BART DeLORENZO is the founding artistic director of the Evidence Room Theater in Los Angeles where he has directed many local and world premieres over the last 13 years including plays by David Greenspan, Kelly Stuart, Martin Crimp, Philip K. Dick, Gordon Dahlquist, David Edgar, Charles L. Mee, Naomi Wallace and Edward Bond. Recent shows include the world premiere of Donald Margulies’ Shipwrecked! An Entertainment at both South Coast Repertory and the Geffen Playhouse, Dead Man’s Cell Phone at South Coast Repertory, Around the World in 80 Days at the Cleveland Playhouse, the world premiere of Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress at the Geffen Playhouse, Britannicus at Cal Rep, and the Center Theatre Group’s kick-off premiere of Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays outdoors on the Music Center plaza and on the steps of Disney Hall.
 John Heard
John is the quintessential “actor’s actor”. In his thirty-year career, he has appeared in over sixty feature films, dozens of television movies, and guest-starred in numerous award-winning dramas on TV.
A graduate of Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, John Heard began his career on the stage, winning multiple awards in both Chicago and New York, including a 1976-77 Theatre World Award and Obie Awards for his off-Broadway performances in “Othello” and “Split”.
His early screen successes include performances in “Cutters Way”, “Chilly Scenes of Winter”, and as Jack Kerouac in “Heart Beat”. From there, he built his career with starring roles in films such as “Big”, “The Pelican Brief”, “Beaches”, “Home Alone”, “Awakenings”, “In the Line of Fire”, “Pollack”, and most recently, “White Chicks”.
As a supporting actor, John has worked with some of today’s greatest directors, from Martin Scorsese and Robert Redford to Chris Columbus and Penny Marshall. He has contributed invaluable performances opposite countless Academy Award-winning actors including Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Clint Eastwood, Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman, Laura Dern, and Meryl Streep.
John has turned in many memorable performances on the small screen as well, including guest appearances in such television shows as “The Outer Limits”, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “Hack”, and all three “Law & Order” series. He was nominated for a Cable ACE Award for Best Actor in a TV Movie for his 1987 performance in “Tender is the Night”, and his recent turn in the 1999 season of “The Sopranos” earned him an Emmy nomination for Guest Actor in a drama series.
This year, John will continue to be seen on both the big and small screen. He can be found in recurring roles on “Prison Break”, “CSI:Miami”, as a guest star on “Numbers” and “Battlestar Gallactica”. On the big screen, he starred in the independent feature films “Chumscrubber” – opposite Rita Wilson, Ralph Fiennes, and Cari Ann Moss, “Edison” – opposite Morgan Freeman, Keving Spacey, “American Gothic” – opposite Patrick Wilson, Neal McDonough and Scott Michael Campbell, “Sweetland” – opposite Ned Beatty and Alan Cumming (which just won the Audience Award at the Hampton’s Film Festival), and “Steel City” which was one of the 14 films competing in the dramatic competition of the Sundance Film Festival. He will be attending the festival after having wrapped work on the Andy Davis feature “The Guardian” starring opposite Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher.
Steve Cell
Previously at the Odyssey: A Small Tragedy, Among the Thugs; Broadway: Death of a Salesman; Off-Off Broadway: Rocket to the Moon (SoHo Rep); Two Rooms (Blue Heron Theater), Managers (KGB Bar). Regional theater credits include The Goodman Theater, Long Wharf Theater, Arena Stage, A.C.T. (Seattle) and The Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario. Recent television credits include CSI:NY, Andy Barker, P.I., and pretty much every interrogation room currently on television.
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