Press Contact: Chall Gray
828-674-2036, cg@themagneticfield.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
The Magnetic Field to Present Festival of Plays by John Crutchfield
Asheville, NC, Feb. 24, 2011: The Magnetic Theatre in The Magnetic Field is bringing back two popular plays by John Crutchfield, The Songs of Robert and Ruth, both of which premiered in Asheville to sell-out crowds and superb reviews, as well as premiering a new work, The Labyrinth, by the acclaimed local writer.
“It's very exciting to be able to bring back two shows, with their original casts, that created such audience excitement and played so few performances. As important, these plays, and The Labyrinth, are thematically related, and constitute an unintended trilogy. The plays speak to each other, and it will be great for audiences to have a chance to see John's plays in this very special context.”
The Songs of Robert originally played in Asheville in 2008, went on to play in New York City as part of the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival, and was the recipient of the Outstanding Solo Performance Award from the festival for that year. Locally, the Asheville Citizen-Times called the show “dazzling...compelling,” and TimeOutNY said that it was “a gorgeous solo show.” Centering around a teenage boy navigating the difficulties of high school in a small southern Appalachian town, The Songs of Robert features live music on both banjo and slide guitar, and eleven different characters, all portrayed by one of Asheville's most gifted actors, John Crutchfield.
Of Ruth, which also premiered in Asheville, the Mountain Xpress said “don’t miss the show and lauded it as being “eerie...spellbinding,” and the Asheville Citizen-Times said that the play was “fresh, original.” A retelling of the biblical story of Ruth, set in contemporary southern Appalachia, the show stars Kathryn Temple who recently garnered accolades for playing the female lead in When Jekyll Met Hyde (60s Version) at The Magnetic Field.
These two shows will have limited runs before the premiere of The Labyrinth, a diabolical comedy about a young man wandering through the underworld searching for his best friend. The Labyrinth is, like the other two plays of the festival, written in verse, but it abandons the southern Appalachian setting and characters of Robert and Ruth for everything from a mental hospital to a graveyard, a desert, a boat on the River Styx, a television studio, and more, incorporating a gravedigger, a coal miner, businesspeople, psychiatrists, an aging jam band, a topologist of knots, Sirens, doctors, Stone People, and even Atticus Finch, from To Kill a Mockingbird. If one tried to imagine a mash-up of Dante's Divine Comedy, Ibsen's Peer Gynt, and the fiction of Haruki Murakami, this unique, riveting, and improbably funny play might just be the result.
After the recent success of When Jekyll Met Hyde, and with more world premiere plays on the way, The Magnetic Theatre in The Magnetic Field—Asheville's newest professional theatre—is fast making a reputation for producing the most exciting, original theatre in the region.
The Songs of Robert will run March 3-5, March 24-26, and March 31-April 2, Ruth will run March 10-12 and 17-19, and The Labyrinth will open on April 9. Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., with late shows Friday and Saturday at 10:00 p.m. Tickets $12, with Friday and Saturday 7:30 shows $14. For additional information and ticket sales and reservations, visit www.themagneticfield.com, call 828-668-2154, or stop by The Magnetic Field at 372 Depot Street, Asheville, NC 28801.