Theatre Unleashed, NoHo, announces their 2011 Season

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L.A.”™s busiest theatre company, based in North Hollywood, will continue its rapid growth with an ambitious Main Stage season, participation in various festivals and much, much more!

Coming off their most successful season to date, Theatre Unleashed has announced its 2011 Season, filled once again with new takes on classics, contemporary works, fresh originals and a myriad of fringe shows that will push the bounds of local theatre and further establish TU as one of the city”™s most prominent theatre companies.

“I believe this is going to be our most exciting season yet in terms of the challenging productions we”™ll be staging this year,” said Co-Artistic Director Carlos Martinez. “We”™re really pushing ourselves to take more risks as a company, build on our successes and develop new ways to achieve the goal laid out in our Mission Statement of creating truly remarkable theatre. Taking a look at our upcoming season, I can”™t wait to get started!”

Theatre Unleashed will present five Main Stage shows this season. We will open in March with The Birthday Boys, winner of Best World Premiere at the 2010 Hollywood Fringe Festival. A gritty and terrifying dark comedy, The Birthday Boys tracks three United States Marines who have been taken hostage, bound and blindfolded, as they do whatever”™s necessary to keep their sanity and stay alive.

In the early summer, TU will return to the classics with a new take on Shakespeare”™s tale of conspiracy, betrayal and murder, Julius Caesar. Considered one of the most powerful of The Bard”™s works with some of his best male characters, TU will present it from a new perspective with an all-female cast of players tackling this psychological drama that touches on the conflicting demands of honor, loyalty and friendship.

In the late summer, TU will offer the contemporary piece Fiction, which tracks a married couple, both novelists, as they take separate trips to the same writers colony and each encounter an amazing, life-changing young woman. Their encounters with her remain secret until journals, diaries and a brain tumor bring the truth bubbling to the surface.

In the fall, TU will take audiences on a lively romp through the ‘Roaring Twenties’ with a host of irrepressibly quirky masked characters bringing to life the world of the 1920’s underground as you’ve never seen it before in the original piece Speakeasy. Flappers, gangsters, hoodlums and hoofers are dodging the law at the swankiest juice joint in town. This completely original piece is being conceived without a script through the intensive rehearsal explorations of the cast under the direction of mask artist and creator Wendy Gough. This inventive, creative process leads to a final polished performance that is sure to delight all skirts and swells.

In early winter, TU will introduce The Woodsman, a loaded play that examines a convicted child molester who is trying to get his life on track after being released from prison. With the help of a couple of friends, and a potential love interest, he seems to be on the right path…until he notices the small girl walking outside his window.

Beyond the Main Stage, Theatre Unleashed has also committed to participation in the 2011 Hollywood Fringe Festival, bringing back last year”™s smash hits 25 PPH, where the company performs 25 original plays in an hour, and Super Sidekick, the original children”™s musical by acclaimed writer and TU co-founder Gregory Crafts. Building on the success of our Children”™s Theatre initiative, TU will also stage another children”™s show in 2011, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, which it will put in rep at the end of the year with its production of It”™s A Wonderful Life. This season will also see the return of TUFF (TU F”™n Funny), its sketch comedy troupe, as well as popular concepts like the 24-Hour Theatre Events, Late Night Shows, Cheap “˜n”™ Easy Series and a few other surprises along the way!

Theatre Unleashed is based at the

NoHo Stages
4934 Lankershim Blvd.
North Hollywood, CA 91601

For reservations, please call their Box Office at: (818) 849-4039 or send them an email here.

For more information about season dates and ticket prices & sales, head over to Theatre Unleashed’s official site.

Report by Pauline Adamek