Theatreworks will produce the 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist play, “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety,” Oct. 19-Nov. 11 at the Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theater in University Hall.
Show times are 7:30 p.m. Wed-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $35 for reserved seats and $15 for children 16 and younger. Children less than 5 years old will not be admitted. A First Friday Talkback is scheduled for Oct. 19 featuring directors and performers will answer audience questions after the performance. A first Saturday Gala is scheduled for Oct. 20 and a prologue lecture is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Oct. 28.
To order tickets, visit http://www.theatreworkscs.org/
“Chad Deity” is more than an invigorating drama—it’s a knock down, one of a kind, blood-pumping spectacle set in and around a professional wrestling ring. It’s also a smart body-slamming satire about American values perfectly designed for election season. The New York Times described it as a “delicious crackle and pop of a galloping, honest-to-God, all-American satire.”
The production is co-produced by THEATREWORKS and Curious Theatre Company, Denver. Both companies wanted to stage the play (which is having popular success around the country), and decided to combine forces so they could produce anevent which would have been challenging to achieve on their own.
“The casting demands are formidable,” said Murray Ross, artistic director, Theatreworks. “We need greatactors with diverse racial profiles, as well as actors who can actually wrestle—these guys don’t grow on trees.”
Chip Walton, producing artistic director, Curious Theatre Company, embarked on an extensive cross-country search to find his talent—and succeeded brilliantly. Michael Lopez plays Mace, the Puerto-Rican wrestler with the most talent, yet fated to always play the fall guy. Patrick Byas plays the champ, Chad Deity, an African-American with rock star charisma. Akshay Kapoor plays the hip-hop Indian-American who is destined for new wrestling stardom as a menacing Muslim, dubbed TheFundamentalist. William Hahn is the cynical and crude promoter, EKO, and Bruce Rogers plays a number of bad guys who are power-bombed all over the ring. Other wrestlers areon hand to drop kick and clothesline the crowd into high-decibel frenzy.
Transforming a theater into a wrestling arena has been a fabulous challenge for the production’s designers. Charlie Packard has re-created the theater space into a gleaming heavy metal arena for THE Wrestling; Ann Piano has created costumes with all the glitz and shameless vulgarity the sport demands. Shannon McKinney lights up the arena so it smokes, sparkles and sizzles. The pumping sound and pulsing video are created by Brian Freeland.
For all its flash, its profanity, its good humor and wild spirits, “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity” has the additional bonus of being a thought provoking and engaging experience. Playwright Kristoffer Diaz uses the larger than life world of professional wrestling as a metaphor for the larger than life world of marketplace America. The play invites us to consider how values and culture are shaped by stereotypes created for our consumption, and how we rely on myths and images we know are phony, but which we perpetuate anyway.
“The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity” is not just your average night out in the theater. It’s a total immersion in free wheeling America. It’s a hand-clapping crowd-whooping good night out. And it’s a moving, thoughtful and entirely unique story of our immigrant experience. It’s all about us.
–Caitlin Green, Theatreworks
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