PERA PALAS

SEASON 2005

By Sinan Unel
Directed by Michael Michetti

A co-production with Antaeus Theatre Company.

Guests at the palatial Pera Palas hotel in Instabul strive to keep up with the changing world around them as interconnected stories crisscross through three tumultuous periods in 20th century Turkey. An incisive, humorous, moving story, with 10 actors playing 27 roles–Turks, Brits, and Americans–in a country straddling Asia and Europe, Islam and Christianity, tradition and modernity.

cast

Gigi Bermingham
Daniel Bess
Daniel Blinkoff
Bill Brochtrup
Ramon de Ocampo
Seamus Dever
Dawn Didawick
Apollo Dukakis
Angela Goethals
Harry Groener
Jeanie Hackett
Tamara Krinsky
Rebecca Mozo
Melinda Peterson
John Prosky
Deborah Puette
Mikael Salazar
Tessa Thompson
Libby West
Ogie Zulueta

Production team

Scenic Design – Tom Buderwitz
Lighting Design – Adam Greene
Costume Design – Ivy Chou
Sound Design – Leon Rothenberg
Properties Design – Chuck Olsen
Assistant Director – Suzanne Karpinski
Dialect Coach – Sarah Hartmann
Production Stage Manager – Young Ji
Publicists – Aldrich & Associates, Betty PR
Production Photography – Ed Krieger

“Magnificent…tell a friend!” – California Turkish Times

“Fascinating stuff, guaranteed, and no one does theater better.” – GORGEOUS Magazine

“Incisive, humorous and moving.” -Association of Turkish Americans of Southern California “The audience had a great time.” – Eye Spy LA

“Vivid characterization and intensity…stunningly theatrical.” – Curtain Up

“The acting is absolutely first rate…breathtaking.” – Talkin’ Broadway

“Brilliant…Director Michael Michetti does a masterful job…It is the kind of relevant, challenging work of theater that, given its onerous production demands, is rarely seen.” – World Socialist Website

“Comes sweepingly to life under Michael Michetti’s dynamic directorial hand.” – Variety

“The play…contains a sweeping beauty that’s nicely painted by director Michael Michetti, and further enhanced by set designer Tom Buderwitz’s collage of images.” – LA Weekly

“The script’s overlapping stories—laced with humor, anger, and pathos—are engrossing…The production values, several fine performances, and ambitious storytelling by the playwright elevate this multi-themed exploration beyond the ordinary.” – Backstage West

“It’s quite unusual to encounter a production that so richly and robustly captures the mystique and beauty of a particular ethnic culture as director Michael Michetti’s staging of Sinan Unel’s epic seriocomic play Pera Pelas. The playwright spins an engrossing tale.” – Frontiers

“Sweeping…this dizzying narrative deconstruction evokes the dislocation of an entire people—a powerful interpenetration of form and theme.” – LA Times