A new theater company will test the waters of the Santa Ynez Valley at 8
p.m. May 25 and 26 when Vineyard Valley Theatre Company brings together elite
acting talent at the Solvang Theater to read selected works on issues of
“Troubled Love.”
“It’s kind of an elegant
concert presentation, some classical material and some very contemporary
material on notions of love and affairs of the heart that I’ve put
together with great, great actors,” Director Robert Egan said. “The
idea is [to find out]: Is there room for some very high-level, professional
theater there and is there an audience for it?”
The reading includes actors ranging
from “Malcolm in the Middle” star Jane Kaczmarek
to former “West Wing” stars Allison Janney
and Bradley Whitford.
“There’s a really great
summertime theater company on the East Coast called the Williamstown Theatre
Company and the idea is to do something like that on the West Coast,”
Egan said.
Kaczmarek and many of the actors involved have
worked with Egan in the past during his 19 seasons as Producing Artistic
Director at the Tony Award-winning Mark Taper Forum or in his productions at
the Ojai Playwrights Conference.
“It was so much fun to work on
plays like this together that when he asked me to participate, I was happy to be
available,” Kaczmarek said.
“[The audience] is going have
great actors who are well known from television and film. So that’s
always delightful to see great actors who span several different
mediums,” Egan said. “And the best living writers in the
The reading combines works from
contemporary playwrights such as Donald Margulies, author of the Pulitzer
Prize-winning “Dinner With Friends,” and
John Patrick Stanley, author of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize winning play
“Doubt” as well as “Moonstruck,” winner of the 1987
Academy Award for screenwriting.
Lee Rosenberg, a member of the Board
of Directors for the Solvang Theatre Festival, said he hopes attendance is
strong enough to open the doors for a full-fledged summer series.
“We hope to achieve that result
in phases over a three to five-year period. The first step is what we’re
doing Saturday and Sunday night,”
“I love Bob Egan and the people
involved in this are so great that it would be wonderful to have something like
this in your own backyard,” Kaczmarek said.
Future expansion plans include an
“Off the Vine” series that would take place at various venues in
the surrounding areas.
“The vision of it is inclusive
of not only the Solvang Theater, but also the venues that exist in other areas
of the Valley,”
Egan echoed