ARMS AND THE MAN opens Feb. 23!

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Rude Guerrilla presents the classic ARMS AND THE MAN February 23!

Rude Guerrilla Theater Company is pleased to announce GB Shaw's classic ARMS AND THE MAN as the third production in its eleventh season. Written in 1894, this romantic comedy centers on a young woman engaged to a war hero she idolizes. When an enemy soldier bursts through her bedroom window and demands she protect him, the young woman soon finds herself falling in love with him. Complications arise when the war ends and her hero comes home.

Directed by Rude Guerrilla Company Member Sally Norton, the production opens Saturday February 23, 2008 and runs thru March 29, 2008, for 19 performances at 202 N. Broadway, in Santa Ana. Show times are Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8:00 pm. There are two half-price previews Thursday and Friday, February 21 and 22 at 8:00 p.m. and one Sunday matinee performance at 2:30 p.m March 9.

$25 Opening Night Gala February 23 tickets include champagne and hors d'oeuvres courtesy of Bistro 400. For all other performances, tickets are $20 general admission, $15 for seniors and a measly $10 for students with an ID.

George Bernard Shaw was born in 1856. He briefly attended the Wesleyan Connexional School and ended his formal education at the Dublin English Scientific and Commercial Day School. Shaw was almost sixteen years old when his mother left home and followed her voice teacher, George Vandeleur Lee, to London. His sisters accompanied their mother, but Shaw remained in Dublin with his father, first as a reluctant pupil, then as a clerk in an estate office, where he worked efficiently, albeit discontentedly, for several years. In 1876, Shaw joined his mother's London household. She, Vandeleur Lee, and his sister Lucy, provided him with a pound a week while he frequented public libraries and the British Museum reading room where he studied earnestly and started writing novels. He earned his allowance by ghost-writing Vandeleur Lee's music column, which appeared in the London Hornet but his novels were rejected, so his literary earnings remained negligible until 1885, when he became self-supporting as a critic of the arts.

Shaw's plays were first performed in the 1890s and, by the end of the decade he was an established playwright. He wrote sixty-three plays and his output as novelist, critic, pamphleteer, essayist and private correspondent was prodigious. He is known to have written more than 250,000 letters. He became a dedicated Socialist and a charter member of the Fabian Society, a middle class organization established in 1884 to promote the gradual spread of socialism by peaceful means. In the course of his political activities he met Charlotte Payne-Townshend, an Irish heiress and fellow Fabian; they married in 1898.

In 1906 the Shaws moved into a house, now called Shaw's Corner, in Ayot St Lawrence, a small village in Hertfordshire; it was to be their home for the remainder of their lives, although they also maintained a residence in London. During his final years Shaw enjoyed attending to the grounds at Shaw's Corner; his death, at 94, from renal failure was precipitated by injuries incurred by falling from a ladder he climbed to prune a tree. His ashes, mixed with those of his wife, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. (Excerpted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw)

"Rude Guerrilla has produced classics by Shakespeare, Gorky, Williams, and Beckett, but until now, never Shaw!" says director Norton. "I've long wanted our audiences to share the joy of his wit and language, so full of ideas and food for thought. Though the title comes from Virgil's Aeneid, and the play was first performed over 100 years ago, Arms and the Man seems as relevant as ever. Shaw's thoughts on the folly of war are well known and at a time when poverty in this country has separated the classes more and more, what could be more timely than Arms and the Man, a play in which a servant girl challenges an aristocrat at romance?

A Shaw play in our small space will prove that his high style comedies can be intimate as well, that his stage realism can be effectively done in our economical way. I have long loved his plays
for the challenge, the humor, and seriousness beneath the comedy. I think our audiences--new to Shaw or not--will really enjoy this one."

The cast of seven includes RGTC members Jennifer Bridge (last seen in THE BALANCING ACT) and Sharyn Case (last seen in WOMEN BEHIND BARS). Returning to the RGTC stage are Sean Cox (last seen in ART) and Rick Kopps (last seen in BEIRUT). Making their RGTC debut are John Byrd, Tanya Raisa Mironowski and Bart Shattuck.

ARMS AND THE MAN's Costume Coordinators are Heather Girten and Sally Norton; Lighting Design is by Trevor Norton; Scenic Design is by Wally Huntoon; Sound Design is by Kristin Elliot; Issa Reyna-Lopez is the production's Stage Manager.

If you'd like to arrange an interview with the cast or director, or want more information, reservations or complimentary press passes, please call 714-547-4688, send us an email at Rudegrrlla@aol.com or visit Rude Guerrilla's website at http://www.rudeguerrilla.org