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Seattle Rep Announces Complete Casting For Riveting Production of True West

Seattle, WA. (January 13, 2019) -- Seattle Rep today announced complete casting for its revival of beloved playwright Sam Shepard's Pulitzer Prize-nominated story of sibling rivalry, True West. Seattle Rep Artistic Director Braden Abraham directs the play, which is set to star Kevin Anderson (Seattle Rep’s Last of the Boys) and Zachary Ray Sherman (Seattle Rep debut) on the Bagley Wright stage. Single tickets are on sale now (starting at $17) and available through the Seattle Rep Patron Services Office at 206.443.2222 or online at SeattleRep.org.

In True West, two brothers from different walks of life clash while housesitting for their mother in a sweltering Los Angeles suburb. Often hailed as Shepard’s masterpiece, True West was called “legendary” by The New Yorker and the 2019 Broadway revival earned a New York Times Critic’s Pick nod

Recognized as one of “the greatest American playwright of his generation,”director Braden Abraham had this to say about the late Sam Shepard: “He was the theater artist who most frequently showed us an America we recognized as our own – and, to a shocking degree, recognized more as our own with each passing decade. His plays manifest a country of accelerating disruption in which nothing is fixed or stable--not family, class, landscapes, or even an individual's personal identity.”

Seattle Rep’s production features the return of Kevin Anderson to the Bagley Wright stage, last seen in the 2018 production of Last of the Boys. He has starred in more than 30 film and television productions and over 30 stage productions worldwide from Steppenwolf (35-year ensemble member) to Broadway, Off-Broadway, Dublin, and London’s West End. He has been nominated for a Tony Award (Death of a Salesman), Outer Critics Circle Award (Come Back Little Sheba), Golden Globe, Viewers for Quality Television, TV Critics Association Awards (“Nothing Sacred”), and has won Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards (Death of a Salesman).

Anderson will be joined on stage by Portland, Oregon-born actor Zachary Ray Sherman in his Seattle Rep debut. His film credits include roles in “The Far Side of Jericho” and “Barbie’s Kenny,” with television credits ranging from “90210” and Netflix’s “Everything Sucks!” and “Archies Final Project.”

The complete cast of True West includes Kevin Anderson (Lee), Zachary Ray Sherman (Austin), Brandon J. Simmons (Saul), and Lori Larsen (Mom).

The complete creative team of True West includes Braden Abraham (director), Tim Mackabee (set designer), Deborah Trout (costume design), Mikaal Sulaiman (sound designer and composer), Marcus Doshi (lighting designer).

ABOUT SAM SHEPARD

Sam Shepard’s first New York plays, Cowboys and The Rock Garden, were produced by Theatre Genesis in 1964. For several seasons, he worked with Off-Off-Broadway theatre groups including La MaMa and Caffe Cino. Eleven of his plays won Obie Awards, including Chicago, The Tooth of the Crime, and Curse of the Starving Class. Other award-winning plays include Fool for Love, True West, A Lie of the Mind, and Buried Child, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1979. In 1986, Shepard was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy in 1992. He was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame two years later. As a writer and director, he filmed Far North and Silent Tongue. As an actor, he appeared in numerous films, including The Right Stuff, Days of Heaven, and Resurrection. His final works of prose, The One Inside and Spy of the First Person, were published in 2017, the year of his death.

ABOUT BRADEN ABRAHAM

Braden joined Seattle Rep in 2002 and held several positions on the artistic staff before his appointment as Artistic Director 2015. An accomplished director, he has directed many productions for Seattle Rep, most recently: A Doll’s House, Part 2; Last of the Boys; Ibsen in Chicago; Well; Luna Gale; and A View from the Bridge. Other productions include: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, A Great Wilderness, The Glass Menagerie, Clybourne Park, and the critically acclaimed, extended runs of Photograph 51; My Name is Rachel Corrie (U.S. regional premiere); and Betrayal. Braden directed the West Coast premieres of This (Seattle Rep), The K of D, an urban legend (Seattle Rep, Pistol Cat, FringeNYC, Illusion Theatre), Breakin’ Hearts and Takin’ Names, Opus (Seattle Rep), and White Hot (Marxiano Productions/West of Lenin). Other premieres include Riddled (Richard Hugo House); Clear Blue Sky (On the Boards/Northwest New Works), and The Ten Thousand Things (Washington Ensemble Theatre). Braden has developed new work with Seattle Rep, Denver Theatre Center, On the Boards, The O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Portland Center Stage, and The Playwrights Center. Member of SDC.

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Seattle Rep Announces Complete Casting For Riveting Production of True West