"A cabaret of songs sung by the wrong people"

WHEN: Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 7:30 PM

WHERE: Adrienne Theatre, Second Stage, 2030 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA

ADMISSION: $25. Tickets include a live performance. Complimentary wine and spirits will be available. Advance purchase recommended. For more information on Mauckingbird Theatre Company, visit www.mauckingbirdtheatreco.org or call (215) 923-8909.

WHAT: Philadelphia's Mauckingbird Theatre Company will present Miss-Cast, "A cabaret of songs sung by the wrong people", to benefit the rising Philadelphia-based company. Mauckingbird invites Philadelphia theatre-goers and supporters of the arts community to celebrate the New Year with this cross-gender cabaret featuring men singing women's songs and vice versa. Miss Martha Graham Cracker Dito van Reigersberg's popular drag alter-ego will host the cabaret featuring Mauckingbird Theatre Company members and other Philadelphia friends who have joined forces to celebrate the company's second season through song. Seating for this outrageous, musically unorthodox evening is limited and advance purchase is recommended.

The cabaret will coincide with Mauckingbird Theatre Company's third production, Hedda Gabler. Directed by Mauckingbird Artistic Director Peter Reynolds, the production runs from January 10 - 29, 2009 (opening night is January 13) at the Adrienne Theatre's Second Stage. Mauckingbird presents Hedda Gabler as a compelling lesbian drama with the professional premiere of playwright Caroline Kava's explosive new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's classic. After the success of their critically acclaimed and sold-out inaugural season with all-male versions of The Misanthrope and Shakespeare's R & J, Mauckingbird's Hedda Gabler, explores lesbian relationships and the search for personal and sexual identity while exposing class divides, sexism, and the influence of money and status in aristocratic and bourgeois worlds.

In Hedda Gabler, rising scholar George Tesman, played by Dito van Reigersberg (Pig Iron Theatre Company member and star of last year's The Misanthrope) has just married the beautiful, dangerously intelligent and much desired Hedda Gabler, played by Jennie Eisenhower. The newlyweds' lives are thrown into disarray and their livelihood is threatened with the unexpected return of Miss Eilert Lovborg (Pig Iron Theatre Company member Sarah Sanford), Tesman's rival and Hedda's true love. Hedda becomes consumed with jealousy as she watches Lovborg live her life with abandon, dressing in men's clothes and openly seeing other women. Dissatisfied with conventional life and trapped in an unfulfilling marriage, Hedda wrestles with her own desires while manipulating those around her in a cruel game. As the dramatic interpretation unfolds and tensions rise, Hedda's world begins to self-destruct in Ibsen's classic exploration of the moral faults of modern society.

Tickets to Hedda Gabler are $20 for adults, $18 for seniors and $15 for students and are available by calling (215) 923-8909 or online at www.mauckingbirdtheatreco.org.

About Mauckingbird Theatre Company
Founded by Artistic Director Peter Reynolds and Managing Director Lindsay Mauck, Mauckingbird Theatre Company is committed to producing professional gay-themed theatre, while also exploring classic literature and musical genres and providing affordable productions of infrequently produced works. "Gay or not Gay, this is simply good theater." - Philadelphia Magazine