The Moonlight Room by Tristine Skyler
October 28 through December 5, 2004
With wit and insight, middle-class teens and their contemporary families are examined in this play set in the waiting room of a hospital ER.
City Theatre continues its 30th anniversary season with The Moonlight Room, written by Tristine Skyler and directed by Stuart Carden (City Theatre Young Playwrights Festival, Stones in His Pockets, Big Love). The Moonlight Room runs in City Theatre’s 120-seat Lester Hamburg Studio Theatre from October 28 through December 5, 2004.
City Theatre’s production of The Moonlight Room features Pittsburgh-based actors Lydia Burns (Sal) and John Magaro (Joshua). The cast also includes Jarrod DiGiorgi, Laurie Klatscher and Ray Anthony Thomas. The Moonlight Room’s design team is: Abigail Hart Gray, Scenic Designer; Andrew David Ostrowski, Lighting Designer; Angela M. Vesco, Costume Designer; and Dave Bjornson, Sound Design.
The Moonlight Room takes place in the waiting room of a New York City hospital ER. It’s 2 a.m. and 16-year-olds Sal and Joshua are awaiting news about the condition of their friend Lightfield, who has overdosed on the club drug known as Special K. During the long night the two friends banter and brood, and are finally joined by Sal’s single mother, Lightfield’s widowed dad, and Joshua’s step-brother Adam, a young medical resident.
With narrative realism Skyler tells a highly contemporary story. Using just five characters and one setting she creates a detailed portrait of what it’s like to be a teenager now, and comments on the desire for communication and how it’s constantly thwarted by cultural circumstances, fractured families, and self-absorption.
In just one year this first play by Skyler, a 33-year-old New York-based writer and actress, has gone from a small production in downtown Manhattan, to an extended run Off-Broadway, to its regional premiere at City Theatre. In his New York Times review, critic Bruce Weber described The Moonlight Room as having, “The most pitch-perfect, middle-class teenage dialogue that I’ve encountered.”
Preview Week Performance Schedule:
Thurs. & Fri. Oct. 28 & 29 at 8 pm
Sat. Oct. 30 at 5:30 pm
Sun. Oct. 31 & Tues. Nov. 2 at 7 pm
Press/Opening Night is Weds., Nov. 3 at 8 pm.
Regular Run Schedule:
Tues. at 7 pm
Weds. thru Fri. at 8 pm
Sat. at 5:30 & 9 pm
Sun. at 2 pm
Tickets:
$15 to $40
Students and age 25 and younger can reserve $15 tickets in advance.
Senior rush (age 60 and older) begins at the Box Office 2 hours before showtime.