Carter W. Lewis' play opens the Rep's 2006-07 Studio Theatre season. Performances are in the Emerson Studio of the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts, 130 Edgar Road, Webster Groves, MO.
"You might say the chips are down for economist Nation Jones," according to the Rep. "He's slipped off the tenure track at the university and his latest book is languishing on the editor's desk. His father, G.J., is a bookmaker who belies his gruff exterior by taking really bad bets with a soft heart and a hunch. His precocious teenage daughter Frankie is slipping into dorm room poker games and fleecing frat boys for big money. And to top it all off, he just may be losing his wife to an ambitious politician."
An unexpected tragedy throws the whole family into chaos, and "Nation begins playing a high-stakes game of his own, for the future and for his family. It's a gamble where no one holds all the cards and the bluffing has just begun."
The cast of Ordinary Nation includes George Bartenieff, Dana Acheson, Gregory Northrop, Angela Reed and Curt Hostetter.
Andrea Urice directs. The artistic staff includes Robert Mark Morgan, scenic designer; Dorothy Marshall Englis, costume designer; John Wylie, lighting designer; Tori Meyer, sound designer; and Shannon B. Sturgis, stage manager. Playwright Carter W. Lewis is currently serving as Playwright-in-Residence at Washington University. Prior to that he was literary manager and playwright-in-residence for Geva Theatre in Rochester, New York. Carter was also co-founder and resident playwright for Upstart Stage in Berkeley, CA. He is the winner of several national playwriting awards including The Julie Harris Playwriting Award, The State Theatre Best New American Play, The Cincinnati Playhouse Rosenthal New Play Prize (1996 and 2001), New Dramatist Playwriting Award, Playwright's Center Jerome Residency, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation Award, (2003) and he is a two-time nominee for the American Theatre Critics Award.
Ordinary Nation was commissioned by The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, where Lewis' plays Women Who Steal (2001) and Men on the Take (2002) were also produced in the Studio Theatre. He is currently working on a newly commissioned play for Washington University, civil disobedience. Other plays by Carter W. Lewis include Golf With Alan Shepard, Picasso Does My Maps, Longevity Abbreviated For Those Who Don't Have Time, American Storm by Integrity Out of Molly Brown and Kid Peculiar. For his recent play, While We Were Bowling, Carter received an NEA/TCG Residency Grant for Playwriting, and The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation Award for Best New Play of 2004.
Ticket prices range from $32.50-$50. Visit The Rep box office, located inside the Loretto-Hilton Center, charge by phone by calling (314) 968-4925, or visit The Rep's online box office at www.repstl.org.
