By Adam Hetrick
28 Oct 2009

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel's A Civil War Christmas will receive its West Coast debut at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto beginning Dec. 2.

TheatreWorks artistic director Robert Kelley will stage the music-filled production. The play with music received its world premiere at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT, last holiday season. A Civil War Christmas will officially open Dec. 5 and run through Dec. 27 in the Lucie Stern Theatre.

The cast features Robert Parsons as Abraham Lincoln, Diana Torres Koss as Mary Todd Lincoln, Michael A. Shepperd as Decatur Bronson, C. Kelley Wright as Elizabeth Keckley, Gary Martinez as General Ulysses S. Grant and Kit Wilder as John Wilkes Booth.

Completing the company are Jayne Deely, Ian Leonard, Cyril Jamal Cooper, Tracy Camp, Elizabeth Palmer, Daveed Daniele Diggs, Jonathan Shue, Tiana Travis and Myha'la Herrold.

Press notes read: "Set on a snowy Christmas Eve in Washington, 1864, A Civil War Christmas imagines celebrated figures from Abe Lincoln to Walt Whitman rubbing elbows with colorful characters from every stratum of society. This heartwarming holiday feast finds Mary Todd Lincoln rushing to complete her Christmas shopping, Clara Barton tending wounded soldiers in a local hospital, a run-away slave girl separated from her mother in the bitter cold, and two generals on opposite sides of the Potomac, caught in limbo between victory and defeat."

The production includes holiday classics "O Christmas Tree" and "Silent Night," as well as spirituals and folk songs of the era.

For tickets phone (650) 903-6000 or visit TheatreWorks. The Lucie Stern Theatre is located at 1305 Middlefield Road in Palo Alto, CA.