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Contact: Marjorie Lyons Playhouse, 318-869-5242

Marjorie Lyons Playhouse Announces Cast for Upcoming Production of A Perfect Ganesh

SHREVEPORT, LA -- A Perfect Ganesh by Terrence McNally will open at the Marjorie Lyons Playhouse for a two-week run on Thrusday, June 3, with additional performances at 8 p.m. on June 4, 5, 10, 11, 12 and a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, June 13. The box office opens May 26 and is open weekdays from noon until 4p.m.

Patric McWilliams is the director. His directing credits include Blood Brothers and Picasso at the Lapin Agile and he received a Times Drama Award for co-directing Funny Girl all at Marjorie Lyons Playhouse.

The cast includes two of Shreveport's most outstanding actresses. Geri Van Tiem will be playing Margaret Civil and Ruth Doreck creates the role of Katharine Brynne. Between the two actresses they have received ten Times Drama nominations. Van Tiem has received four nominations and Doreck has been nominated six times for their work in the theatre. Van Tiem was last seen as the lead in The House of Bernarda Alba and Doreck played Mother Superior in Nunsense and Nunsense II, the Second Coming. Van Tiem has appeared in productions of Harold and Maude, A Little Night Music, The Music Man, Little Foxes, Ladies First, Steel Magnolias and Something's Afoot. Doreck's past productions include On the Twentieth Century, Jerry's Girls, Hello! Dolly, Eleemosynary, Chicago, Into the Woods, The Music Man and Mame.

Steven E. Baker, who won the Times Drama Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical last year for Funny Girl, will be playing the Ganesha. Baker is a recent graduate of Centenary College where he has appeared in The Tempest, Blood Brothers, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Dracula, Grand Hotel, God's Country, Angels in America and Bent among many others.

Logan Sledge, a senior theatre major, will be playing Walter Brynne. He won the TDA Best Actor award for his work in Angels in America and has been seen in The Tempest as Ariel, Blood Brothers, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Dracula, Grand Hotel, Lost in Yonkers, Period of Adjustment, God's Country and subUrbia among many others.

Rounding out the cast of six are Ryan Williams and Matthew Nicholas, who play several different roles in A Perfect Ganesh. Williams has been seen in The Tempest, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, and played Eddie Lyons in Blood Brothers this past season. Nicholas played Stephano in The Tempest and was also in Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

Don Hooper is designing the set and lights. Josh Talley is the assistant to the director and stage manager. Ryan Williams is in charge of props, Vanessa Keller on light board and Kenneth Scruggs on sound board.

A Perfect Ganesh concerns two middle-aged women on a quest for the meaning of their lives when they go on a journey through India looking for answers to the problems in their lives. The pilgrimage tradition is turned on its head when two outwardly unremarkable, middle-aged lady friends throw themselves into a rousing tour of India, each one having her own secret dreams of what the fabled land of intoxicating opposites will do for the suffering she hides within. Faced with the women's despair, who but the golden elephant god, Ganesha, could intervene? Fluid in his power to assume any guise, at peace with all things, Ganesha is the spiritual center around which the play spins itself, drawing upon the tragic and the comic, the beautiful and the deplorable, until a breathtaking release arrives for both women at his hands.

A special dinner and theatre combination for $25 will be available on Saturday, June 5 and June 12. For additional information and reservations call the box office between noon and 4 p.m. weekdays. The menu will include spinach, mushroom, and mandarin salad with vinegarette dressing, breaded baked chicken in white wine sauce, wild rice, fresh vegetable medley, wheat rolls, New York cheesecake with topping and tea or coffee.

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