Pasadena Playhouse presents Pulitzer Prize-winner Martyna Majok’s “Sanctuary City,” recipient of the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award and Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Theater Development Grant, through Sunday, Oct. 9.
“Sanctuary City” is an exhilarating, unforgettable love story of two life-long friends, their tenuous grip on an uncertain future, and finding sanctuary among those closest to them.
B (Miles Fowler) and G (Ana Nicolle Chavez) are two typical American teenagers just trying to get through high school, navigating the pressures of an unstable home, prom invites and graduation – and the threat of deportation. When G is naturalized, they hatch a plan to help B, but life, time, and distance threaten to push them apart. Can they make their way back to each other, or are the risks too great when they have everything to lose?
AM New York says “Sanctuary City” makes for “a compelling contemporary drama that has enigmatic characters, rising intensity, vigorous argumentation, timely themes, and an underlying sense of humor and compassion.”
Elysa Gardner of New York Stage Review says, “Majok has given us something that transcends politics as only the best and most humane art can.”
Zi Alikhan is directing the Pasadena Playhouse production.
“An important takeaway (of the play) is the universality of living in this country; ultimately, there is so much we share and so much of what keeps us divided is influenced by those in power who live by a different set of rules and whose objective is to keep the majority powerless,” Alikhan told LA Excites in an interview. “The play honors this universality, and I hope people come to experience that which I hope creates an expansion in their minds so they can interact with those whose lived experiences differ from their own. I truly hope people leave this play feeling more in touch with those around them more so than they did before seeing the production.”
Tickets to “Sanctuary City” are $35. For tickets, visit www.pasadenaplayhouse.org/event/sanctuary-city.
For more information, call (626) 356-7529.
The Pasadena Playhouse is at 39 S. El Molino Ave.
