[photo credit: Pasadena Playhouse]
Maurice Valency’s adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s play casts Mays as Anton Schill opposite Melinda Page Hamilton as Claire Zachanassian. The show runs one hour and 45 minutes with no intermission. The run began Sept. 9, and the production opened Sept. 13. Mays and Tresnjak previously brought “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” to Broadway.
The production reunites Mays and Tresnjak at the Playhouse after last season’s “Amadeus,” which Tresnjak directed and in which Mays played Salieri, according to the Playhouse. The two have worked together since a 1999 production of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Pasadena Weekly reported.
The play is set in the fictional European town of Güllen, where Schill is a respected resident expected to become the next mayor. His teenage sweetheart, Claire Zachanassian, returns as a wealthy widow with an offer aimed at exposing the town’s hypocrisy, TheaterMania reported. The Playhouse describes Claire as the richest woman in the world, offering to save her struggling hometown from ruin on a single condition.
Tresnjak first read Valency’s adaptation as a teenager and directed it six months later as a student at Swarthmore College, according to Pasadena Weekly. During rehearsals for “Amadeus,” he learned that Playhouse Producing Artistic Director Danny Feldman also wanted to stage the play, TheaterMania reported. “My life came into focus with this play,” Tresnjak told Pasadena Weekly.
The 17-member cast includes John Lavelle, Lauren Worsham, Hilary Ward, Matthew Henerson, Matthew Patrick Davis and Jennifer Chang, who all appeared in the Playhouse’s “Amadeus,” according to cast biographies on the Playhouse website. Cast member Will Pellegrini teaches acting and directs the Musical Theater Bootcamp at the Playhouse, and dramaturg Miranda Johnson-Haddad is resident dramaturg at A Noise Within in Pasadena, the biographies state.
The Playhouse schedules Saturday performances at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sunday performances at 2 and 7 p.m. at 39 S. El Molino Ave. Tickets start at $40, with Pay What You Can tickets from $10 for select performances, according to the Playhouse website as of Sept. 30. The production uses light haze, flashing lights and prop guns, according to the Playhouse.
“I’ve been waiting to do this play professionally for 40 years,” Tresnjak told TheaterMania in September.
Tickets are at https://www.pasadenaplayhouse.org/event/the-visit/.
Friday, Oct. 2, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 3, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 4, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. For more call (626) 356-7529 or visit
