Jamar Gilbert and Amber Liekhus [Photo by Daniel Reichert]
There is no performance Tuesday, Aug. 25. Three previews remain before the production opens the company’s 35th anniversary season Saturday, Aug. 29, and two of the three are priced by the patron.
The Aug. 26 and Aug. 27 previews, both at 7:30 p.m., are Pay What You Choose performances. Tickets are $10 or $20, excluding a handling fee, and are limited to two per person. They are sold at the box office after 2 p.m. on the day of the performance and online from noon the Monday before.
The fourth preview follows at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 28. Regular tickets start at $41.75 including fees.
The first preview, at 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 23, was listed as sold out. The run continues through Sept. 20.
Gregg T. Daniel directs the production, the seventh play from Wilson’s American Century Cycle the company has staged. Wilson set the work in a Chicago recording studio in 1927, where a blues singer and her band contend over money, credit and control.
Amber Liekhus plays Ma Rainey and Jamar Gilbert plays Levee, with Kai A. Ealy, Gerald C. Rivers, Alex Morris, Bert Emmett, Matt Foyer, CJ Obilom, Francis C. Edemobi and James Nardini. Byron Smith is music director.
Daniel has described the play as “itself a musical composition in its dialogue.”
The theatre has scheduled a free INsiders discussion, which requires an RSVP, at 12:30 p.m. Aug. 30 before that afternoon’s matinee, a Black Out Night on Sept. 12 and closed captioning at the 2 p.m. performances Sept. 19 and Sept. 20.
NEED TO KNOW
August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” continues in preview at A Noise Within on Wednesday, Aug. 26, Thursday, Aug. 27, and Friday, Aug. 28, with curtain at 7:30 p.m. each night; nothing plays Tuesday, Aug. 25, and the production opens Saturday, Aug. 29, and runs through Sept. 20. The Aug. 26 and Aug. 27 previews are Pay What You Choose at $10 or $20 excluding a handling fee, limited to two per person, sold at the box office after 2 p.m. on the day of the performance and online from noon the Monday prior. Otherwise tickets start at $41.75 including fees, with $20 student rush at the box office two hours before curtain with valid student identification, $5 tickets for TeenTix members from 2 p.m. the day before a performance — Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings are companion nights, when a member may buy a second $5 ticket for a guest — and $20 for active and retired military personnel and their immediate families without additional handling fees. The theatre is at 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107, and is cashless, taking debit and credit cards only. Free theatre parking is available in the Sierra Madre Villa Parking Structure at 149 N. Halstead St.; exit at Level 1 on the Sierra Madre Villa Avenue side and follow the walkway between the apartment complex and the theatre building. The Metro A Line Sierra Madre Villa station is steps away. The box office is open Tuesday through Saturday from 2 to 6 p.m. and two hours before curtain on performance days. For more, call 626-356-3121 or book by performance date.
