Take Me Out tonight at the San Pedro Playhouse's Cellar Theater

Tonight I'll be taking in the San Pedro Playhouse's production of Take Me Out in the Cellar Theater. The original play, written by Richard Greenberg, debuted on Broadway February 27, 2003 at the Walter Kerr Theatre and closed on January 4, 2004. The show had a successful run and even won 2003 Tony Awards for Best Play, Best Direction for Joe Mantello, and Best Featured Actor in a Play for Denis O'Hare.

The play is a well written piece commenting on social stigmas of homosexuality and America's favorite pastime, baseball. San Pedro Playhouse's Cellar Theater website offers this description:

This Pulitzer Prize nominated play took the nation by storm with its story of one superstar's coming out and the explosive repercussions which shook him, his teammates and "the great American pastime" to their very core. A shocker for its locker-room language, on-stage shower scenes and violence, it is nevertheless the most brilliant and frank exploration of the personal destruction of living a lie in a homophobic "don't ask, don't tell" world, the fallout from coming clean and the discovery that honor, integrity and true worth must be the benchmarks by which we live.

The Playhouse production cast includes Mark D. Hicks (Kippy Sunderstrom), Butch Anderson (Darren Lemming), Rob Barron (Shane Mungitt), John O'Neill (The Skipper), Rhys Sanchez (Toddy Koovitz), Ryan Ramirez (Jason Chenier), Ian Bunn (Rodriguez), Miguel Diaz (Martinez), Jonathan G. Itchon (Takeshi Kawabata), Vincent Contrell (Davey Battle), and Andrew Thornton (Mason Marzac)with direction by Frank Latson.

Mark Hicks, Rob Barron, and Ryan Ramirez are friends of mine and I'm looking forward to seeing their work. I had a chance to meet Butch Anderson recently after opening night at the champagne opening (which I totally crashed) and subsequently at a San Antonio theatre peeps party hosted by God himself, Steven Bull. Anderson is a newcomer to the cast apparently, but has been getting very good press for his performance. Also getting good reviews is Andrew Thornton as Marzac (but that could be because Marzac is by far the best written character in the show).

The San Antonio Express News and the SA Current have offered up positive reviews and tickets are apparently selling out fast. This is the final weekend for performances, so please get yourself downtown to catch the production ASAP.

I'll be there tonight and afterward I'll be upstairs catching some bubbly enjoying opening night celebrations of Sound of Music. Break a leg tonight to both casts!!!