Other Desert Cities: A Family History Lush in Secrets

Jon Robin Baitz’s funny, fierce, and immensely entertaining Other Desert Cities was one of the hottest tickets in New York. Baitz, creator of hit TV series, Brothers & Sisters, took America by storm with his Broadway debut. Nominated for five Tony Awards, this award-winning play, which has just opened to rave reviews in London, now makes its New Zealand premiere at Circa, opening on Saturday 19^th April, with a stellar cast of CATHERINE DOWNES (The Year of Magical Thinking), MICHELLE LANGSTONE (The Almighty Johnsons), JEFFREY THOMAS (The Hobbit), EMMA KINANE (Tribes), and PAUL WAGGOTT (Red).

Baitz talks about himself and Other Desert Cities in this PBS Art Beat interview from last year:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/other-desert-cities/

Some background on JON ROBIN BAITZ:

Jon Robin Baitz is a celebrated American playwright and is perhaps best known in this country for his internationally successful TV series, Brothers and Sisters, about a wealthy Californian family who grapple with love, loss and living in the modern age, which ran for five seasons.  Other TV work includes PBS’s version of Three Hotels, for which he won the Humanitas Award, and episodes of West Wing and Alias. He is also the author of two screenplays; the film script for The Substance of Fire(1996), and People I Know (2002).

Baitz’s  is a founding member of Naked Angels Theatre Company, and on the faculties of the Master of Fine Arts program at The New School for Drama, New York, where he is Artistic Director of the BFA division, and is also visiting professor at University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing program. His version of the Australian TV mini-series, The Slap begins filming for NBC this Summer.

His plays include Other Desert Cities (Pulitzer Prize Finalist 2012, Tony Nominee, Drama League Award, Outer Critics Circle Award), The Film Society, The End Of The Day, Three Hotels, A Fair Country (Pulitzer Prize finalist 1996),  Mizlansky/Zilinsky, Ten Unknowns, and The Paris Letter, as well as a version of Hedda Gabler (Broadway, 2001). He is the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Award, a Drama Desk Award, is a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for both A Fair Country and Other Desert Cities. 

Other Desert Cities opens in Circa One on 19 April and runs until 17 May. There will be a $25 Preview on Friday, 18 April, and $25 Special on Sunday, 20 April. To book, visit www.circa.co.nz or call 801-7992.