THEATRE

The producers of 14/48: The World’s Quickest Theater Festival are poised to once again unleash Theater Anonymous on Seattle with Kaufman and Hart’s satirical comedy "Once in a Lifetime" at 8pm on March 9, 2013 at Capitol Hill’s Erickson Theatre.

The premise of Theater Anonymous is simple. Nobody knows the cast, not even the cast. Approximately 30 actors will be selected through an invitation process (similar to the 14/48 festival), and each will rehearse one-on-one with the director, never meeting their fellow actors. Actors must take an oath of secrecy and are allowed to tell only one other person on earth that they are participating. Actors enter the theater in street clothes, sit with the audience until their first line, and deliver it from the audience before joining the rest of the cast onstage.

“[B]ecause everyone was experiencing the show for the first time, the feeling in the audience was unusually engaged—even complicit, clapping as well-known Seattle actors popped out of their chairs and onto the stage. Every entrance was An Event, and the standing ovation at the end of the show was entirely deserved.” - Brendan Kiley, The Stranger

"Once in a Lifetime" was the first of the many collaborations between Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman in the 1930’s. The play focuses on the effect “talkies” had on the movie industry, as three members of a failing vaudeville act travel to Hollywood as “elocution experts” offering to train silent film actors to speak on screen. The trio runs into megalomaniacal film moguls, silent starlets with harpy-like voices, neurotic playwrights, and eventual (and highly unlikely) directorial success.

Theater Anonymous presents "Once in a Lifetime" will take place at the Erickson Theater in Capitol Hill on Saturday March 9, 2013 at 8:00pm. Tickets are $30 (general admission) and are available at www.1448fest.com/anonymous.

Produced by One World Theatre and Three Card Monty, with partnership support from Balagan Theater and licensed from The Anonymous Theatre Company.