Pulitzer-prize winning drama at 35below

PRESS RELEASE:

How I Learned to Drive
by Paula Vogel

Produced by Attic Salt Theatre Company
at 35below

November 4th through the 20th
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm
Sundays at 2:30pm

35below
35 East Walnut St., Asheville, NC

Theater Performance

Attic Salt Theatre Company, the team who produced 2016’s comedy SMASH All in the Timing at NC Stage and past years’ acclaimed God of Carnage and Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, is pleased to announce their latest play, the Pulitzer-prize winning drama How I Learned to Drive, at 35below in Downtown Asheville. 35below is located at 35 East Walnut St in Downtown Asheville. The performances will be held Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 2:30pm, from November 4ththrough the 20th. Seating in the black box theater will be general admission, with all tickets costing $20.00. Tickets can be purchased through the Asheville Community Theatre box office at ashevilletheatre.org or call 828-254-1320.

Sweeping the Off-Broadway awards in 1998, the year of its original production, How I Learned to Drive is one of the most acclaimed plays of the 20th Century. The story of a teenage girl and her relationship with her uncle about which the New York Times said contains “Ms. Vogel’s remarkable, clear-eyed empathy in portraying the incalculable damage done by damaged people”

As lead character Li’l Bit recounts her time spent with her Uncle Peck, learning to drive and engaging in a sexual relationship, we are brought into a world full of gray areas. Despite the heavy subject matter, How I Learned to Drive is wildly funny and surprising. It is a tale of survival, the story of a woman who learns the rules of the road, and of life, from behind the wheel.

Expertly penned by renowned playwright Paula Vogel, the play won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Lortel, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics Awards for Best Play, and an Obie Award. It also garnered myriad awards for its lead actors, Mary Louis Parker and David Morse. Paula Vogel has received the Rhode Island Pell Award in the Arts, the Hull-Warriner Award, the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award, the Pew Charitable Trust Senior Award, a Guggenheim, an AT&T New Plays Award, the Fund for New American Plays, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center Fellowship, several National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the McKnight Fellowship, among many other accolades. Her other plays include The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot N Throbbing, And Baby Makes Seven and Desdemona.

Attic Salt Theatre Company Artistic Director Jeff Catanese says, “As a theater company that makes writing the measure for all of its productions, it’s rare that a play crosses your desk of which every member of the company says, ‘We HAVE to produce this play.’ We feel very lucky we have the opportunity to do so and only hope we can do Ms. Vogel’s beautiful work justice.”

Managing Director of Attic Salt Marci Bernstein agrees: “We’ve had the joy of producing some of the greatest works in contemporary theater here in Asheville over the past five years. I think this one might be our crowning achievement.”

The cast for How I Learned to Drive is composed of local theater all-stars, Trinity Smith Keel, Jeff Catanese, Chelsey Lee Gaddy, Samantha Lebrocq and Henry Williamson. The play will be directed by Marci Bernstein, Attic Salt’s Managing Director.

Tickets for How I Learned to Drive are available now through the Asheville Community Theatre box office at 828-254-1320, or online at ashevilletheatre.org.