Upcoming: How The Other Half Loves by Alan Ayckborne, City Theatre, March 25 - April 18

Click for ALT review, April 8

UPDATE: Review by Barry Pineo at Austin Chronicle, April 1

Received directly:






City Theatre presents three couples, two houses and one dazzling funny Alan Ayckbourn comedy classic

How The Other Half Loves

by Alan Ayckbourn

March 25 – April 18
Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 5:30 p.m.
Reservations 512-524-2870 or info@citytheatreaustin.org
The City Theatre. 3823 Airport Blvd. – east corner of Airport Blvd. and 38 ½ Street (behind the Shell station)

Nobody writes contemporary farces better than the British, and no British comic playwright concocts livelier free-for-alls than Sir Alan Ayckbourn. Inventive and hilarious, the show cemented Ayckbourn’s reputation as a master of the situation comedy genre. The title pun of How the Other Half Loves pokes fun at marital relationships in general and the class system in particular, with riotous results and plenty of laughs.

The comedy is vintage Ayckbourn – an action-packed, brilliantly written whirlwind which may poke fun at the misgivings and misunderstandings of marriage. However, in the capable hands of director Stacey Glazer and an excellent cast, the play gives you plenty to enjoy. Come find out how the other half lives…and loves.

A direct descendant of the drawing room farces of Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward, How the Other Half Loves celebrated its 40th anniversary and is still bringing laughs to audiences all over the world. The setup is simple: a single affair links three unhappy middle-aged couples otherwise divided by class. But there is a storytelling twist: its staging skillfully subdivides the arena with happenings in the living rooms seen and heard simultaneously. Thus, the playwright can interweave action and conversations that actually take place miles apart -- and sometimes even on different nights. Ayckbourn ingeniously juggles time and space as he presents the intricate lives and liaisons, passions and growing panic of these couples.

There’s the well-meaning but hapless boss; his wife who is involved in a dalliance with one of his employees; the philanderer himself, his hopelessly inept wife and two unsuspecting human alibis... Place the characters on a single set portraying two dinner parties on two consecutive evenings happening simultaneously and prepare for one most brilliantly-crafted comedy where laughter is the main course.

Alan Ayckbourn is one of the most prolific and widely performed of living English language playwrights. He has written more than seventy-five full-length plays and has received Olivier, Tony and Moliere awards. His major successes include Absurd Person Singular, Bedroom Farce, A Chorus of Disapproval, Woman in Mind, and A Small Family Business. Ayckbourn's work has been translated into more than thirty-five languages and performed on stages and television throughout the world. His play The Norman Conquests won the Tony Award in 2009 for Best Revival.

City Theatre's production is under the direction of Stacey Glazer, director of City Theatre’s The Laramie Project and Rabbit Hole which premiered in 2009. She is assisted by Emily Toothman. A fine all-star cast of CTC comedic actors will take the stage including Scot Friedman (Laughter on the 23 Floor), Louise Martin (Christmas Belles), Lori Cordova (Almost, Maine), Derek Jones (Crimes of the Heart), Tyler Jones (The Boys Next Door) and Jenny Keto (Alice in Wonderland).

The City Theatre Company is a non-profit organization and is sponsored in part by the Greater Austin Creative Alliance, the Austin Cultural Arts Division and the Texas Commission on the Arts.