High anxiety erupts in Other Desert Cities at NWA’s APT

(Rogers, AR) - Other Desert Cities, by Jon Robin Baitz, is another Tony Award winner to be on the stage at Arkansas Public Theatre (APT). Brooke Wyeth returns home to Palm Springs after a six-year absence to celebrate Christmas with her parents—friends of Ron and Nancy Reagan and partisan Republicans, her brother—a reality TV Host, and her liberal aunt.

Brooke announces that she is about to publish a memoir dredging up a pivotal and tragic event in the family's history—a wound they don't want reopened. In effect, she draws a line in the sand and dares them all to cross it. Sympathies shift as do political alliances and the truth comes out—and proves family is stronger than partisan differences.

Ben Brantley, reviewing Other Desert Cities for the New York Times said, “High anxiety, of that virulent strain that erupts at Christmas when grown children visit their parents, is what fuels Cities, which is set in the desert-toned, tastelessly tasteful digs of Lyman and Polly Wyeth in Palm Springs, Calif., in 2004.

“Lyman, a former movie star and former United States ambassador (during the presidency of a kindred spirit, Ronald Reagan), and Polly (who shares the behind-the-velvet-curtains powerfulness of Nancy Reagan) have chosen to live here in luxurious exile. There are aspects of their past they would rather not be reminded of, though it is hard to forget them with Silda Grauman, Polly’s sharp-tongued sister, in residence.

“And now, as a special holiday treat, here comes Brooke, the Wyeths’ daughter, a depressive writer bearing the manuscript of a memoir about what Mom and Dad don’t want to remember. Though their youngest child, Trip, a television producer, is present, it’s their absent son — a Weather Underground-style political revolutionary who killed himself decades earlier — who looms largest at this gathering.”

APT performances are April 1-3 and 7-10. Thursday thru Saturday performances are at 8 p.m. with Sunday performances at 2 p.m. Cabaret Seats are $30/per person or $50/ table (includes two individual seats) and Balcony Seats are $17/per person. Tickets may be purchased on the APT website at www.arkansaspublictheatre.org or at the APT Box Office at (479) 631-8988. All performances will be held at the historic Victory Theater, 116 S 2nd St, Rogers, AR 72756.

Now in its 30th year, APT is Arkansas' Public Theater, producing classic, cutting-edge, and fresh-from-Broadway plays, musicals and special events at the historic Victory Theater. Annually, more than 1000 volunteers and performers have propelled APT to be recognized as one of the region’s top live theater's— among the area’s two professional live theaters—during the past six years. APT is the only all-volunteer community theater in Northwest Arkansas.

The Gayly- 3/31/2016 @ 10:30 AM CDT