An Invitation from Ron Reed

I grew up loving the movies. Roomfuls of people gathered in the dark, dreaming the same dream. Worlds I’d never imagined, lives I would never live. Stories about people just like me, or very much not like me – except for the two hours I spent living vicariously in their skin, finding out that maybe we aren’t so different after all. Truth, 24 frames a second.

Then, one December night in something like my twelfth year, I found something even better: a place where they told stories just as potent, just as imaginative, but lived out by real people – actors right there in the room with me, breathing the same air, salting it with their tears, filling it with the sound of their voices. Not just moving pictures of people, but the real thing, and far more moving – flesh and blood, bodies and spirits, sweat and pipe smoke.

Since then I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what makes movies work, and what makes the theatre work, and why it is that I love to watch films but I live to make theatre.  And I think it’s about time we dig into those particular mysteries together, don’t you?

So that’s where we’re going this season – to the movies! Together, we’ll explore half a dozen stories that have been brought to life on stage as well as on screen. A celebration of performance and story-telling and the extraordinary fertility of the artistic imagination. An exploration of what gives each of these art forms their unique power.

Of course, the essence of the theatre is the living presence of the actor – and the heart of this particular theatre is the company of performers who to one degree or another think of this place as an artistic home. So this year we’re also celebrating actors, the ones you’ve come to know over nearly a quarter century of living, breathing story-telling: chances are you’ll never again see such an array of familiar PT faces in a single season!  In some of the most well-loved – and stimulating, and challenging! – stories of our time.

See you at the movies… At Pacific Theatre!

Ron Reed,
Artistic Director

Photo of Ron Reed in THE HUNGRY SEASON; photo by Damon Calderwood