Actors Theatre Opens AGONY & ECSTACY OF STEVE JOBS Tonight, 9/21

Actors Theatre's 2012-13 season brings five plays to Stage West at The Herberger Theater Center beginning with Mike Daisey's controversial The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (tonight, Sept. 21-Oct. 7) and ending with the critically acclaimed Good People (May 3-19) by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire.

In between, the company will stage Opus (Nov. 2-18), winner of the Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play; The Fox on the Fairway (Jan. 25, 2013-Feb. 10) from Ken Ludwig, one of America's greatest living writers of farce; and A Steady Rain (March 22-April 7), written by Keith Huff who was among the writers and producers of the hit AMC series Mad Men.

The season opens with a look at how former Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his obsessions have shaped our lives while following a trail all the way to China to investigate the factories where millions toil to make iPhones and iPods.

Daisey and his play were the focus of recent controversy when National Public Radio's Ira Glass, the executive producer and host of This American Life, issued a retraction of a 39-minute piece about The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs indicating that it contained "significant fabrications." The story aired in January and had become its most popular podcast with 888,000 downloads.

"We're horrified to have let something like this onto public radio," Glass said.

Michael Hollinger's Opus is the story of a world-class string quartet whose musical genius goes off his medication and becomes completely erratic. When he's fired, the group takes a chance on a gifted but relatively inexperienced young woman who must guide the quartet in preparing for a performance of a grueling Beethoven masterpiece to be televised in a White House ceremony. Their rehearsal room becomes a pressure-cooker as passions rise, personalities clash and The Players are forced to confront the ephemeral nature of their life's work.

The Fox on the Fairway is the newest play from the acclaimed author of Lend Me a Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo that takes audiences on a hilarious romp filled with mistaken identities, slamming doors and over-the-top romantic shenanigans in a madcap adventure about love, life and one man's eternal love affair with golf.

Mad Men alumnus Keith Huff earned the 2008 Jeff Award for Best New Work for the original Chicago production of A Steady Rain that featured Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig on Broadway. The play follows Chicago police officers, longtime partners and best friends Joey and Denny who have always had each other's backs until an unfortunate decision tests their loyalty and pits them against one another in a harrowing tale of guilt, fear and corruption.

The season will close with Good People, a critical and audience hit when it debuted on Broadway earlier this year. The story focuses on Margie Walsh, a single mother with a special-needs daughter laid off from her job in a dollar store in a tough economy. Margie leaves the familiar surroundings of South Boston to find opportunity in the suburbs, but finds herself wildly out of her element and facing the question: is opportunity granted or earned? The play was nominated for a 2011 Tony Award for Best Play.

Season tickets can be purchased online at www.actorstheatrephx.org or by calling Ron May at 602.253.6701 x108, at prices ranging from $175 - $195 for the full five-play lineup to $140 - $156 for a four-show package, $105 - $117 for three shows and $166 for FlexPasses. Single tickets will go on sale this summer.

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