IAMA Theatre Company will launch its 2018–2019 season with the Los Angeles premiere of American Hero by Bess Wohl (Small Mouth Sounds) at Pasadena Playhouse. The play, directed by James Eckhouse, will be presented in Pasadena Playhouse's Carrie Hamilton Theatre as a guest production.
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American Hero will star Laura Mann, Anna LaMadrid, Graham Outerbridge, and Rodney To. Performances will begin September 15 ahead of a September 21 opening, and will continue through October 21.
In American Hero, a sandwich shop becomes a microcosm of recession-era America. When a trio of disparate and desperate “sandwich artists” at the local mall—an awkward young misfit, a single mom, and a downsized refugee from corporate banking—find themselves left to their own devices by overwhelmed franchisee Bob, they are forced into an unlikely alliance.
“This gem of a play—a dark, slightly absurdist tale about the plight of the American worker—has become even more powerfully relevant today than when it was written in 2014,” says Eckhouse in a statement. “It’s not only wickedly funny, but deeply moving as well. We witness these three sandwich ‘artists’ fighting for their well-being, their dignity, their souls in the face of a soul-less corporate bureaucracy.”
The creative team for American Hero is made up of set designer Justin Huen, lighting designer Josh Epstein, composer and sound designer Peter Bayne, costume designer Melissa Trn, and prop master Michael O’Hara. Jay Marcus produces, with associate producer Lexi Sloan, for IAMA Theatre Company.