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Nov. 17, 2008/FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Anne Kohn, 336/734-2924, productionpr@uncsa.edu AWARD-WINNING COMEDY "CHEKHOV IN YALTA" PLAYS NOV. 19-22 AT UNCSA
WINSTON-SALEM -- Chekhov in Yalta, the semi-biographical comedy that imagines four action-packed days in the life of great Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, will open at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with a limited run on Nov. 19. Performances will take place at 8 p.m. Nov. 19-22 and at 2 p.m. Nov. 22 in the Patrons Theatre of Performance Place on the UNCSA campus, 1533 South Main St., Winston-Salem. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students and seniors. For more information or to order tickets, call the UNCSA Box Office at (336) 721-1945 or visit www.ncarts.edu/performances. Playwrights John Driver and Jeffrey Haddow earned several major awards, including a Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for Distinguished Playwriting and an American Theatre Critics Citation, for their farcical play that conjures up a visit to Chekhov’s country house in Yalta, Russia, by several artistic luminaries at the turn of the century. Characters include acting giant Konstantin Stanislavski, Nobel Prize-winning writer Ivan Bunin, and revolutionary Maxim Gorky. Stanislavski has come from Moscow with his business partner, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, to persuade a consumptive and apprehensive Chekhov to allow their Moscow Art Theatre to produce his newly completed play, The Three Sisters. The stakes are high as the financial future of the theatre rests on premiering another work by the beloved playwright.	Madison Griffin and Alex Hoeffler star in "Chekhov in Yalta" Photos by Joanna Walker
Though there are moments of gravity, the majority of the plot plays out against a backdrop of passionate love triangles, bloated egos, drunken foolishness, and witty banter. The conceit of the play is that it tells the story of this brief time in Chekhov’s life much like Chekhov himself might have. Those familiar with his work will find themselves in on many “inside jokes” for the theatrically literate. Director Tanya Belov, who was trained by those who were trained by Stanislavski himself, is a graduate of the famed State Academy School of Circus and Variety Arts in Moscow and is well-known as a theatre, film, television and radio actress in her native Russia. Also an accomplished clown, Belov performs throughout the world as a member of the Belov Contemporary Clown Drama. Directing credits include The Little Prince at Georgia Fine Arts Academy, The Servant of Two Masters and Cloud Nine at Case Western Reserve University, and The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild and Tartuffe at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where she is a faculty member in the School of Drama. The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is the first state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation. Established as the North Carolina School of the Arts by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, UNCSA opened in Winston-Salem (“The City of the Arts”) in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972. More than 1,100 students from middle school through graduate school train for careers in the arts in five professional schools: Dance, Design and Production (including a Visual Arts Program), Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. UNCSA is the state’s only public arts conservatory, dedicated entirely to the professional training of talented students in the performing, visual and moving image arts. UNCSA is located at 1533 S. Main St., Winston-Salem. For more information, visit www.uncsa.edu. ###
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Though there are moments of gravity, the majority of the plot plays out against a backdrop of passionate love triangles, bloated egos, drunken foolishness, and witty banter. The conceit of the play is that it tells the story of this brief time in Chekhov’s life much like Chekhov himself might have. Those familiar with his work will find themselves in on many “inside jokes” for the theatrically literate.

Director Tanya Belov, who was trained by those who were trained by Stanislavski himself, is a graduate of the famed State Academy School of Circus and Variety Arts in Moscow and is well-known as a theatre, film, television and radio actress in her native Russia. Also an accomplished clown, Belov performs throughout the world as a member of the Belov Contemporary Clown Drama. Directing credits include The Little Prince at Georgia Fine Arts Academy, The Servant of Two Masters and Cloud Nine at Case Western Reserve University, and The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild and Tartuffe at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where she is a faculty member in the School of Drama.

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is the first state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation. Established as the North Carolina School of the Arts by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, UNCSA opened in Winston-Salem (“The City of the Arts”) in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972. More than 1,100 students from middle school through graduate school train for careers in the arts in five professional schools: Dance, Design and Production (including a Visual Arts Program), Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. UNCSA is the state’s only public arts conservatory, dedicated entirely to the professional training of talented students in the performing, visual and moving image arts. UNCSA is located at 1533 S. Main St., Winston-Salem. For more information, visit www.uncsa.edu.