YEARS TO THE DAY
Written by Allen Barton
Directed by Joel Polis
PLEASANCE COURTYARD
JULY 30 – AUGUST 24
13.50
Taking their first steps into middle age, two old friends who have seen little of each other in recent years, decide to get together for coffee. Over the past four years their contact has been intermittent, exclusively through social media and driven by curiosity. What follows is not what they expect. Their long anticipated “face to face” meeting reaps surprising consequences as truthful and dramatic changes in each of their lives are revealed. Is their friendship strong enough to survive or will each of them go their separate ways and never see each other again?
Years To The Day is a biting comedy of our times. It explores how we hang on to people and friendships via the impressions we transmit and receive through our carefully molded online profiles. It examines how the years change us, how we conceal and modify many of those deep and personal selves from the wider world and how relationships can outgrow themselves as the years pass and circumstances progress.
Allen Barton’s acclaimed play is a searing confrontation between two men approaching middle age taking on social media, marriage, the relationship between parents and children, film, politics, gay rights and more.
The work received rave reviews when it premiered at Beverly Hills Playhouse last year. It is a Skylight Theatre Company production.
Years To The Day is the second play by Allen Barton, an L.A.-based writer-director, teacher and classical pianist. His first play, Engagement, premiered in 2010. Directing work includes Oleanna, The Heidi Chronicles, Engagement, The Real Thing, Rabbit Hole, The Last Five Years, Burn This, I Make You Laughing, and About Faith. His first feature screenplay, Real Music was a top-three finalist in the CAPE New Writers Award Competition. As a pianist, he has recorded five compact discs (available on iTunes), performs solo recitals regularly on both coasts, and in 2010 was made a Steinway Artist. A graduate of Harvard University and longtime student of the late Milton Katselas, Allen is currently owner and principal teacher at the Beverly Hills Playhouse acting school.
Joel Pollis most recently directed Lynn Manning’s Sympathy for the Devil as part of KTC’s LAbWorks 2012 at the Skylight Theatre’s Skylab. Last season he directed the world premiere of Kathy Graf’s highly acclaimed, award winning drama, Hermetically Sealed at the Skylight. Other directing credits include Jerry Lambert’s Straight Time at the Odyssey and Joe Bay’s Last Fling at the Hayworth. An actor-turned director, Joel has over 100 TV and movie credits as well as scores of plays on his resume, most recently Kathy Graf’s The Snake Can at the Odyssey Theatre. He is a graduate of Yale Drama School and USC’s School of Theater.
Skylight Theatre Company is dedicated to discovering, developing and producing new, exhilarating theatre while nurturing and educating the artists who create it. They are a vibrant and expanding family of artists giving voice to original perspectives of today’s world. Skylight’s production of Hermetically Sealedwas on the LA Times Top Ten Plays for 2011. In 2013,their productions of Years To The Day, Open House and Sexsting were on the LA Weekly’s Top Ten Plays for the year. Since 2011 Skylight Theatre Company has presented works from more than 120 LA writers as part of 74 staged readings, 19 World Premiere productions and 28 workshop presentations.
Edinburgh Fringe
Theatre
YEARS TO THE DAY
Pleasance Courtyard
Wednesday 1 July – Sunday 24 August
13.50 (1hr 10 mins)
https://www.pleasance.co.uk
0131 556 6550
Tickets:
£1 July 30 to August 1 (previews)
£4 (£3.50) August 2, 3,8,9,10, 15, 16,17,22, 23, 24
£3 (£2.50) August 4, 5,6,7,13,14, 20, 21
£2 (£1.50) August 11,12,18,19
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
