FOUR STARS! "Well-paced, charming, amusing; the musical numbers sound terrific." – Marin IJ

"An engaging play, an enjoyable evening." – For All Events

"Extremely entertaining, richly textured and often very funny" – Splash

Mom’s fine. She’s filing for bankruptcy, her health could be better, and she should probably stop driving. But she’ll overcome adversity through Optimism! and Courage! – or so she tries to convince her daughters through frontier folk songs and tall tales of pioneers past. Wryly funny and generously tender, this new family drama with music won our 2013 Sky Cooper New American Play Prize. Watch the trailer >

Song arrangements by Misner and Smith (Woody Guthrie's Ameircan Song) | Featuring Anne Darragh (Good People),* Hugo Carbajal (debut), Rosie Hallett (Mainstage debut), Stacy Ross (God of Carnage)* and Kathryn Zdan (Failure: A Love Story)*

Recommended for youth aged 13 and up.
Length of show – Two hours, including one 15 intermission
PlaybillRead online >


ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Besides winning our new play prize two years ago, Mona Mansour has racked up a number of distinguished honors recently, including the 2014 Middle East America Distinguished Playwright Award and 2012 Whiting Writers’ Award. With all this buzz, it’s no surprise that The Way West received the Lebanese-American playwright’s highest profile premiere to date at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company. This second production was workshopped at MTC in January and features script and character changes from the original production.

Buy Tickets

Sponsors

Performance Schedule

Apr 16 - May 10, 2015

West Coast Premiere



Evenings

Tue, Thu, Fri & Sat 8:00pm

Wed 7:30pm

Sun 7:00pm

Matinees

Thu, Apr 30, 1:00pm

Sat, Apr 25 & May 9, 2:00pm

Every Sun, 2:00pm


Buy Tickets

Ticket Prices

Performance Center
seating
Side
seating
Previews (Apr 16–19) $30 $30
Opening Night (Apr 21) $58 $53
Tue*, Wed, Thu $40 $35
Fri Eve $48 $43
Sat Eve $53 $48
Sun Eve & all Matinees $45 $40
Best Deal (all shows, limited availability) $20 $20

* Excludes Opening Night.


Prices subject to change. Phone and online orders subject to a $7 per order fee.


Disabled seating is currently only available through the MTC Box Office (415.388.5208 or in person). We apologize for any inconvenience.

Discounts

GROUPS – Bring eight or more people to receive a substantial discount on tickets. Click here or call 415.388.5208.


SENIORS (65+) – $4 off any performances


UNDER 30 – $20, all performances


TEENS – $10, all performances


TEACHER – $10, all performances (limit 2). Must teach at a Marin County School. Contact the Education Dept. to request.


MILITARY – $5 off all performances. Learn more


Discount tickets are only available through the MTC Box Office (415.388.5208 or in person), unless stated otherwise.


Buy Tickets

Select a Performance

To begin your ticket purchase, select a performance from the calendar below:

March 2024
Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
 

Cast

  • Hugo E. Carbajal

    Hugo E. Carbajal

    Louis / Pizza Delivery Guy

    Carbajal makes his MTC debut in The Way West. He is a bilingual actor, director and teaching artist with credits that span from the stage to the screen, and behind the scenes. He is a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe collective and an associate artist with Alter Theatre Ensemble. He has also worked with companies such as Shotgun Players, Cutting Ball Theater, TeatroVision and Bay Area Children’s Theatre, among others. Currently a professor of drama at Los Medanos College, Carbajal is also a founding member of the Bay Area Latino Theatre Artists Network.

    + Show more
  • Anne Darragh*

    Anne Darragh*

    Mom

    Darragh has appeared at MTC in Good People, The Good German, Communicating Doors, Charlie Cox Runs with Scissors, The Crucible and Shadowlands. She has performed in numerous world premieres including the Eureka Theatre Company production of Angels in America, Anthony Clarvoe’s Our Practical Heaven at the Aurora Theatre Company, Brian Thorstenson’s Over the Mountain at Brava Theater Center, Peter Nachtrieb’s T.I.C. (Trenchcoat in Common) with Encore Theatre Company and Michelle Carter’s Ted Kaczynski Killed People with Bombs at Magic Theatre. Her most recent performance was in The New Electric Ballroom at Shotgun Players. Locally, Darragh has also performed with A.C.T., Berkeley Rep, Campo Santo, Porchlight Theatre, San Jose Rep, Stephen Pelton Dance Theatre Company and TheatreWorks. Her film credits include Chris Brown’s award-winning Fannie, Annie and Danny, now on Netflix.

    + Show more
  • Rosie Hallett

    Rosie Hallett

    Meesh

    Hallett makes her mainstage debut in The Way West at MTC, where she has previously performed in a staged reading of The Emperor of America and understudied the world premiere of Bellwether. Her other recent credits include You Know When the Men Are Gone and In Friendship with Word for Word Performing Arts Company, Harry Thaw Hates Everybody at Shotgun Players, Status Update at CenterREP, Macbeth and The Tempest at San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Mrs. Warren’s Profession at Pear Avenue Theatre and Killer Joe at Renegade Theatre Experiment. Hallett is a company member of PlayGround, a recipient of the Theatre Bay Area TITAN Award and a graduate of Stanford University. She can be seen this summer in Top Girls at Shotgun Players.

    + Show more
  • Stacy Ross*

    Stacy Ross*

    Tress

    Ross has appeared at MTC in Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol, God of Carnage, What the Butler Saw, Frozen, Killer Joe, the world premiere of Splittin’ the Raft, Candida, Spring Storm, Emma’s Child and Kindertransport. She is an associate artist at Cal Shakes. She has appeared at Berkeley Rep, A.C.T., San Jose Rep, Magic Theatre, Aurora Theatre Company, SF Playhouse, TheatreWorks and Centerstage in Baltimore, among others. She is a member of both PlayGround and Symmetry Theatre Company.

    + Show more
  • Kathryn Zdan*

    Kathryn Zdan*

    Manda

    Zdan has appeared at MTC in Failure: A Love Story (for which she was also the choreographer) and the world premiere of Bellwether. As an actor, creator, singer, mover, teacher and director, she has worked extensively around the Bay Area with TheatreWorks, Shotgun Players, Crowded Fire, Center REP, Magic Theatre, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Cal Shakes, Livermore Shakes, Central Works and Berkeley Playhouse, among others. A Mill Valley native, Zdan received a BFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MFA in ensemble based physical theater from the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre. After graduate school, she performed and toured Europe with the internationally acclaimed, Amsterdam-based street theater and performance art group Warner & Consorten. Zdan is a guest artist at the Tam High drama department, of which she is an alumna. Next up, see her as Ada Lovelace in the latest world premiere by Lauren Gunderson, Ada and the Engine, at Central Works in Berkeley.

    + Show more

Creative Team

  • Mona Mansour

    Mona Mansour

    Playwright

    Mansour makes her MTC debut with The Way West, which received the company’s 2013 Sky Cooper New American Play Prize. The Way West had its world premiere in 2014 at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago and received a BareBones workshop at New York City’s Lark Play Development Center, where Mansour was a Fellow in 2012. The Hour of Feeling received its world premiere in the 2012 Humana Festival in Louisville and was part of the High Tide Festival’s Rifle Hall plays in the UK. Urge for Going received a Public Lab production during the Public Theater’s 2011 season, and had its West Coast premiere with Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco. The Vagrant, the third play in the trilogy, was commissioned by the Public Theater and workshopped at the 2013 Sundance Theater Institute. Mansour was a member of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group and a Core Writer at Minneapolis’ Playwrights’ Center. Her other plays include Across the Water, Girl Scouts of America and Broadcast Yourself (part of Headlong Theater’s Decade). With Tala Manassah, she has written The House for Noor Theatre in New York, After, which premiered at York College Little Theatre in New York, The Letter at Golden Thread’s ReOrient Festival, The Wife, which they wrote in residence at Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, and Dressing, which is part of “Facing Our Truths: Short Plays about Trayvon, Race and Privilege,” a collection commissioned by the New Black Festival and that has been presented at various theaters around the US, including the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Center Theater Group in Los Angeles and Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in New York. They recently were given an Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan commission to write a play about 1970s Iraq. Mansour’s other commissions include a play for South Coast Rep’s inaugural Crossroads program. She has written for television’s Dead Like Me and Queens Supreme. Mansour is the winner of the 2012 Whiting Award and 2014 Middle East America Playwright Award.

    + Show more
  • Hayley Finn

    Hayley Finn

    Director

    Finn makes her MTC debut with The Way West. She has directed and developed new work at Cherry Lane Theatre, Playwrights’ Horizons, The Public Theater, Guthrie Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe, O’Neill Theater Center, New Georges, Flea Theater, New Dramatists, The Kitchen, The New Group, Vineyard Theatre, Gotham Stage, Walker Art Center, History Theatre, Pangea, and Workhaus Collective. Her most recent credits include Death Tax by Lucas Hnath at Pillsbury House Theatre, The Secret Lives of Coats by Stephanie Fleichmann with music by Christina Campanella at Red Eye Theatre, the Ivey Award-winning production of Rose at Minnesota Jewish Theatre and Why We Laugh by Kira Obolensky, which premiered at the Nine Gates Festival in Prague. She co-created and directed the national tour of Jigsaw Nation. Finn is an alumna of the Drama League and recipient of the Ruth Easton Fellowship, TCG New Generations Future Leader grant, the Sean O’Casey Fellowship and a Minnesota State Arts Board Individual Artist Grant. She received her BA and MA from Brown University.

    + Show more
  • Geoffrey M. Curley

    Set Designer

    Curley makes his MTC debut with The Way West. He has designed for theater and feature film throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. He recently moved from Chicago where his designs were frequently seen at the Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Lookingglass Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Milwaukee Rep, where he is an honorary company member. Curley has been an adjunct professor at DePaul University, a founding member and associate artistic director of Chicago Children’s Theatre, and an artistic director of Roadworks Production, where he introduced Chicago to works by Michael Blieden, Richard Greenberg, David Mamet and Amy and David Sedaris, among others. He has been honored with a Joseph Jefferson Award and After Dark Awards, including Outstanding Season. Curley is the principal of GMC+A where he leads development and design of traveling museum exhibitions, including blockbusters like “MythBusters; the Explosive Exhibition” and “The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes.”

    + Show more
  • Masha Tsimring

    Lighting Designer

    Tsimring makes her MTC debut with The Way West. She is a Brooklyn-based lighting designer for performance, and her credits include Good Goods and Drip at Crowded Fire Theater, Fireworks Festival at Berkeley Rep and Once in a Lifetime at A.C.T.; Full.Still.Hungry at Contra-Tiempo in Los Angeles; Camp Kappawanna with Atlantic Theater Company’s Atlantic for Kids, Wyoming with Lesser America, The Universe is A Small Hat at Babycastles Gallery, Echo in Camera at LaMama, Sisyphus, Chorus of All Souls with Experiments in Opera, Last Days of Mankind at Bard College and 4000 Miles at Hangar Theatre in New York; The Member of the Wedding at Triad Stage in North Carolina; American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose at Yale Repertory Theatre and My Friend’s Story at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in Connecticut; Antigonick at Summerfest Toronto; as well as King Richard II, Cloud 9, Petty Harbour, The Seagull, Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights and The Taming of the Shrew at Yale School of Drama. Tsimring is the resident lighting designer for LA-based dance company Contra-Tiempo. She has a BFA from Emerson College and an MFA from Yale School of Drama. mashald.com

    + Show more
  • Christine Crook

    Costume Designer

    Crook has designed costumes for MTC’s productions of The Whale, Fences and Circle Mirror Transformation. She designs for theater, dance and opera all over the Bay Area and is a company member of Shotgun Players and Just Theater. Her recent credits include Antigonick, Our Town and Twelfth Night at Shotgun Players, In From the Cold with Just Theater, Mahagonny Songspiel and Dead Man Walking with Opera Parallèle and Lucia di Lammermoor with LA Opera. Crook has an MFA in costume design from UC San Diego and is the recipient of two San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards. She teaches costume design at University of San Francisco and Academy of Art University. christinecrook.squarespace.com

    + Show more
  • Misner + Smith

    Composers / Music Directors

    Misner & Smith are Sam Misner and Megan Pearl Smith, who have both appeared at MTC in Woodie Guthrie’s American Song, with Smith making an additional appearance in Failure: A Love Story. Known for their stunning live performances, the duo has been winning over fans with critically-acclaimed songwriting, musicianship and extraordinary vocal harmonies for over 10 years. Their music moves effortlessly through the worlds of folk, rock, Americana and places in between, creating something new and familiar at the same time. In 2007, their song “Madeline (Paradise Cracked)” won the West Coast Songwriters Association’s Song of the Year. Misner & Smith tours extensively both in the US and the UK, and have released three studio albums, as well as a live album recorded at the Freight & Salvage. They met at CalShakes in 2004, and continue to balance their music careers with regular work as actors. misnerandsmith.com

    + Show more
  • Brendan Aanes

    Sound Designer

    Aanes makes his MTC debut with The Way West. He has designed sound and composed music recently for The Lake Effect, Peter and the Starcatcher and Marry Me a Little at TheatreWorks; Rapture Blister Burn at Aurora Theatre Company; The Hundred Flowers Project at Crowded Fire Theater; MUTT at Impact Theatre; Urge For Going with Golden Thread Productions; and Abigail’s Party, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and The Aliens at SF Playhouse. He has also worked as associate designer for the national tour of Kneehigh’s Tristan and Yseult and A.C.T.’s Old Hats and Stuck Elevator. Outside of theater, Brendan has created sound scores for film and dance, recorded and produced records for a number of local artists, and built interactive sound/media installations for exhibitions around the country. He holds an MFA in music from Mills College.

    + Show more
  • Kirsten Royston

    Props Artisan

    Royston has provided props for MTC’s productions of The Whale and Fetch Clay, Make Man. The resident technical director of San Francisco State University’s Brown Bag production development class, she is a Bay Area-based set, props and production designer. Her recent prop work has been seen at theaters such as Aurora Theatre Company and Shotgun Players. More of her work can be seen at kirstenroyston.com.

    + Show more
  • Heath Belden

    Stage Manager

    Belden has stage managed for MTC’s productions of Seagull, Happy Now?, In the Red and Brown Water, Woody Guthrie’s American Song, Equivocation, My Name is Asher Lev, What the Butler Saw, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Subject Tonight Is Love. His other stage management credits include Into the Woods, The Unfortunates, Seagull, Troilus and Cressida, The Pirates of Penzance and Ghost Light at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; The Full Monty and Little Shop of Horrors at American Musical Theatre of San Jose; Crime and Punishment at Berkeley Rep; and Once Upon a Mattress at 42nd Street Moon, as well as four seasons with Marin Shakespeare Company and five operas with Pocket Opera. He has also served as assistant stage manager for nine productions at A.C.T. and four at OSF.

    + Show more


* Denotes member of Actors Equity Association
+ Member, United Scenic Artists
^ Member, Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers

Reviews

  • Well-paced, charming, amusing; the handful of musical numbers sound terrific

    — Marin IJ Read full review
  • The play is engaging... It was an enjoyable evening in an intimate theater. MTC is to be commended for its pioneering spirit!

    — For All EVents Read full review

Learn More

Select a Performance

To begin your ticket purchase, select a performance from the calendar below:

March 2024
Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31