Event Fee

$20 in advance only

Event Information

Three nights only, March 16, 17, 18 at 8pm

Following its critically acclaimed, fourth production - O, Lovely Glowworm 2011 - New Century Theatre Company (NCTC) will present Holy Days by Sally Nemeth, featuring NCTC company members and some of the city’s finest designers.

Holy Days is a deeply American story about one of the most significant times of the twentieth century, as it concerns a Kansas family in the 1930s trying to survive what is now known as the ‘black blizzards’. Couples Gant and Rosie, and Molly and Will wrestle with the day to day of an existence short on hope and long on bad luck. The play builds like the layers of dust from ‘the blow’, a dust that can’t be swept away, but creeps in and ultimately must be endured. Living in close proximity, the characters engage with each other with a humanity that we almost can’t bear to watch and yet can certainly all admire. And in our own American days of economic and emotional confusion, (though not as catastrophic as the Dust Bowl era) when the concerns of work and class are paramount, Holy Days is a story of perseverance, an 80-minute tone poem with community, sacrifice, endurance and hope at its core.

NCTC produces this play out of a deep need to tell the story at this time in America. Artistic Director Hans Altwies says, “We have in these characters a quiet might that makes me blush. I keep doing a sort of double-take at the way Gant deals with his unbearable grief. It’s also a play about the unwillingness to walk away; it’s a companion of the Grapes of Wrath. In the face of impossible odds, during this horrible time in our country’s history, these people stick it out, they persevere. We know the other story…but what happens if you stay?”

Doors will open at 7:30 p.m., with an 8:00 p.m. curtain and there will be a small concessions stand with water, coffee and candy.

NCTC is going to bring more theatre to Seattle audiences, more often. In our first four years we produced four fully produced shows, one per year, as well as 10 PIPELINE play readings at SOLO BAR per year. Now, in our fifth year we want to do more, so we’re experimenting with a new model of producing in addition to our monthly Pipeline Reading Series: this is our first attempt - of what we hope will be many – to explore a play with a consciously spare design within a more condensed rehearsal and performance run.

New Century Theatre Company is comprised of thirteen local theatre artists whose work is regularly featured on Seattle’s professional stages, as well as numerous regional theatres throughout the country. NCTC is comprised of: Hans Altwies, Jamie Herlich, Paul Morgan Stetler, Ray Gonzalez, Makaela Pollock, Michael Patten, MJ Sieber, Jen Taylor, Amy Thone, Stephanie Timm, Darragh Kennan, Peter Dylan O’Connor, and Betsy Schwartz.

Interested disciplines

Theater