ArtsWest presents I Am My Own Wife

ArtsWest presents I Am My Own Wife

I Am My Own Wife Directed by Christopher Zinovitch ArtsWest Playhouse and Gallery Through June 1 Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 PM Sunday Matinees May 25 and June 1, 3:00 PM ArtsWest is proud to present the Seattle Premiere of I Am My Own Wife. The Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play runs through June 1. Footlight Award Winner Nick DeSantis (tick, tick&Boom!, Bat Boy, the Musical) stars as Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a soft-spoken German transvestite who survived the cruel regimes of both the Nazis and the Communists. "Nick DeSantis to me is the perfect actor to embody the dualities required by this role," said Christopher Zinovitch, director of I Am My Own Wife and ArtsWest's director of theater and education. "He has both masculinity and tenderness, a commanding stage presence but also a vulnerability that are perfect to let him get inside Charlotte's skin." Based on interviews with the real Charlotte von Mahlsdorf by playwright Doug Wright (Quills), this one-man show features harrowing tales of endurance and survival that are nothing short of breathtaking. "The original New York production of I Am My Own Wife was at Playwrights Horizons, which housed the production in an intimate theater of fewer than 200 seats," said Alan Harrison, ArtsWest executive director. "So ArtsWest, at roughly the same size, is the perfect place to experience Charlotte. This is how the play was meant to be seen. Rather than feeling like a detached audience, we'll feel like her guests - just friends who have come for a visit - as she tells her incredible stories." Unlike many of her contemporaries, Charlotte survived both the Gestapo and its replacement in East Germany, the Stasi, dying at home in 2002 at the age of 74. The Pulitzer Prize-winning script based on her life went on to win the Tony Award for Best Play of the Year. For more information, call (206) 938-0339 or visit www.artswest.org.