Summer New Works Festival opens with
Other Desert Cities,
written and directed by Jon Robin Baitz

Robbie Baitz’s new play Other Desert Cities opens this year’s Summer New Works Festival, Tuesday August 10. Known for his ability to delve insightfully into family dynamics in plays like The Substance of Fire and A Fair Country (for which he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize), in Other Desert Cities, Baitz once again explores the private life of a public family. Here, Lyman and Polly Wyeth, close advisors and intimate confidantes of a series of Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan, have planned a family gathering in Palm Springs for the Christmas holidays in 2004. Their holiday spirit goes awry when they face the revelation that their daughter Brooke has written a book exposing their turbulent family history.

Bruce Davison joins the cast of Other Desert Cities. In a career that includes stage, television and film, this versatile actor's work has been recognized with an L.A. Drama Critics Award, Golden Globe, and an Academy Award nomination. Bruce joins other notables for this reading including Mary McCormack, star of USA's In Plain Sight;  Emmy Award-winning actress  Holland Taylor, best known for her work in Bosom Buddies and Two and a Half Men, and Concetta Tomei, whose many Broadway and Off-Broadway credits include and Carol Churchill's Cloud Nine and the 2008 Broadway production of Cyrano. 

Reading begins at 7:30 p.m. at Matilija Auditorium, 703 El Paseo Road, in Ojai. Previously purchased tickets will be available at Will Call; and tickets will be on sale in the Box Office for this and the rest of the shows in the Festival.