The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion
directed by Ray Tatar

The Year of Magical Thinking by Sacramento born novelist Joan Didion is a stage adaptation of her distinguished memoir on the untimely deaths of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne and their daughter, Quintana Dunne Michael. Her book, The Year of Magical Thinking won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

I was at the table making a salad, she recalls. John was talking about either World War I or the Scotch he was drinking, she remembers, when he suddenly slumped over.

Didion thought he was making a joke about being dead-tired after their difficult day, but he was having a fatal heart attack.

Didions script is poetic in its bluntness, its seeming detachment, and its unavoidable truth. This one person play about how she dealt with the deaths of her husband and daughter within a few months. How she managed to persevere in the midst of crushing grief.

California Stage Director Ray Tatar notes that Although the main focus of this play is on Didions struggle with grief, it does not mean there arent any laughs. Her experience includes odd flashes of humor and insight such as when her own magical thinking tells her, she cannot give away her husbands shoes, because he would need them when he returned.

The California Stage production will star Drama Desk Award Nominee Janis Stevens. Ms. Stevens, a member of Actors Equity, has been seen at California Stage as Hester in By the Bog of Cats, in the title role of Becoming Julia Morgan for which she won an Elly Award for Best Dramatic Actress and as Vivien Leigh in Vivien for which she received a 2006 Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance for the Off-off Broadway production.

Thursdays at 7:00pm.
Friday & Saturday at 8pm.
Sunday at 2pm.
October 26 through November 25, 2012.

General admission: $25.00. Students, military, SARTA members and seniors: $20.00. Groups of six or more: $15.00.

Easy free parking available. No late seating. Reservations: 916-451-5822.

Dennis Wilkerson Theater at the R25 Arts Complex
1721 25th Street (25 and R Streets)
Midtown Sacramento.