FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
28 August 2006

CONTACT:
Joy Groves, telephone (760) 365-4523
THE GROVES CABIN THEATRE
8768 Desert Willow Road
Morongo Valley, California

Hotel Virginia Website: http://tinyurl.com/nlksf
Groves Cabin Theatre Website: http://www.grovescabintheatre.org/index.htm

HOTEL VIRGINIA TO BE PRESENTED AT GROVES CABIN THEATRE

 Written by Jack Fitzgerald,
a Desert Theatre League 2005-2006 award
nominee for BEST PRODUCTION of his play Tijuana Lady

 
Extremely Timely Play Tells the Dramatic Story of Six
American Tourists Taken Hostage by Terrorists

            The Groves Cabin Theatre in Morongo Valley begins its new 2006-2007 season with Hotel Virginia, the much-anticipated presentation of Jack Fitzgerald’s timely and remarkable tale of six American Tourists caught up in a Central American revolution. The play opens Saturday, September 16 at 8 pm and runs weekends through October 22.

            Originally produced in Paris, France, by The Paris English Theatre, Hotel Virginia tells the story of a group of American Tourists on holiday in Guatemala who, unknown to themselves, become pawns in the success or failure of a revolution there. Their guide, a terrorist, escorts them to an isolated mountain hotel, where he informs them they will have to stay overnight because of washed out roads back to the capital. In actuality he has given the Americans Government until midnight to stay out of their revolution or these six tourists will be executed. They are unaware of their predicament and go about what could be their last hours in a frenzy of small talk, petty differences and interpersonal nosiness. The play is a hard-hitting drama with comic overtones of the human condition in the grips of terrorism.

            The International Herald Tribune said: “Fitzgerald has an uncanny knack of capturing American types and speech; it is in their conversation and shrewd observation of character and mores that his talent shines.”

            Hotel Virginia is directed by the author and stars a very talented group of award-winning local actors. Fitzgerald has acted in films and on stage in France, Mexico, Cuba and the USA and has written numerous screenplays in Hollywood. He sees life as a serious circus and in his writings combines the deadly serious with the comic.

The Grove Cabin Theatre is intimate in size and in fact only seats 23 people. The venue has been operating since 1985 through the solid efforts of Joy Groves and Vicki Montgomery and has won more awards than any other theatre in the Coachella Valley area. The Cabin has a reputation for excellent productions. The audience is always in for a treat when they see a play at the Cabin because of the intimacy of their productions. The viewer has the feeling that he or she is actually in the situation itself. Most live theatre provides the audience with only "long-shot" viewing; productions at the Cabin are all "close ups".