Swine Palace Kicks Off New Season with Regional Premiere of A FREE MAN OF COLOR, Now thru 9/30

Swine Palace is largest professional Equity theatre in the state of Louisiana. The artistic population of Louisiana is growing with the success of the film industry (Swine Palace is known as "Hollywood South) and many actors are moving into the state to make their careers. Baton Rouge is the home to Celtic Media Center, the largest film studio in the state of Louisiana. Swine Palace serves a central role to the growing arts community of Baton Rouge, providing high quality, fully staged productions to the population of Southern Louisiana. It is one of the premiere theatre companies in the South.

"This year, we are celebrating the Louisiana Bicentennial with a season of plays that explore the culture and history of our great state," says Jacquelyn Schulz Craddock. The season will kick off with a production of  A FREE MAN OF COLOR by John Guare, a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer prize for Drama, with a world premiere at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in the Lincoln Center in November of 2010. Swine Palace will be producing the first regional premiere of the play; no other production has been done. John Guare has already come to visit Swine Palace this past spring, in preparation for casting the show, and is expected to return in the fall to offer input with the production process. Noted New York casting director, and director of regional theatre, Paul Russell, will be the guest director for A FREE MAN OF COLOR, and Alvin Keith, an Equity actor from New York with Broadway credits, and extensive regional theatre credits, will be performing the lead role of Jacques Cornet.

"A FREE MAN OF COLOR is a perfect match for the opening of Swine Palace's celebratory Louisiana Bicentennial season, and we are the perfect theatre company to produce the regional premiere of this play, which is so distinctly about the history of not only the city of New Orleans, but the effect the Louisiana Purchase had on the developing culture of our state and our country. We have the facilities, the production values, and the talent to do the play justice, and we are very excited to take on this project as the first play of our season," asserts Craddock. A FREE MAN OF COLOR runs at the Claude L. Shaver Theatre from tonight, September 19 – 30, 2012.

Other exciting shows included in the season are RISING WATER written by John Biguenet and directed by George running at the Studio Theatre Judy from March 13 – 24, 2013 and a stage adaptation of the Robert Penn Warren novel, ALL THE KINGS MEN, which is adapted by Adrian Hall and features original music by Louisiana native Randy Newman. It is directed by George Judy and runs at the Reilly Theatre from April 24 – May 12, 2013.

For more information, visit their website at www.swinepalace.org, follow them on twitter at www.twitter.com/swinepalace, and visit their youtube channel: www.youtube.com/lsutheatre.