Misalliance

[NoHo Arts District, CA] – Eight marriage proposals and a plane crash, all in one afternoon. A Noise Within closes out its 2023-24 “Balancing Act” season with George Bernard Shaw’s high-flying comedy, Misalliance, directed by Guillermo Cienfuegos (last season’s Much Ado About Nothing), running May 18-June 9. 

Taking place entirely during a single Saturday afternoon, Misalliance offers a chaotic and hilarious clash of class, gender, and generation. Much to the delight of bourgeois underwear tycoon John Tarleton (Peter Van Norden) and his wife (Deborah Strang), their sweet, seemingly proper daughter, Hypatia (Erika Soto), is set to cement the family’s entry into Edwardian aristocracy with her upcoming marriage to Bentley (Josey Montana McCoy), the son of Lord Summerhays (Frederick Stuart) — and an irritant to Hypatia’s brother Johnny (Riley Shanahan). But the unexpected arrival of uninvited guests (Joshua Bitton, Dan Lin and Trisha Miller) suddenly changes everything.

“This is not the Shaw you think you know,” says Cienfuegos. “Of all his plays, this one is the closest to being a farce. It’s a lot about class and a lot about marriage… and a lot about sex. So little has changed.”

Set in Edwardian England just after the Victorian era, the set and costumes for Misalliance will appear classically period. But just when the audience thinks it knows what that England looks like and how these characters are going to behave, Shaw subverts everything and turns it all into a lot of wild fun.

“There’s a sort of feverish madness to the play that’s almost reminiscent of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which we did earlier in the season,” suggest co-artistic directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott. “Shaw’s plays often tend to be very controlled, and this one is very youthful and carefree in a way that you don’t often see Shaw.”

The creative team for Misalliance includes scenic designer Angela Balogh Calin; lighting designer Ken Booth; composer and sound designer Christopher Moscatiello; costume designer Christine Cover Ferro; wig and make-up designer Tony Valdés; properties designer Stephen Taylor; dialect coach Andrea Odinov; and dramaturg Miranda Johnson-Haddad. The assistant director is Rachel Berney–Needleman. The production stage manager is Angela Sonner, assisted by Hope Matthews.

A Noise Within has been called “an oasis for those who love classic stories” by the Los Angeles Times and is a leading regional producer based in Pasadena, California. Under the leadership of Elliott and Rodriguez-Elliott, the award-winning resident theater company is honored to represent the entire community at its state-of-the-art, 324-seat performance space. In addition to producing world-class performances of classic theater, the organization runs robust education programs with the goal of inspiring diverse audiences of all ages. ANW is committed to anti-racist policies and practices across the entirety of the organization. By interpreting its mission to fully engage audiences through community and artist-centered work in multiple creative disciplines, ANW is striving to be a theater that better serves the entire community. A Noise Within’s 2023-24 Season is presented by the S. Mark Taper Foundation.