NEW YORK - Diverse City Theater Company announces that tickets for its inaugural production of Linda Faigao Hall's The Female Heart are now on sale at Ticket Central by calling 212-279-4200 or online at www.ticketcentral.com. The Female Heart will play at Theatre Row's The Clurman Theatre and will be produced in association with Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST). Noted director Jamie Richards will direct. Tickets are $15.00.

The Female Heart will play for a limited three-week run from February 24 to March 13, 2005 with the following performance schedule:

• Wednesday to Saturday Evenings: February 24 - 26, March 2 - 5, March 9 - 12 at 8PM
• Saturday and Sunday Matinees: February 27, March 5 - 6, March 12 - 13 at 3PM

Set in the late 1980's, The Female Heart tells the story of two siblings, Anghel and Adelfa, living in "Smokey Mountain," the infamous mountain of garbage outside Manila. When Anghel, the elder sibling, succumbs to a life-threatening disease, Adelfa, his sister, decides to become a mail-order bride to a man from Brooklyn who is willing -- at a price -- to support her family and pay for Anghel's medical expenses. It is in America where she discovers how poverty corrupts and absolute poverty corrupts absolutely.

Linda Faigao Hall, the playwright, earned a National Endowment for the Arts award for her play, Iron Men. In The Female Heart, she examines the legacy of the Marcos administration, whose decades of plunder and inequality deprived hundreds of men and women -- like Anghel and Adelfa -- of the chance to leave the garbage dump.

Obie Award recipient Ching Valdes Aran, who took part in the play's workshop production at EST, is confirmed to play Rosario, the mother of Anghel and Adelfa. Ms. Valdes Aran is noted for her performances in Ralph Pena's Flipzoids and as Imelda Marcos in Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters at The Public Theater, directed by Michael Greif. Her other critically acclaimed stage performances include lead roles in The Square at The Public Theatre, Last of the Suns, Erendira, The House of Bernarda Alba, Mother Courage and Medea.

The full cast for The Female Heart will be announced at a later date.

ABOUT DIVERSE CITY THEATER CO.:

Diverse City Theater Co. Inc., is an independent not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization that focuses on promoting diversity in the theater arts. Its mission is to commission, develop and produce original plays that portray social, cultural, lifestyle and demographic diversity, thereby creating multiculturally fluent theater audiences as well as advocate the non-traditional casting of actors.

Formed in 2003, Diverse City Theater Co., Inc. is based in New York City. For more information, visit the organization's website at www.diversecitytheater.org.

Contact:
Liz Casasola
212-309-9018
liz@diversecitytheater.org