TWO FIRESIGN THEATRE COMEDIES DEBUT MARCH 26

AT WHIDBEY ISLAND CENTER FOR THE ARTS

For immediate release

Contact Judith Walcutt

360 331-2813 for further information

Two of the legendary Firesign Theatre’s most celebrated surreal comedies will be presented live on stage in their premiere performance for two shows only on Saturday March 26^th at 3:00 and 7:30 PM. A full cast of 16 players will create the first fully-staged productions of the audio originals, specially adapted and directed for these performances by Firesign’s David Ossman, long-time Whidbey Island resident and produced by Judith Walcutt for Otherworld Media.

The curtain-raiser is one of Firesign Theatre’s best-known pieces,

WAITING FOR THE ELECTRICIAN or, Someone Like Him,

the cosmically comic adventure of a young Traveler whose chance border-crossing plunges him, Kafka-meets-Marx Brothers-like into a thrill-ride from Hostage to Revolutionary to Death Row prisoner, and finally to a game-show where he must “Beat The Reaper!” or die trying.

One of Firesign’s most famous albums, DON’T CRUSH THAT DWARF, Hand Me The Pliers provides the basis for the second play. Elderly Hollywood actor George Tirebiter, awake at 4 AM and hungry for a pizza place that delivers, watches himself in two different movies on all-night TV. “High School Madness” features the teen-age George as “Porgie” who, with his buddy “Mudhead,” is trying to locate his missing High School so he can graduate. “Parallel Hell” finds “ Lt. Tirebiter” trying to escape the killing in a gritty war drama. The two films, with commercial interruptions, channel-surf through George’s memory, as his multiple movie personalities are simultaneously put on trial for being un-American in a time of Declared Emergency.

An exceptional cast, led by Orson Ossman in the roles created by his father, includes Michael McInerny, Halim Dunsky, Deana Duncan, George Henny, Bif Dangerfield, Jim Scullen, Roy Feiring, Sandy O’Brien, Damien Cortez, Mark Therien, Kate Hodges, Marissa Wilhelm, Ahna Dunn-Wilder, and Christina Atkinson. David Ossman plays the elderly former Hollywood celebrity, “George Tirebiter.”

The Firesign Theatre wrote and produced the LP album “Don’t Crush That Dwarf” in 1970 and it immediately became a favorite of High School and College kids facing the Viet Nam draft. “Waiting For the Electrician” was written in 1967 at the height of L.A.’s Love-In Summer and released early the next year when Firesign was playing on stage at folk-clubs. Firesign performed scenes from “Electrician” and “Dwarf” in 1974 at Carnegie Hall, and the group has frequently featured selections from both texts on stage and, in 2001, in front of cameras for the DVD “Weirdly Cool,” made for Public TV and released by Rhino. “Dwarf” was presented in a concert reading at UCLA on April 1, 2004 with John Goodman as “George Tirebiter.”

David Ossman is a founding member of the four-man Firesign. His work as actor has been showcased at WICA, most recently as “Sir Peter Teazle” in “School for Scandal.” He played poet e. e. cummings in a cabaret-style autobiography with music, “love is a place,” and Mark Twain in “A Winter Visit.”

Orson Ossman has been performing in Whidbey Community and Children’s theater for ten years and for two years at SWHS, where he is now a Junior. He has apprenticed on stage with the Firesign and was most recently seen here in “The Music Man,” “School For Scandal,” “Pride and Prejudice” and “Bye Bye Birdie.”

Judith Walcutt is executive producer of Otherworld Media. She and her husband David were most recently heard covering November’s Slack Key Guitar Festival on Kauai, last year’s Seattle Folklife Festival, Langley’s Choochokam Festivals and hosting “Live From The Islands” at the Edgecliff. Judith has produced a number of dramatic and musical evenings at WICA, the Grammy-nominated “The War of the Worlds” 50^th Anniversary, and a host of top-award-winning audio productions.

George Tirebiter is a long-retired Hollywood celebrity, best known for his radio programs, including “Young Tom Edison, Railroad Detective,” “The Adventures of Mark Time, Star Detective of the Circum-Solar Federation,” “Maxwell Morgan, Crime Cabby,” and his long-running part as himself in “Hollywood Madhouse.” George has guest-starred at WICA several times and most recently had a regular commentary on KSER’s “Live From The Islands.” Events in Mr. Tirebiter’s life were co-opted by The Firesign Theatre when writing “Don’t Crush That Dwarf.”