For Immediate Release
Contact: Mona Baroudi
415.615.2735
mona.baroudi@sbcglobal.net
Z Space in association with Brian Eastman and Richmond Theatre Productions
presents the world premiere of
A Round-Heeled Woman
A new play by Jane Prowse
Directed by Chris Smith
Starring multi-award winning actress Sharon Gless
Based on the best-selling book by Jane Juska, A Round-Heeled Woman:
My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance
SAN FRANCISCO, CA—October 5, 2009—Z Space, in association with Brian Eastman and
Richmond Theatre Productions, is pleased to present the world premiere of A Round-Heeled
Woman, a new play by Jane Prowse, based on the best-selling book by Jane Juska, A RoundHeeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance.
A Round-Heeled Woman runs January 5 through February 7, 2010 at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida
Street, San Francisco, CA. Press opening is Saturday, January 16 at 8pm.
Directed by Chris Smith and starring multi-award winning actress Sharon Gless (Queer as Folk,
Burn Notice, Nip/Tuck, Cagney and Lacey) A Round-Heeled Woman follows the real-life
adventures of Jane Juska when she courageously decides, at 66 years old, to place a personal ad
in The New York Review of Books, that reads, “Before I turn 67, next March, I would like to have
a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me..."
Juska then sets off on a series of amorous adventures that include—in addition to a lot of sex—
falling in love, some heartbreak and humiliation, a lot of laughs, and having her first orgasm with
a man after 30 years.
Developed and produced by Z Space, A Round-Heeled Woman features an all-star cast of Bay
Area actors led by multi-award winning actress Gless. Best known for her roles as Sgt. Christine
Cagney in the police drama series Cagney & Lacey, and as Debbie Novotny in the cable
television series Queer as Folk, Gless currently plays Madeline Westen on the hit series, Burn
Notice. She is also serving as producer of this production of A Round-Heeled Woman.
“Z Space is thrilled to present the world premiere of this funny, painful, poignant play,” said Lisa
Steindler, Executive Artistic Director of Z Space. “The talents of our playwright Jane Prowse, our
director Chris Smith, and such an incredible cast transform Juska’s powerful real-life story to a
live theater experience that audiences, young and old, male and female, won’t want to miss.”
Z Space fuels the development of American theater on a national level by nurturing new voices,
new works, and new opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area, and by supporting a culturally
and aesthetically diverse community of theater artists working together to develop Bay Area
Theater and theater audiences. Z Space is an artistic and creative home to hundreds of local
theater artists and organizations; commissioning, developing, and producing new works from San
Francisco Bay Area playwrights and writers through our Z Plays Development Program and our
Word for Word Performing Arts Company; and administering the Youth Arts Program, which
over the years has reached 20,000 school-aged children and adults per year through youthtargeted tours, workshops, and residencies, as well as student matinees and talkbacks with
resident artists.
Jane Juska
Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1933, Jane Juska grew up in Archbold, Ohio. In 1955 she moved
to California, where she has lived, with brief intermissions, ever since. She taught English for
more than forty years in high school, in college, and in prison. Many of the articles she has
written about teaching and students have appeared in professional journals. A Round-Heeled
Woman: My Late-life Adventures in Sex and Romance, published in 2003, was her first book. Her
second book, published in May of 2006, is Unaccompanied Women: Late-life Adventures in Love,
Sex, and Real Estate. Juska’s essays have appeared in Vogue, Self, Madison, and in anthologies
Single Woman of a Certain Age, Mommy Wars, and Behind the Bedroom Door. She currently
lives in Berkeley, California.
Jane Prowse
Jane Prowse writes and directs theater and television. For theater, Prowse co-wrote and directed
Up On The Roof, which received three Olivier nominations, including Best Musical. She also
directed productions of the musical at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta and the Long Wharf in
Connecticut. Jane wrote and directed an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, which won
her the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Buzz Goodbody ‘Best Director’ Award. Other theater
includes Anthony Minghella’s A Little Like Drowning, The Amazing Dancing Bear and
Overboard.
Jane co-wrote the screenplay for Up On The Roof, which was subsequently made into a movie.
Recent television credits include writing for Lynda La Plante productions, Ghost Train and
Witness for Trial and Retribution, and Boxers for The Commander, which Jane also directed.
Other TV credits include Green-Eyed Monster, The Fugitives, Between The Sheets, Rocket Man,
Head Over Heels, The Tenth Kingdom, Living It, Sunny’s Ears and The Greatest Store in the
World.
Jane’s first novel has just been published – Hattori Hachi: The Revenge of Praying Mantis – and
her second will be in bookshops in early 2010.
Sharon Gless
Sharon Gless is a multiple Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actress. She most recently
completed production on two independent features, Once Fallen with Ed Harris & Amy Madigan,
and Hannah Free, in which Gless stars in the title role. Gless is currently receiving rave reviews
for her portrayal of Madeline Westen on Burn Notice (USA Network). Last year she was an
Emmy semi-finalist for that role, and an Emmy nominee for Guest Actress in a Drama Series for
her chilling performance as Colleen Rose, an ambitious Hollywood agent with a multitude of
dark secrets on FX’s Nip/Tuck.
Gless starred as the outrageous and beloved Debbie Novotny in the groundbreaking Showtime
series Queer as Folk, from 2000-2005. The following year she starred as US Secretary of
Defense Lynne Warner in the BBC/BBC America miniseries The State Within.
Gless was first exposed to the entertainment industry at a young age, by her grandfather Neil S.
McCarthy – a respected lawyer of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Her first series role was the 1973
detective drama Faraday & Company with Dan Dailey and James Naughton. She landed her
second series, Switch with Robert Wagner and Eddie Albert, in 1975. In 1982, Gless landed the
career-changing role of New York Police Detective Christine Cagney on the smash hit drama
Cagney & Lacey. The role garnered her two Emmys, a Golden Globe and six Emmy
nominations. After the show ended in 1988, she re-teamed with its Executive Producer, Barney
Rosenzweig, for the drama series The Trials of Rosie O’Neill. That role led to her second Golden
Globe win and two additional Emmy nominations. She and Rosenzweig married in 1991.
In 1994 and 1995, Gless reunited with Tyne Daly to recreate their title roles in a quartet of
critically acclaimed Cagney & Lacey television movies. In 1995 she received her star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Gless made her stage debut in Lillian Hellman’s “Watch on the Rhine” at Stage West in
Springfield, MA. She has starred twice on stage in London’s famed West End: the first time in
1993 when she created the role of Annie Wilkes in the stage version of Stephen King’s Misery
and in 1996 in Neil Simon’s comedy Chapter Two. She starred in Claudia Allen’s Cahoots at
Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre (2000) and at Madison Square Garden in Eve Ensler’s The
Vagina Monologues.
In 2007 she was the recipient of the Theatre School at DePaul University’s prestigious Award for
Excellence in the Arts. Gless is an active participant in the ongoing struggle to prevent the
overturn of Roe vs. Wade. In 2005 she was honored by Norman Lear’s People for the American
Way for her unwavering support of human rights. She’s also become a vocal advocate for gay &
lesbian causes.
Chris Smith (Director) is an award-winning director and producer with over 25 years of
professional experience, primarily focused on new plays, in New York City and the San
Francisco Bay Area. He has directed several dozen world premiere productions, including works
by Edna O’Brien, Charles Grodin, David Ives, Joyce Carol Oates, Romulus Linney, John Belluso,
Gen Leroy, Joe Pintauro, Lloyd Suh, and four plays by Pulitzer Prize-winner Frank D. Gilroy
(most notably Drama Desk “Best Play” Nominated Contact with the Enemy), and has won two
Dean Goodman Awards for Best Direction. Recent productions include Abraham Lincoln’s Big,
Gay Dance Party by Aaron Loeb (world premiere at SF Playhouse (“Best New Play”-winner,
Bay Area Critics Circle) and New York premiere at HERE Center for the Arts (NY International
Fringe Festival “Outstanding Production”-winner)), Billy Aronson’s The First Day of School (SF
Playhouse), and the holiday classic A Christmas Story (San Jose Rep). Upcoming projects
include the Gershwin musical Lady Be Good (42nd Street Moon). In addition, he has directed
for the television daytime drama “As the World Turns” (CBS).
Chris is the former Artistic Director of Magic Theatre (SF) and Youngblood (NYC). He is the
Founding Program Director of the EST/Sloan Project (NYC) and is a partner in BlueRare
Productions, a multi-media venture company based in San Francisco. Chris has written several
works for the stage incorporating drama and music, including The Sparrow and the Birdman,
with Raquel Bitton (commissioned by TheatreWorks), A Sense of Freedom, with Domenick
Allen, and Signs and Wonders, with Tom Borras and Hershel Garfein.
Brian Eastman
Brian Eastman produces for the theater, cinema and television and his work has received many
international awards and nominations. He produced the original stage production of Shadowlands
in London (Evening Standard Best Play Award) and New York, starring Nigel Hawthorne (Tony
Award for Best Actor), and also, with Richard Attenborough, the film version starring Anthony
Hopkins and Debra Winger. Other films include Under Suspicion, Firelight, Up on the Roof and
Wilt. Television productions include Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Jeeves and Wooster, Blott on the
Landscape, Porterhouse Blue, Traffik, The Tenth Kingdom and Rosemary & Thyme.
Other theatre productions include: Juno and the Paycock; Misery ; Murder Is Easy; Map of the
Heart; What a Performance ;Our House; Girl with a Pearl Earring; Treasure Island and Up On
The Roof, which received an Olivier nomination for Best Musical.
Richmond Theatre Productions
Richmond Theatre Productions is an independent theatre production company, set up to provide a
vehicle to bring new investment into the theater and help widen the range of high quality
productions. Many of its shareholders are long-term theater supporters but first time investors.
The company’s productions include Shadowlands, Our House, The Girl with the Pearl Earring
and Treasure Island. The company has also been involved in the commissioning of a number of
new plays including A Round-Heeled Woman.
WHAT:
The World Premiere of A Round-Heeled Woman, starring Sharon Gless. Written by Jane Prowse,
based on the best-selling memoir by Jane Juska, A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life
Adventures in Sex and Romance
WHERE:
Z Space @Theater Artaud, 450 Florida Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
DATES & TIMES:
Tuesdays – Sundays, January 5 – February 7, 2010
Previews begin Tuesday January 5th.
Press opening Saturday January 16th at 8pm.
Tuesday & Wednesday performances at 7pm.
Thursday, Friday & Saturday performances at 8pm
Sunday performances at 5pm
TICKETS:
1-800-838-3006, www.zspace.org
FURTHER INFORMATION AT WWW.AROUNDHEELEDWOMAN.COM