Diversionary presents “The Busy World is Hushed”
West Coast full production Premiere; this is the 4th full production in the United States

Diversionary Theatre will present Keith Bunin’s new play The Busy World is Hushed as the second show of its 2007-2008 season. Running October 4-28, The Busy World is Hushed premiered in June 2006 at Playwrights Horizons in New York City. Diversionary’s Executive & Artistic Director, Dan Kirsch, will direct. The cast features Barron Henzel, Aaron Marcotte and Jerusha Matsen Neal. The creative team includes Patricia Loughrey (Dramaturg), Greg Stevens (Set Design), Matthew Bright (Lighting Design), Erick Sunquist (Costume Design) and Amy Chini (Properties).

The Busy World is Hushed tells the story of Hannah, a minister and Bible scholar, who finds her faith at odds with that of Thomas, her estranged, wayward son. But when an inquisitive young writer hired to assist Hannah with her latest publication learns painful secrets from Hannah’s past, she spies a risky, unconventional opportunity for reconciliation. “…intricacies of faith—as well as issues of sexuality, love and loss—are addressed in this provocative and moving new play…a refreshing take on the overlap between religion and homosexuality.” - Theatermania.com

Martin Denton wrote this about the play in his nytheatre.com review in June 2006: “Busy World is a love story, and also a story of parents and children; most of all, perhaps, it's a meditation on faith in its many forms—on what it takes to make a life seem worth living, and on the ways we convince (fool?) ourselves that all those things we feel but cannot see (call it religion, call it soul, call it love) somehow comprise purpose enough to allow us to go on.

“Bunin puts a lot out there in his play: a woman who coped with widowhood by pursuing God and who now tries to engineer a stable relationship for her son; one man who never knew his father and runs from anything remotely resembling home as he tries to find his father and himself; and another man who is losing the father he loves dearly and buries himself in abstract ideas to cushion that loss and any others that may lay in his future. What unites the three characters, apart from their strong intelligence and sense of self, is a desire, possibly unrequited (possibly unachievable) to find an unassailable purpose. Love of another seems the best choice, but how often does that really happen? Where can we ultimately find that ineffable something that gives us light and grace?”

Jerusha Matsen Neal plays Hannah in Diversionary’s production. Reverend Matsen Neal is an ordained American Baptist minister, who is currently on family leave from her work as co-pastor at the Santee United Methodist church, where she has served with her husband for the past six years through an ecumenical appointment ("ecumenical" means two different Christian denominations working together across denominational lines). While Matsen Neal makes her Diversionary debut, Barron Henzel and Aaron Marcotte appeared in last year’s holiday show It’s a Fabulous Life, and Marcotte also appeared in the reading of Do Geese See God and the spring production of Bunbury.

Following each performance of The Busy World is Hushed, the audience will be invited to stay for cake and coffee and, during this “fellowship hour,” take time to reflect on the faith issues presented in the play.

Diversionary Theatre was started in 1986. The mission of the theatre is to produce plays with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender themes that portray characters in their complexity and diversity both historically and contemporarily.

The Busy World is Hushed is the second show of Diversionary Theatre’s 2007-2008 season, and will preview on Thursday and Friday, October 4 and 5, and open on Saturday, October 6 and run through Sunday, October 28. Performance times are: Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday and Saturday at 8:00pm, Sunday at 2:00 and 7:00pm, and a Monday, October 15 performance at 7:30pm.

Single tickets are now on sale. Tickets are $29 for Thursday, Sunday and Monday performances, $31 for Friday nights and $33 for Saturday nights, with a $4 discount for students, seniors 60+ and active military. Tickets for opening night will be $45 and include a post-show cast party.

Groups of 10-29 receive a $4 discount, and groups of 30+ receive an $8 discount. For tickets or information, call the Diversionary box office at 619.220.0097 or log on to www.diversionary.org.

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The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture provides major support for Diversionary Theatre.

“Five Stars…Searching, perceptive, and absorbing…a tightly written interrogation of pain and belief…One of New York’s essential playwrights, Bunin has written wonderful roles for his actors…Rooting through the intricate tangle of motivations that undergird personal faith, Bunin offers an empathetic and fair-minded view of religion: not as some derisory opiate of the people but as morphine for someone in possibly mortal pain.” —Time Out