Dream casting makes Walking Shadow’s “reasons to be pretty” a must-see

I usually just skim casting announcement press releases and chuck them in the virtual trash, but this one made my eyes pop: the cast for Walking Shadow Theatre Company’s production of Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty—coming to the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio in September—will be Joseph Bombard, Rachel Finch, Andrew Sass, and Anna Sundberg.

I’ve never seen Bombard, but Sundberg’s performance in Walking Shadow’s scintillating 2009 production of LaBute’s Some Girl(s) was one of the very best I’ve seen in the past few years. As for Finch and Sass, they were the leads in 20% Theatre Company’s 2010 production of Anon. In my review of that show, I drew a comparison to Some Girl(s): “Sass and Finch are revelations. They have the most believable romantic chemistry I’ve ever seen between two actors sharing a stage. For comparison, I think back to the sizzling ardor between Anna Sundberg and Clarence Wethern in Walking Shadow’s Some Girl(s)—but those characters were playing Neil LaBute’s flashy and dangerous game of seduction and deception.”

Now it sounds like Sass and Finch will have their chance to play that game—in the best of company. This casting, with Amy Rummenie in the director’s chair, vaults reasons to be pretty (depite its annoyingly uncapitalized title) to the top of my must-see list for the 2011-12 theater season.

Photo: Anna Sundberg in Some Girl(s). Photo by Aaron Fenster, courtesy Walking Shadow Theatre Company.