Free Tickets to the new play in town!

If you feel like doing something artsy this weekend, you might want to check out a play staged by the Bay Area Repertory Theater at the Milonga Casquelord Center for the Arts in downtown Oakland.

Director James Brooks has adapted Terrence Tyrie Ivory’s tale of coal miners in a segregated town in West Virginia for the stage — In the Midst of Them is a story of a man trying to create a labor union while fighting to keep his family together.

“It’s based on a true story shared by the author’s grandmother about living in coal mines,” says Mr. Brooks. “It talks about love, betrayal, alcoholism, and what coal miners had to go through. It’s got all the slices of life that we, as humans, have to go through.”

Mr. Brooks chose to work with this play because it reminded him of what he saw as a youngster growing up in Richmond, Virginia, where many residents worked in steel mills and on tobacco plantations.

He is one of the founders of the four-year-old Bay Area Rep, a low-key group that’s best known for the play Meeting, a fictional account of the meeting of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

The founders of the Rep have the experience needed — about a hundred years between the three of them — to put up a good show. And if you want to win two free tickets to watch In the Midst of Them, write to editors@novometro.com.

What: In the Midst of Them
When: January 11 to January 20, 2008 (except for January 14th); Shows at 8 pm. On Sundays at 3 pm also.
Where: Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice Street.
How Much: $20 in advance and $25 at the door — unless you win free tickets by writing to us as soon as you read this piece.