Santa Maria Sun / Art

New play explores 154 and Paradise and other intersections

A staged reading of a new play by Gerald DiPego

, 154 and Paradise, will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 6, at the Santa Ynez Valley Union High School Little Theater.

The play is a benefit for the Friends of the Library of the Santa Ynez Valley and the Theater Group at the high school.

Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez Valley locals know Highway 154 and Paradise Road is a real intersection—beautiful and dangerous—on the San Marcos Pass. The crossroads figures prominently in screenwriter-playwright DiPego’s new play about the physical, geographic intersection and the “intersections” of human lives.

Director Carey McKinnon helms the production.

DiPego’s work includes several novels and feature films, such as Phenomenon, Instinct, Message in a Bottle, and The Forgotten. His television work includes WGA nominations for Born Innocent, A Family Upside Down, a Golden Globe best television film award for A Family Upside Down, and Christopher Awards for I Heard the Owl Call My Name and One More Mountain.

His current works includes short stories and plays written and produced with the Laketown Players at venues in the Santa Ynez Valley, spoken word concert “Life Stories” presented at Tales From the Tavern, and two recent screenplays now under option and a script scheduled for February production titled Words and Pictures, starring Juliet Binoche and Clive Owen.

Tickets for 154 and Paradise cost $15 at the door with no reserved seating.

For more information, call 448-9308.