Dig Deep Theatre’s production of Kenneth Lonergan’s “This Is Our Youth” is scheduled to run for nine performances over two weekends at The MAIN in Santa Clarita later this month.

Dig Deep’s production of the play – Lonergan’s first playwriting success — will be Santa Clarita’s first chance to see his sharp, layered writing brought to the stage.

“This Is Our Youth” is about three teens emerging into adulthood on New York’s Upper West Side in 1982.

They are coming of age in the wake of the election of Ronald Reagan, in a country that has resoundingly rejected everything they were brought up to believe in, by parents who made up the last wave of 60’s Liberalism.

The play is an insightful snapshot both of the moment between adolescence and maturity, and of a particular moment in America.

“This Is Our Youth” premiered Off Broadway in 1996, and featured a career-making performance from Mark Ruffalo.

The New York Times wrote of the play: “The world Mr. Lonergan explores is the desolate, dead-end universe of young Manhattanites with rich parents and no direction”’With an ear attuned to the coarse, ironic language of city kids too cosmopolitan for their own good, Mr. Lonergan seems to know this terrain well.”

Subsequent productions have included a 2002 run in the West End with Jake Gyllenhaal and a 2014 Broadway debut with Michael Cera and recent Oscar Winner Kieran Culkin.

Audiences will be familiar with Lonergan’s on-screen work as both writer and director of films including Manchester by the Sea (Oscar, Best Original Screenplay), You Can Count On Me, and Margaret; he also co-wrote Gang of New York and Analyze This.

Dig Deep Theatre is an actor-focused 501(cgg3 nonprofit, creating opportunities for actors to bring meaningful and uplifting classic and contemporary plays to life.

Dig Deep was the first Santa Clarita company to produce a ZOOM show at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic; post-lockdown, Dig Deep produced their first in-person show with a successful run of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park.

In 2023, they presented David Auburn’s Proof, which Santa Clarita Councilmember Jason Gibbs called, “incredible”’phenomenal”’powerful, emotional”; and the founding editor of Stage Raw, Steven Leigh Morris, wrote had him “leaning forward in [his] seat the whole time.”

In 2024, the Company produced Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie in a moving, dreamlike production that earned one of its performers The Main Element Award for Best Performance.

The show is scheduled to run:

• Friday, April 18 at 8 p.m.
• Saturday, April 19 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.
• Sunday, April 20 at 2 p.m.
• Thursday, April 24 at 8 p.m.
• Friday, April 25 at 8 p.m.
• Saturday, April 26 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.
• Sunday, April 27 at 2 p.m.

Tickets for the show are $18 students/seniors & $21 general admission.

Tickets can be purchased here.

Ed. Note: The above information was provided to KHTS Radio by Dig Deep Theatre.

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