The Farmington Armada

Originally produced in Aztec, New Mexico, in 2001, 

The Farmington Armada is a collection of short plays, monologues and letters surrounding the theme of an apparent UFO sighting in Farmington, New Mexico during a few days in March of 1950. Charles Pike, a veteran Chicago actor and playwright (Steppenwolf, Second City, Prop Thtr., PUS), asked several playwrights around the country to write theatre pieces based on the original newspaper article. The resulting works form this show. 


The piece was first produced as part of the 

Aztec Public Library's Oral History Project. In 2003, the Saturday Players produced a version of it as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. Now 

PUS, a theatre company with a history of producing new plays and the writings of Samuel Beckett, are giving The Farmington Armada its West Coast Premiere, in an entirely new version of the original Aztec production.


Playwrights include Charles Pike (The Return of the Hip Messiah, Now Dig This: The Terry Southern Show), Jeff Resta

 (Grace and Patience, The Diva Classification System), Jeff Hudson

 (Vortex Theater), Neil Giuntoli (Hizzoner) and Scott Baker (PUS co-founder).


"For the third consecutive day flying saucers have been reported over Farmington....Fully half of this town's population still is certain today that it saw space ships or some strange aircraft -- hundreds of them zooming through the skies yesterday....The objects appeared to play tag high in the air. At times they streaked away at almost unbelievable speeds."


---Farmington Daily Times, Saturday, March 18, 1950.

The Farmington Armada ran August 4-6, 10-13 and 17-20 at 8 pm at Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th Street, San Francisco, California. Tickets are $20, $15 for students and seniors. For reservations, call (415) 289-2000. 


</frame>