Taproot Theatre kicks off their 2012 season with Molière’s hilariously clever satire, Tartuffe.

Moliere’s comic masterpiece brings us a con artist extraordinaire who oozes piety and charm. Will Tartuffe’s hypocrisy be discovered before Organ’s household is turned on its head?

The play features lightning-quick wit, star-crossed lovers, a badgering grandma and a plot that could be ripped from today’s headlines.

“The more I read it, the more modern it feels,” said Taproot's Associate Artistic Director, Karen Lund, who directs Tartuffe.

Lund hopes the audience will, “take a kernel of truth about life” while falling in love with the stylized absurdity that comes to life on stage through various forms of comedy—the hilarity of physical slapstick to Richard Wilbur’s smart translation of Molière’s play on words.

Wilbur’s stays true to Molière’s rhyming verse by writing the entire play in rhyming couplets.

When Molière debuted the play in 1664, it was soon banned for scandalizing many of Molière’s contemporaries. Molière responded by saying, “As the duty of comedy is to correct men by amusing them, I believed that in my occupation I could do nothing better than attack the vices of my age by making them ridiculous…”

And in his first appeal to the King Molière wrote, “since hypocrisy is, without doubt, one of the most common, the most harmful, and the most dangerous of these, I thought, Sire, that I would render no small service to all the honorable men of your kingdom if I were to make a comedy that would discredit the hypocrites and present all the artificial gestures that these worthy folk display…”

Taproot's Tartuffe opens February 3 and runs through March 3.

The production features a talented cast of Charissa Adams, Don Brady, Ryan Childers, Solomon Davis, Nathan Jeffrey, William Hamer, Frank Lawler, Ruth McRee, Jesse Notehelfer and Josh Smyth. The production team includes scenic and sound designer Mark Lund, costume designer Sarah Burch Gordon and lighting designer Roberta Russell. Anne L. Hitt serves as stage manager and David Anthony Lewis as dramaturg.

Performances are held Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; and Saturday matinees at 2 p.m.

Tickets are available online at www.taproottheatre.org/buy-tickets/ and through Taproot Theatre’s box office, in person or by phone at 206.781.9707. Taproot Theatre Company is located at 204 North 85th Street.