'FDR' starring Ed Asner to open season at ECC

Award-winning actor Ed Asner opens the 2009-2010 season with a one-man performance as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in "FDR" at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3, at the Elgin Community College Visual and Performing Arts Center, 1700 Spartan Drive.

Based on a 1958 Dore Schary play and 1960 film "Sunrise at Campobello," "FDR" offers a full glimpse into the life of America's 32nd president.

As Roosevelt, Asner takes the audience on a personal and professional journey that includes his early battles with polio; addressing the Great Depression, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; and World War II during his unprecedented four presidential terms; and his legendary fireside chats and controversial plan to pack the Supreme Court.

Audiences also will experience Roosevelt's personal life with his wife, Eleanor, and his discreet affair with Lucy Mercer; his courage to break the Neutrality Act; his manipulation of Congress (in order to get the country to hold a draft); and the benevolent dictatorship he called the presidency from 1933-44.

Tickets are $41-$45. Tickets are available online at tickets.elgin.edu.

To purchase tickets by phone, call (847) 622-0300. Due to construction on Spartan Drive from McLean Boulevard west to Renner Drive, motorists may use either Fleetwood Drive or Weld Road to Second Street. From the west, motorists entering on Spartan Drive from Randall Road will be detoured north onto Renner Drive to access the campus.