Clark’s Market Aspen and Theatre Aspen are teaming up for a one-day event in which locals can get the first crack at buying tickets to Theatre Aspen’s three-play summer slate discounted by as much as 55%.

The sale takes place from 10 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. Tuesday and will continue online at 10 a.m. Wednesday. Last year, the locals passes sold out in 48 hours.

Theatre Aspen’s Summer Season includes “Driving Miss Daisy” (June 12-28), “Mamma Mia” (July 5-Aug. 2) and “Million Dollar Quartet” (Aug. 8-23). 

“Theatre Aspen is truly one of our valley’s most special performing arts organizations, and we love helping them kick off their summer season with the Local Season Pass Sale,” said Clark’s Market president Tom Clark. “We are so lucky to live in a place that invests so much in making world-class theater performances accessible for all.”

Three pass options are available to purchase:

• The Matinee Pass sells for $190 at 55% off and includes one premium seat to each show for the matinee performances on Thursdays and Saturdays and a free ticket to a Solo Flights performance.

• The Standard Pass goes for $230, a savings of nearly 30% off the general ticket price, and includes one standard seat to each of the mainstage productions (excluding opening night) and a free ticket to a Solo Flights performance.

• The $345 Premium Pass includes one premium seat to each of the mainstage productions, including opening-night performances (subject to availability) and a free ticket to a Solo Flights performance.

Theatre Aspen also is continuing its popular Summer Cabaret Series at Hotel Jerome and will present two productions through its education program. The summer programming wraps with the sixth annual Solo Flights festival of one-person shows, which runs Sept. 2–7.

The first play in the summer series, Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning  “Driving Miss Daisy,” has a great deal of meaning for Theatre Aspen producing director Jed Bernstein as he produced it on Broadway with James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave in 2010.

Bernstein said the passing of James Earl Jones in September put the play into his mind as he was contemplating the summer season.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is in his memory, but certainly he was very much in the forefront of my mind when we were planning this season,” Bernstein said. “I became very close with him over the course of the play’s run on Broadway and in London, so it is a little bit of a tribute to him.”

Bernstein said he felt that while most people have not heard of “Million Dollar Quartet,” it will likely be received warmly by Aspen audiences. 

“It reminds me of the play we did last year, ‘Come From Away,’ about events that occurred around 9/11. People hadn’t really heard of it but once they learned about it and gave the play a chance, they loved it. ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ will have the same effect. It’s a great opportunity to hear all those great songs from Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis.”

Bernstein said that he has three main goals he hopes to deliver for his audience this summer.

“First, I want to entertain people,” Bernstein said. “It doesn’t have to be funny, necessarily, it could be sad. It could be challenging. It could be serious, interesting, whatever, but first and foremost, entertaining. 

“Second, I want people to have a shared experience that they will remember, and finally I want them to appreciate the top-quality entertainment we provide in a 200-person theater in such an exquisite place, and just how unusual it is to experience these things in such an intimate setting.”

For more information on the pass sale, visit TheatreAspen.org/pass-sale.