Lincoln Center Theater (under the direction of Andre Bishop, Artistic Director, and Bernard Gersten, Executive Producer) has announced that Laura Benanti, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Michael Cerveris, Maria Dizzia, Thomas Jay Ryan, Wendy Rich Stetson, and Chandler Williams will be featured in its upcoming production of IN THE NEXT ROOM or the vibrator play, a new play by Sarah Ruhl, to be directed by Les Waters.
Due to the ongoing run of LCT's award-winning production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's SOUTH PACIFIC, directed by Bartlett Sher at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, IN THE NEXT ROOM or the vibrator play will be presented on Broadway at the Lyceum Theater (149 West 45 Street) where it will begin performances Thursday, October 22. Opening night is Thursday, November 19.
IN THE NEXT ROOM or the vibrator play, which had its world premiere this past winter at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, is a comedy about marriage, intimacy and electricity. Set at the dawn of the age of electricity; the play centers on a doctor and his wife (to be played by Laura Benanti and Michael Cerveris) and how his experimental therapy affects their entire household. The production will have sets by Annie Smart, costumes by David Zinn, lighting by Russell Champa, sound by Bray Poor and original music by Jonathan Bell.
Sarah Ruhl returns to Lincoln Center Theater where she made her New York debut with her play The Clean House. Her other plays include Dead Man's Cell Phone, Demeter in the City, Eurydice, Late: a cowboy song, Melancholy Play, Orlando and Passion Play: a cycle. Her work has also been produced in New York at Playwrights Horizons and the Second Stage and nationally at many theaters including the Goodman, Yale Rep and the Woolly Mammoth Theaters. Les Waters, an Obie Award winning director, is the associate artistic director of Berkeley Rep. His New York credits include productions at BAM. the Manhattan Theatre Club, CSC, Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater, Second Stage Theater and Signature Theatre Company.
This fall, in addition to IN THE NEXT ROOM or the vibrator play and Rodgers & Hammerstein's SOUTH PACIFIC, Lincoln Center Theater, which is currently celebrating its 25th Year, will be presenting BROKE-OLOGY, a new play by Nathan Louis Jackson, directed by Thomas Kail, beginning on Thursday, September 10 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. In addition, this fall LCT3, Lincoln Center Theater's new programming initiative devoted to the work of new playwrights, directors and designers will present WHAT ONCE WE FELT the first of three productions of its second season at The Duke on 42nd Street beginning Monday, October 26.
LAURA BENANTI Broadway: Gypsy (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards), The Wedding Singer, Nine, Into the Woods (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and LA Ovation noms.), Swing! (Tony nom.), The Sound of Music. Off-Broadway: Christopher Durang's Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them (NYSF); Time and Again, (MTC); Wonderful Town and Gypsy (Encores!). Film: Meskada, Take the Lead. TV: Life on Mars, Eli Stone, Starved.
QUINCY TYLER BERNSTINE Off-Broadway: Ruined (MTC), The Misanthrope (NY Theatre Workshop) as well as productions with the LAByrinth Theatre Company, Roundabout Theatre, PS 122, Dixon Place and The Public. Her regional theatre credits include productions at The Goodman Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Sundance Theatre Institute, Williamstown Theatre Festival. Film/TV: Rachel Getting Married, Law & Order: SVU & CI, Chappelle's Show.
MICHAEL CERVERIS LCT: Cymbeline. Broadway: Hedda Gabler, Love/Musik, Sweeney Todd, Assassins, The Who's Tommy and Titanic. London: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (also Off-Broadway and LA). Off-Broadway: plays by Shakespeare, Charles L. Mee, Lanford Wilson, Maria Irene Fornes, Christopher Hampton; The Games with Meredith Monk and Ping Chong; The Apple Tree (Encores!). Film: The Vampire's Assistant, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, The Mexican. TV: "Fringe" (currently), "CSI," "Fame," Sondheim's "Passion" (Live From Lincoln Center). Solo albums: Dog Eared and Hinterlands.
MARIA DIZZIA Theater credits include: The Drunken City (Playwrights), The Wooden Breeks (MCC), Cause for Alarm (FringeNYC) and Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room or the vibrator play (Berkely Rep) and Eurydice (Second Stage/Berkeley Rep/Yale), TV/Film: Fringe, Smith, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order, Sense, Rachel Getting Married, Puppy Love.
THOMAS JAY RYAN Off-Broadway: The Tempermentals, The Misanthrope, This Thing of Darkness, Juno and the Paycock, Venus. Film/TV: The Dying Gaul, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Discord, Henry Fool, The Book of Life, Wonderland.
WENDY RICH STETSON LCT: Big Bill. Other New York theater: Hamlet, Tartuffe, Cymbeline (NYSF); American Silents, The Belle's Stratagem, A Hole in the Dark, Stars, The Golden Bird, Crimes of the Heart, King Lear and The Winter's Tale. Film/TV: Cold Souls, As The World Turns.
CHANDLER WILLIAMS Broadway: Mary Stuart, Translations. Off-Broadway: Crimes of the Heart, Rope, The Field, The Mysteries, Andorra, Two Noble Kinsmen. Regional: PlayMakers Rep., McCarter, Baltimore Center Stage, NYS&F, Williamstown. Film: Kinsey, Merchant Ivory's Heights, Bedlam, The Caller, Public Enemies.
