GRACE Box Office Opens at Cort Theatre Today, 8/23

Producers announced today that the box office at the Cort Theatre (138 West 48th Street) is open for business in anticipation of its new tenant: the Broadway Premiere of Grace, the acclaimed dark comedy written by award-winning writer Craig Wright (Mistakes Were Made, Recent Tragic Events, "Six Feet Under") and directed by Dexter Bullard (Tracy Letts' BUG).

Grace, a strictly limited engagement, begins performances on Thursday, September 13th, with an official opening night set for Thursday, October 4, 2012. Grace is produced by Debbie Bisno, Fox Theatricals, Paula Wagner, Jessica Genick, Jed Bernstein, Christian Chadd Taylor, William Berlind/Amanda Dubois, Bruce Bendell/Scott Prisand, LaRue-Noy/Peter May. For more info, visit www.graceonbroadway.com.

Tickets for the production ($32.00 - $132.00), featuring an all-star cast that includes Paul Rudd andAcademy Award® nominee Michael Shannon, with Kate Arrington and seven-time Emmy Award®-winner Ed Asner, are also currently on-sale via Telecharge.com or by calling (212) 239-6200. For Group Bookings visit www.telecharge.com/groups or call Telecharge Group Sales at 800-432-7780.

The performance schedule for Grace is as follows: Preview performances: Monday – Saturday at 8:00 PM, with 2:00 PM matinees on Wednesday and Saturday (no matinee on 9/26); Post-opening performances: Tuesday – Thursday at 7 PM, Friday – Saturday at 8 PM, matinees on Wednesday & Saturday at 2 PM and Sunday at 3 PM.

In alternating scenes of hilarity and poignancy, life turns surreal for an eclectic foursome whose destinies collide in the Sunshine State. A wide-eyed young couple (Rudd & Arrington) head south with big plans to open a chain of Gospel-themed motels. When an agitated rocket scientist (Shannon) and a prickly pest-control man (Asner) enter the picture, the couple's ordered world is thrown into utter chaos. Grace examines those illusive paradoxes: Believing vs. Knowing and Coincidence vs. Fate.

Grace first premiered to critical acclaim at The Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC in 2004, and was subsequently seen in a celebrated production at Northlight Theater in Chicago, and at the Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles (where it received 3 LA Drama Critics Circle Awards including Best Play).

Paul Rudd made his Broadway debut in Tony Award-winning The Last Night of Ballyhoo in 1997 and has since starred in Twelfth Night (1998), Three Days of Rain (2006) and Off Broadway in The Shape of Things (2001), among many other stage productions. Michael Shannon's numerous NY stage credits include Uncle Vanya at Soho Rep and Craig Wright's Mistakes Were Made. He received an Academy Award nomination for Revolutionary Road, is a series regular on "Boardwalk Empire," and stars in upcoming feature films: Premium Rush, Iceman and Man of Steel. Kate Arrington, who was critically praised for her recent performance at the Goodman Theatre in Iceman Cometh opposite Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy, is a Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble member, whose productions there include The Hot L Baltimore, The Well-Appointed Room, The Pain and the Itch and The Violet Hour. Ed Asner last appeared on Broadway in 1989, opposite Madeline Kahn in Born Yesterday. This production of Grace marks its New York Premiere (in an updated script) and the Broadway debuts of playwright Craig Wright, director Dexter Bullard, and Michael Shannon, who have a fifteen-plus year history of collaboration in the theater, including the recent production of Mistakes Were Made.

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