Juilliard Drama Sets 2014-15 Season: 'VERA STARK,' RABBIT HOLE, ANGELS IN AMERICA & More

Juilliard's Drama Division announces its 2014-15 season of fully-staged productions featuring Juilliard's 44th group of acting students in their fourth and final year in the drama program at Juilliard. This season's productions feature plays by three Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights: Lynn Nottage's By the Way, Meet Vera Stark;

David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole; and Tony Kushner's Angels in America: Part I - Millennium Approaches. All performances take place in the Stephanie P. McClelland Drama Theater at Juilliard.

Juilliard's Drama Division also presents fourth-year repertory in February 2014, which features The Goat, or Who is Sylvia by Edward Albee, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch; Macbeth in a four character/all-female version, adapted and directed by Erica Schmidt; and Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman, directed by
Moni Yakim.

Juilliard fourth-year actors (Group 44) appearing in these productions are: Robert Aramayo, Noah Averbach-Katz, Therese Barbato, Justin Lawrence Barnes, Jasmine Batchelor, Mary Chieffo, Brandon Hall, Eliza Huberth, Angelina Impellizzeri, Adam Langdon, Vella Lovell, Justin Mark, Kelsey McMahon, Mallory Portnoy, Rowan Vickers, Mary Wiseman, and Max Woertendyke.

While Juilliard Drama Division performances aren't open for review, we invite you to enjoy these productions featuring the next generation of American actors.

Tickets at $20 are available online at events.juilliard.edu or at the Janet and Leonard Kramer Box Office at Juilliard, 155 West 65th Street. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 11 AM - 6 PM. Student tickets at $10 are available only at the Juilliard Box Office. For further information, call (212) 769-7406.

JUILLIARD DRAMA DIVISION - 2014-15 CALENDAR OF EVENTS

By the Way, Meet Vera Stark
By Lynn Nottage
Directed by Lucie Tiberghien

Lynn Nottage, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Ruined, explores racial stereotyping in 1930's Hollywood and beyond in this sharply observed comedy. Vera Stark, an aspiring African-American actress, works as a maid for Gloria Sinclair, a narcissistic white movie star. When both women start angling for roles in the same Southern epic, sparks fly. Vera prevails, but her controversial, marginalized career leaves a troubling legacy for the film scholars of the future.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014 (8 PM)
Thursday, October 9, 2014 (8 PM)
Friday, October 10, 2014 (8 PM)
Saturday, October 11, 2014 (2 PM and 8 PM)
Sunday, October 12, 2014 (7 PM)

Rabbit Hole
By David Lindsay-Abaire
Directed by Rebecca Guy

David Lindsay-Abaire was a student in The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program when co-director Marsha Norman urged him, "write about the thing that frightens you most." Recalling this advice years later as a new father, he sat down and wrote Rabbit Hole. This deeply affecting play about a couple grappling with the loss of their young child is suffused with empathy and, surprisingly, with humor. Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony nominee for Best Play.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014 (8 PM)
Thursday, October 30, 2014 (8 PM)
Friday, October 31, 2014 (8 PM)
Saturday, November 1, 2014 (2 PM and 8 PM)
Sunday, November 2, 2014 (7 PM)

Angels in America: Part I, Millennium Approaches
By Tony Kushner
Directed by Lila Neugebauer

In 1992 while a young Tony Kushner was playwright-in-residence, Juilliard mounted a workshop production of Part I of his ambitious new play, Angels in America. The following year, both parts of this groundbreaking work - Millenium Approaches and Perestroika - opened in repertory on Broadway, winning two successive Tony Awards for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize. Subtitled "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes," this play about love and responsibility set during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s became the defining theatrical event of a generation.

Thursday, November 20, 2014 (8 PM)
Friday, November 21, 2014 (8 PM)
Saturday, November 22, 2014 (2 PM and 8 PM)
Sunday, November 23, 2014 (7 PM)
Monday, November 24, 2014 (8 PM)

Juilliard Drama Division - Fourth-Year Repertory - February 11-22, 2015
The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?
By Edward Albee
Directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch

Martin, a successful architect, lives in seeming contentment with his wife, Stevie, and their son, Billy - until one day, Martin confesses that he's fallen in love with Sylvia - who happens to be a goat. When The Goat won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play, Edward Albee dryly thanked his producers for believing that "Broadway was ready to see a play about love." Bestiality isn't the only taboo that Albee takes on in this unsettling, provocative, and outrageously funny work.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015 at 8 PM
Saturday, February 14, 2015 at 8 PM
Sunday, February 15, 2015 at 2 PM
Thursday, February 19, 2015 at 8 PM
Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 8 PM

Macbeth
Adapted and Directed by Erica Schmidt

In director Erica Schmidt's innovative adaptation, four women embody the entire cast of Macbeth, Shakespeare's tragedy about the corrosive power of ambition. Witches, ghosts, and prophecies drive this tale of a brave Scottish general who believes he is destined to be king of Scotland. Spurred on by his wife, Macbeth murders the ruling king and takes the throne for himself. But one slaughter leads to another, and guilt tortures the new king and queen until retribution finally overtakes them.

Thursday, February 12, 2015, 8 PM
Sunday, February 15, 2015, 8 PM
Tuesday, February 17, 2015, 8 PM
Friday, February 20, 2015, 8 PM
Saturday, February 21, 2015, 2 PM

Metamorphoses
By Mary Zimmerman
Directed by Moni Yakim

Devised years ago at Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company by visionary director/adaptor Mary Zimmerman, Metamorphoses brings the familiar tales of Roman poet Ovid to stunning theatrical life. Mythological stories of love, loss, and transformation are enacted in and around a large pool of water onstage. Nominated for three 2002 Tony Awards, including Best Play, Metamorphoses mingles ancient archetypes with contemporary vernacular to create what Time called "the theater event of the year."

Friday, February 13, 2015, 8 PM
Saturday, February 14, 2015, 2 PM
Wednesday, February 18, 2015, 8 PM
Saturday, February 21, 2015, 8 PM
Sunday, February 22, 2015, 2 PM

Tickets for all Juilliard Drama repertory performances are $20 and available online at events.juilliard.edu or at the Janet and Leonard Kramer Box Office at Juilliard. Student tickets at $10 are available only at the Juilliard Box Office. For further information, call (212) 769-7406.

All performances take place in the Stephanie P. McClelland Drama Theater, The Juilliard School, 155 West 65th Street, 4th Floor, NYC.