LAVENDER SHORE Plays MITF, Begins Today

A woman with two husbands, one of whom has fallen in love with someone else, and a twice-scorned woman who is the best friend of the bride. Or is she? These are the people in Lawson Caldwell's Lavender Shore, which offers a gender-bending twist on a comic yet touching tale of true love in 1936 New York high society. Beginning July 27th and directed by Lenny Leibowitz, Lavender Shore will be performed at the MainStage Theater, located at 312 West 36th Street, as part of the 2011 Midtown International Theatre Festival.

New York widow Daphane March has just married businessman Thomas Darrow when she learns her first husband, Harrison Anderson, has been found alive on a deserted island where he and his British butler Gerald have been marooned for the past five years. During their time alone, Harrison and Gerald have fallen in love. Yet society demands Harrison return to his wife and Gerald resume his position as a servant. A proposition Harrison finds awkward and Gerald regards as intolerable. Can "the love that dare not speak its name" survive in a world where rules and convention are all that matter? My Favorite Wife was never like this!

The cast of Lavender Shore includes: Loni Ackerman* (Evita, Cats), Katie Yamulla*, Markus Potter* (A Perfect Future), Rachel Claire*, Colin Pritchard*, Alison Phillips, Marc Geller* (Adjoining Trances) and Patrick James Lynch*. The production is an Equity approved showcase. Managing Producer is Richard Manichello.

Lawson Caldwell has written fourteen full-length and three ten-minute plays, his works having been produced in Germany as well as the United States. This is Lawson's second appearance at the MITF, his play Gentleman's Wish having world premiered there in 2009. The first reading of Lavender Shore took place in 2005 at Actors Theatre of Charlotte. In addition to a reading at the Dramatist Guild of America (NYC), Lavender Shore was a finalist in SNAPFest (Omaha); a semi-finalist in The American Theatre Co-op's Playwriting Contest (La Jolla); and received Honorable Mention in Theatre Resources Unlimited Voices Reading Series (NYC). An Equity Showcase of Lavender Shore was produced at Manhattan Theatre Source in 2007. Recently his play, Waltzing, One, Two, Three was produced in The 5th Annual Notes from the Underground Festival (NYC) and was recognized as one of the Outstanding Plays in the festival. Lawson is also the author of a popular children's book, Colors Belong to Everyone and a member of Dramatist Guild of America, the Chicago Dramatist Playwrights Network and Theatre Resources Unlimited (TRU). www.lawsoncaldwell.com or http://www.facebook.com/pages/Playwright-Lawson-Caldwell/152790718117003.

Lenny Leibowitz is the founding artistic director for the Off-Broadway Marvell Repertory Theatre. Recent productions for Marvell include The Dybbuk and Blood Wedding. He has also directed at some of the nation's leading regional and Off-Broadway theatres, including the Olney Theatre, the National Players, Boston Playwright's Theatre and New Harmony Theatre, where he was artistic director for four years. New York credits include the world premiere of Making Tracks, which workshopped at the Joseph Papp Public Theatre and ran Off-Broadway at Rockefeller Center's Taipei Theater. Other regional theatre credits include the Huntington Theatre's Breaking Ground Festival (Boston), and Seattle's Intiman Theatre. A Philadelphia native, Lenny is a member of the Society of Directors and Choreographers and Actors Equity Association.

Running through July 31st, Lavender Shore will be performed on Wednesday, July 27th at 6pm, Thursday, July 28th at 6pm, Friday, July 29th at 8:30pm, Saturday, July 30th at 2pm and Sunday, July 31st at 4:30pm. The running time for Lavender Shore is approximately 90 minutes. Tickets: $18.00, $15.00 for students and seniors. Reservations: 866-811-4111 or www.midtownfestival.org. Members of the press are invited to all performances.

The Midtown International Theatre Festival's 2011 Season runs from July 11 - 31 at the June Havoc Theatre, 312 W. 36th Street, 1st floor; the Dorothy Strelsin Theatre, 312 W. 36th Street, 1st floor; the MainStage Theater, 312 W. 36th Street, 4th floor; and the Jewel Box Theater, 312 W. 36th Street, 4th floor. Tickets are $18-15 and are available at www.midtownfestival.org or by phone at 866-811-4111.

The Midtown International Theatre Festival, now in its twelfth year, celebrates the diversity of theatre. The MITF welcomes theatrical storytelling across a broad spectrum of genres, forms, identities, cultures, and appetites. The MITF seeks to nurture these new ideas, perspectives, and stories on its stages, with an eye set on guiding these productions toward future success and longevity. The festival, traditionally held in summer, represents a fantastic, often paradoxical, adventurous and intriguing cross-section of the forefront of the theatre world. The MITF proudly hosts production companies from across the country and around the globe, uniting talent in one of the biggest theatre capitals in the world. John Chatterton created the MITF in 2000, a Midtown alternative to other theatre festivals, as a way to present the finest off-off Broadway talent in convenience, comfort, and safety. In 2008, the Festival added two 99-seat theatres and inaugurated the Commercial Division for upwardly mobile shows with commercial ambitions. For more information, visit www.midtownfestival.org.

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