ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK's Annie Golden Leads UNDERLAND, Beginning Tonight at 59E59 Theaters

59E59 Theaters welcomes terraNOVA Collective with the NY premiere of UNDERLAND, written by Alexandra Collier and directed by Mia Rovegno. UNDERLAND begins performances tonight, April 3 for a limited engagement through Saturday, April 25. Press opening is Saturday, April 11 at 8:15 PM.

The performance schedule is Tuesday - Thursday at 7:15 PM; Friday & Saturday at 8:15 PM; and Sunday at 3:15 PM. Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues). Tickets are $25 ($17.50 for 59E59 Members). To purchase tickets, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 or go to www.59e59.org.

In a dusty town in the dead center of Australia, two teenage schoolgirls dream of escape while digging a hole to China. But not paying attention in geography class can take you in a different direction, and when a Tokyo businessman crawls out of the earth, the girls get a glimpse of an exotic world way beyond the town's borders. This irreverent, mythic and magical play explores the isolation and terror the Australian landscape provokes with its strange inhabitants and dangerous beasts.

UNDERLAND was developed at Dixon Place and the Sydney Theatre Company and nominated for the 2014 Weissberger Award at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Broadway veteran Annie Golden (Orange is the New Black) leads a cast that includes Georgia Cohen (12th Night with Fiasco Theater), Daniel K. Isaac (Lost Tribe with Target Margin), Kiley Lotz (NY debut) and Angeliea Stark (This Might Catch Fire... at The Bushwick Starr).

The scenic designer is Gabriel Hainer Evansohn (Twelve Ophelias at McCarren Park Pool). The lighting designer is Burke Brown (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Clubbed Thumb). The costume design is by Moria Sine Clinton (Dying for It at Atlantic Theater Company). The sound design is by Elisheba Ittoop (Washeteria at Soho Rep). Becca Pickett is the stage manager.

Alexandra Collier (playwright) is a writer from Australia, based in New York. Her plays have been developed at Sydney Theatre Company, Women's Project, New Georges, The Lark, terraNOVA Collective, and Dixon Place. Her recent work includes Take Me Home (a mobile theater piece in a New York city taxi, Incubator Art Project, Other Forces Festival), We Play for the Gods (created with Women's Project, Cherry Lane), Holy Day (Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist, The Kilroys Top 46 List), Underland (Sydney Theatre Company workshop and Page to Stage workshop, Dixon Place; nominated for Weissberger Award). Her New York debut, The Will of the Cockroach was commissioned by The Production Company and directed by May Adrales as part of the Australia Project. Alexandra performed in the premiere of Still Waiting (La Mama, Melbourne), which subsequently toured to the Adelaide Fringe Festival and was awarded the RE Ross Trust Playwrights Award. Other awards/fellowships include: UCROSS Foundation Fellowship, SPACE on Ryder Farm residency, Rhinebeck Writer's Retreat, MacDowell Fellowship and the Dame Joan Sutherland Award (Australian-American Association). She is a graduate of Mac Wellman's Brooklyn College MFA playwriting program, a Women's Project Playwrights Lab '10-12 alumni and a recent member of terraNOVA's Groundbreakers Playwrights Group, 2014.

Mia Rovegno (director) is a Brooklyn-based director, playwright and puppeteer who devises, adapts and collaborates with living playwrights. Founding artistic director of HummingbirdWORKS, she has also performed with Redmoon Theater, foolsFURY, Shadowlight, Bread and Puppet Theater, and Intersection for the Arts. Her plays have been developed by P73, New Georges, Pataphysics, Culture Project, The Civilians, Perishable Theater, and foolsFURY. Mia has directed new work for Soho Rep, Women's Project, New York Theater Workshop, Berkeley Rep, The Civilians, The O'Neill, Ars Nova, Clubbed Thumb, New York Stage & Film, The Lark, Playwrights Realm, Atlantic Theater Company, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Labyrinth Theater Company, Bushwick Starr, Culture Project, New Dramatists, Rising Phoenix, EST, Partial Comfort, The Amoralists, The Flea, Dixon Place, A.R.T., 2G, Personal Space Theatrics, IAMA, Lake George Theater Lab, Brown University/A.R.T. Institute, Harvard Playwrights Festival, Hangar Theatre, and Playwrights Rep. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist and a company member with Partial Comfort Productions. Mia is a recipient of the 2013 Audrey Artist Residency with New Georges, the P73 Yale Summer Residency, Pataphysics Silent Writer's Residency, SDC Observership, and MTC's Jonathan Alper Fellowship. She is a Drama League fellow and an alum of Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, The Civilians R & D Writers Group, Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, and Women's Project Directors Lab. She has been nominated for the Ockrent Directing Fellowship and the O'Neill National Directors Fellowship, and was a finalist for the Beatrice Terry Drama League Residency. Mia received her BS in Performance Studies from Northwestern and MFA in Directing from Brown University. Former teaching fellow and guest lecturer at Brown and adjunct faculty at New College of California, she is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Hunter College's Department of Theatre.

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