Primary Stages Announces 25th Anniversary Season

Primary Stages (Casey Childs, Founder & ExecutiveProducer; Andrew Leynse, Artistic Director; Elliot Fox, Managing Director) has announced its upcoming 25 th anniversary season of new works offering a 3-play series celebrating female playwrights.

The 2009-2010 Season will see the world premiere of A Lifetime Burning by Cusi Cram, and the New York premieres of Happy Now? by Lucinda Coxon, and Night Watcher by Charlayne Woodard at Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59 th Street).

In a statement, Casey Childs, Founder & Executive producer, said, "Primary Stages hasalways had a commitment to playwrights and we have been lucky to help nurture andenjoy the success of many extraordinary women writers. We are thrilled to premiere these new works by these three playwrights as a way to celebrate our 25th Anniversary.

"Opening the 25 th Anniversary Season is A Lifetime Burning by Cusi Cram. In thisworld premiere, trust fund darling Emma imagines what her life would have been like hadshe come from a less privileged background. Trouble is, she chronicles her alternate life ina new tell-all "memoir" that was sold for a hefty advance. When Emma is exposed, willher sister, Tess, stand by her? Or will Emma's deceit destroy their already fracturedrelationship? This dark comedy brings up questions of legacy, loyalty and what it means to belong.

Cusi Cram's work has been hailed as imaginative, original, poetic and has been producedacross the country at theaters such as Barrington Stage, The Public Theater and South Coast Rep. "Primary Stages has had the honor of presenting the earlier works of manygifted playwrights including Donald Margulies, Conor McPherson and John PatrickShanley," said Andrew Leynse, Artistic Director. "We are thrilled to present this worldpremiere production."

Performances begin July 28, 2009 for a limited run throughSeptember 5, 2009. Primary Stages continues the 2009-2010 season with New York premiere of NightWatcher, written and performed by Charlayne Woodard. Simultaneously a bestfriend, advisor, confidant and sage to the many young people who call her "Auntie,"Charlayne Woodard is childless only by biological standards. Told with penetrating grace and candor, Woodard beautifully weaves together stories of the ordinary andextraordinary ways she's mentored the children in her life.

Declared "thoughtful, vivid,entertaining and poignant" in its Seattle Repertory run last October, The Night Watcher isan intimate look at the alternative definition of being a parent. Performances beginSeptember 22, 2009 for a limited engagement through October 31, 2009. A chance encounter at a hotel plays upon Kitty's mind in the dark comedy Happy Now? by Lucinda Coxon, as she struggles to balance personal freedom with family life, fidelityand a demanding job.

Her husband is more interested in misplaced apostrophes than intheir marriage, her parents are looking down the barrel of oblivion, and although she toyswith the idea of joining a gym, Kitty's running out of time for big changes. Happy Now? dares to ask just that, in this painfully truthful, darkly comic take on contemporary life and how to survive it.

Happy Now? opened to rave reviews at The National Theatre in London last year: TheNew York Times called it, "A sharp, entertaining comedy. Delves with eloquence andinsight into the way we live now." While Variety enthused that Happy Now? is"Startlingly true, funny, smart and sardonic." Under the direction of Liz Diamond,Happy Now? concludes the 25 th Anniversary Season when performances begin January26, 2010 for a limited run through March 6, 2010.

3-play subscription packages are available by calling TicketCentral at (212) 279-4200 oronline at www.TicketCentral.com.For additional information about Primary Stages, please visit the website at www.primarystages.org.

Lucinda Coxon (Playwright, Happy Now?) has worked at The Bush Theatre, SohoTheatre, The Royal Court Theatre, and The National Theatre in London; and in the US atSouth Coast Repertory, Magic Theatre, and Ohio Theatre in New York. Her plays includeWaiting at the Water's Edge, Wishbones, Three Glances, The Ice Palace, Nostalgia, Vesuvius, I Am Angela Brazil by Angela Brazil, The Shoemaker's Incredible Wife, andHappy Now? Her screenplays include Spaghetti Slow, The Heart of Me, Lilacs, and WildTarget which is currently shooting in the UK in September starring Bill Nighy.

She has just finished work on The Danish Girl, a screen adaptation of David Ebershoff's novel, andis currently writing a new play, Persistent Illusions, for The National Theatre.Cusi Cram (Playwright, A Lifetime Burning) Her plays have been produced byLAByrinth Theater Company (All the Bad Things), The Denver Theater Center (Dusty andthe Big Bad World), The Williamstown Theater Festival (Lucy and the Conquest), andBarrington Stage (Fuente).

Upcoming: The Wild Inside at Fordham directed by JacksonGay. Ms. Cram's work has also been produced and developed at The O'Neill PlaywrightsConference, The Atlantic Theater Company, The Public Theater, South Coast Repertory,Manhattan Class Company, The New Group, The Echo Theater Company, New YorkTheatre Workshop, The Humana Festival, New Georges, The Miranda Theater, PS122 and the Dag Hammarskjold Theater at the United Nations.

She is the recipient of the 2004Herrick Theater Foundation New Play Prize for her play Fuente. Cusi has also receivedthree Emmy award nominations for her writing on the animated children's program"Arthur". She is a member of LAByrinth Theater Company, the MCC PlaywrightsCoalition, and The Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages andsits on New Georges' Kitchen Cabinet. She teaches playwriting at Primary Stages School ofTheater and with LAByrinth Theater Company. She is a graduate oF Brown University andthe Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard.

Charlayne Woodard (Actress/Playwright, Night Watcher) Ms. Woodard's first soloplay, Pretty Fire, was produced at Manhattan Theatre Club ("MTC"). Pretty Fire receivedLA Drama Critics and NAACP awards for best play and best playwright. Her second soloplay, Neat, was developed at Seattle Repertory Theatre. At MTC, Neat received theBlanche and Irving Laurie Theatre Vision Award and an Outer Critics Circle Awardnomination. Her third solo play, In Real Life, was commissioned by Center Theatre Group ("CTG") and Seattle Repertory Theatre, and was developed at the Sundance TheatreLab.

At MTC, Ms. Woodard was nominated for Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circleawards for best solo performance. The play received an Audelco award, BackStage WestGarland award, and NAACP awards for best playwright and actor. Flight, a play for 6actors, was commissioned by P.L.A.Y. at CTG. Flight was produced by CTG at the KirkDouglas Theatre in Los Angeles and by ACT in Seattle. Ms. Woodard's recent solo play,The Night Watcher, has been produced by the La Jolla Playhouse and The SeattleRepertory Theatre. She was recently awarded an honorary doctorate in humane lettersfrom De Paul University and also completed a TCG/PEW Charitable Trust NationalTheatre Artist Residency Program Fellowship at CTG. She is a guest artist at CaliforniaInstitute for the Arts where she teaches solo performance to 3 rd year Masters' students.

Ms. Woodard's recent theatre credits include In The Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks, for which she received an Obie Award, Fabulation by Lynn Nottage and Purgatorio by ArielDorfman. On Broadway, she was nominated for Tony and Drama Desk awards for her role in the original company of Ain't Misbehavin'. Her recent film credits include John Sayle'sSunshine State; M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable, Wim Wender's Million Dollar Hotel, Nicholas Hytner's The Crucible, and John Schlesinger's Eye For An Eye.

She has recurringroles on "Law and Order, SVU" and "ER." Ms. Woodard was trained at Goodman Schoolof Drama in Chicago and is a member of The Actor's Studio.Primary Stages was founded in 1984 as a New York State non-profit theater companywith the mission of producing new plays and nurturing the development of playwrights.In our 24 seasons we have produced over 100 productions of new plays by such playwrights as Brooke Berman, Lee Blessing, Charles Busch, Constance Congdon, A.R.Gurney, Michael Hollinger, Willy Holtzman, David Ives, Julia Jordan, Romulus Linney, Michele Lowe, Donald Margulies, Melissa Manchester, Terrence McNally, ConnorMcPherson, John Henry Redwood, Lanie Robertson, John Patrick Shanley and MacWellman.

We seek to provide a supportive environment where writers are encouraged toexplore the scope of their creative vision. Our productions and our artists have receivedconsiderable critical acclaim including Obie, AUDELCO, Outer Critics Circle, LucilleLortel (Outstanding Body of Work), Drama League, Drama Desk, Helen Hayes(Washington, DC), L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation, and Joseph Jefferson (Chicago) awards and nominations. Many of our productions have been world premieres and all of themhave been New York premieres. Lincoln Center Theater, by special arrangement withPrimary Stages, recently presented Horton Foote's Dividing The Estate on Broadway at theBooth Theatre. Primary Stages continues to nurture playwrights through commissions,our weekly PrimeTime Reading Series and our emerging playwrights developmentprogram, The Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group, now in its 13 th year.

We offer a wide array of classes and workshops at Primary Stages School of Theater, host freematinee performances for NYC public high school students, and enhance studentappreciation of the theater through in-school programming with our Primary Voices program.To learn more about Primary Stages please visit our website at www.primarystages.org.

Photo: Charlayne Woodard and Alan Michael Harris