Rapp's Essential Self-Defense Premieres in NY, Spring '07

Playwrights Horizons and the 2006 Obie Award-winning Edge Theater will produce the World Premiere of Essential Self-Defense, a new play by Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie Award winner Adam Rapp. The play is Rapp's eagerly-awaited follow-up to his acclaimed Red Light Winter. He is the Resident Playwright of Edge Theater.

Directed by Carolyn Cantor (Orange Flower Water, Rapp's Stone Cold Dead Serious), it will begin performances in Spring 2007 at Playwrights Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater (416 West 42nd Street).

In Essential Self-Defense, "a disgruntled misfit takes a job as an attack dummy in a women's self-defense class and finds himself mysteriously drawn to the repressed bookworm who's beating on him. But all's not well on the mean Midwestern streets of Bloggs: with local children vanishing at an alarming rate, our hero, his lady friend and a motley assortment of poets, butchers and punk librarians prepare to battle the darkness on the edge of town," state press notes.

Casting and designers will be announced in the coming months.

The show will be the sixth and final production of Playwrights Horizons 2006-2007 season. It joins five previously-announced productions:

--The New York Premiere of The Pain and the Itch, a new play by Bruce Norris (The Infidel, The Unmentionables at Steppenwolf, as an actor Plunge at Playwrights Horizons, Biloxi Blues) and directed by Anna D. Shapiro (Associate Artist at Steppenwolf, premieres of The Pain and the Itch, Three Days of Rain, The Unmentionables at Steppenwolf).

--The New York premiere of Blue Door, a new play by Tanya Barfield (Dent, The Quick).

--The New York premiere of Floyd and Clea Under the Western Sky, a new musical with book and lyrics by David Cale (Lillian at Playwrights Horizons, Bessie Awards for Deep in a Dream of You, The Redthroats) and music by acclaimed jazz guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg and Cale.

--The New York Premiere of Frank's Home, a new play by Tony Award winner Richard Nelson (James Joyce's The Dead, Rodney's Wife, My Life with Albertine, Franny's Way, Goodnight Children Everywhere, all at Playwrights Horizons) and directed by Tony Award winner Robert Falls (Death of a Salesman, Long Day's Journey into Night, Aida). Frank's Home will be produced in association with The Goodman Theatre, where it will premiere this Fall.

--The World Premiere of Crazy Mary, a new play by A.R. Gurney (The Dining Room, The Perfect Party, Later Life, The Old Boy at Playwrights Horizons, Love Letters, Sylvia, Mrs. Farnsworth) and directed by Jim Simpson (Psych at Playwrights Horizons, The Guys, Mrs. Farnsworth).

Subscriptions to Playwrights Horizons' 2006-2007 season will be available shortly, in 6-show (four Mainstage productions and two productions in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater) or 4-show (four Mainstage productions) packages. Packages include "Anytime" (6-show $250, 4-show $190), "Matinees" (6-show $230, 4-show $170), "Previews and Sunday Nights" (6-show $215, 4-show $155), "FlexPass" (6 tickets $250, 4 tickets $190), "30&Under FlexPass" (6 tickets $120, 4 tickets $80) and "Student FlexPass" (6 tickets, $60, 4 tickets $40). In addition to discounts on all Mainstage season attractions, subscribers receive priority seating, ticket exchange privileges, parking and dining discounts, exclusive mailings of Playwrights Horizons Bulletins, and soon, members-only privileges on the Playwrights Horizons website.

For subscription and ticket information to all Playwrights Horizons productions, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200, noon to 8 pm daily, r purchase online at the Playwrights Horizons website at www.playwrightshorizons.org. For more information on Edge Theatre, visit www.edgetheater.org.