Theatre Exile Announces 2011-2012 Season

Theatre Exile continues their legacy of bringing Philadelphia its first taste of the world's most exciting and adventurous playwrights with their 2011-2012 season. They have introduced Philadelphia to the work of Tracy Letts, Adam Rapp, Noah Haidle, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb and many other nationally acclaimed playwrights. Next season, Theatre Exile will be the first to bring Philadelphia the work of Annie Baker and Rajiv Joseph, two of the nation's most exciting, emerging playwrights. Theatre Exile will also bring back the authors of their two most critically acclaimed productions, David Harrower and Martin McDonagh.

Theatre Exile will launch their 2011/2012 season with the Philadelphia premiere of The Aliens by Annie Baker. The Aliens brings audiences to a warm summer night behind a coffee shop. Two ex-band members lure a lonely teenager into their world of alienation and rebellion. Though male posturing and moments of shared glories the troubled lives of the three young men, relegated as "slackers", are revealed. With a dash of mumblecore humor and live jamming sessions, The Aliens will haunt you with its charm and its sincerity.

Theatre Exile presents the Philadelphia premiere of one of America's fastest rising playwright stars, Annie Baker. Winner of the 2010 Obie Award for Best American Play, critics have hailed The Aliens as "a gentle and extraordinarily beautiful new play...the longer you look, the more you see and the more you feel." (New York Times) Starring Jeb Kreager, Sam Henderson, and Aubie Merrylees, The Aliens will be directed by Matt Pfeiffer. The Aliens press opening is September 7th , and runs as part of the Philly Fringe Festival at Exile's intimate Studio X.

Next, Theatre Exile invites audiences to witness the rollercoaster relationship of two star-crossed lovers with Gruesome Playground Injuries by Rajiv Joseph. An accident prone dare devil and a corrosive masochist navigate friendship, love and the squishy parts that lie in between. In a series of non-linear vignettes that bounce over three decades of a relationship, Doug and Kayleen meet in a school nurse's office and from there build a complex connection over a lifetime of injuries, both physical and emotional. Truly a different type of love story, Gruesome will leave you smarting from its sharp humor and shaper insights.

Theatre Exile presents the Philadelphia premier of the work of this year's most critically acclaimed playwright, Rajiv Joseph, 2010 Pulitzer Prize Finalist. Critics have noted "Mr. Joseph's talent lay in taking on sweeping moral issues with a strong sense of humor." (New York Times ) Starring Keith Conallen and Charlotte Ford and directed by Deborah Block, Gruesome Playground Injuries press opening is November 16th at Philadelphia Shakespeare Theater.

Theatre Exile also brings the Philadelphia premiere of another work by David Harrower, Knives in Hens. A young woman works the soil beside her new husband, with her eyes firmly planted on the mud beneath their feet. When a chance meeting with the village's outcast brings new words and new ideas into her life, the three become locked in an erotic struggle. Words may be as strong as a lover's arms and as dangerous as a jealous streak, but violence can still tear a family apart. Knives in Hens will seduce you with its poetry and keep you sitting on The Edge of your seat until its climax.

Theatre Exile presents the Philadelphia premiere of David Harrower's first play, after staging his immensely powerful Blackbird to critical praise in 2009. Starring Ross Beschler, Emilie Krause and Jered McLennigan, "Harrower's play is a marvelous, ­mysterious thing: a drama of real ­passion written in a stark, puritan style."(The Guardian UK) Directed by Brenna Geffers, Knives in Hens press opening is February 15th at Christ Church Neighborhood House.

As the season finale, Theatre Exile presents A Behanding in Spokane, another work from Martin McDonagh, author of last season's bloody hit, The Lieutenant of Inishmore. A mysterious stranger is on the hunt for his missing appendage and two bungling crooks along with one devious hotel receptionist are caught up in his dangerous machinations. Carmichael (think Captain Ahab meets Dennis Hopper) brings us into his obsessive search for what has been missing from his life since childhood. Another dazzlingly macabre tale from McDonagh, Behanding slices open the roots of fanaticism and lays open the need to be "whole" again and the contempt we have for outsiders in a post-9/11 America.

Starring Exile favorites Pearce Bunting, Matt Pfeiffer and Amanda Schoonover and introducing Reuben Mitchell, "this 90-minute exercise in hilarious terror shares the brutality and pitch-black humor of the Irish playwright's previous works." (Backstage) Directed by Joe Canuso, A Behanding In Spokane press opening is April 25th at Christ Church Neighborhood House.

With the Philadelphia premiere of two of the nations fastest -rising stars of American playwrighting, and the Philadelphia premiere of stories from two of Exile's most popular playwrights ever, the 2011-2012 season in Exile promises to be the most thrilling and most engaging theatrical ride in the city. See the best playwrights and see them first at Theatre Exile.

Website www.theatreexile.org

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