Works by Paula Vogel, Paul Weitz, Jim & Ruth Bauer Set for 2nd Stage in 2011-2012

Following a critically acclaimed season which included the World Premiere of Lynn Nottage's hit comedy, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Second Stage Theatre has announced three of the four mainstage productions in the company's upcoming 33rd season.  

The 2011-2012 season will kick off this fall with the New York Premiere of the new musical, THE BLUE FLOWER, written by Jim Bauer and Ruth Bauer, directed by Will Pomerantz. Winner of Boston's Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Musical Production, THE BLUE FLOWER will begin previews in October prior to a November opening.

Paul Weitz, whose acclaimed play, Trust, received an extended, sold-out run last summer, will return to Second Stage with another world premiere comedy, LONELY, I'M NOT. Performances will begin in early 2012.

Second Stage will also present Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE, in its first New York staging since its world premiere fifteen years ago.

A fourth production is still to be announced.

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THE BLUE FLOWER

By Jim Bauer and Ruth Bauer
Directed by Will Pomerantz
Previews begin in October; opening early November

Spanning two continents and half a century, the new musical, THE BLUE FLOWER, explores the romantic and tumultuous relationships between four young friends - three artists and a scientist - as they create a world of art, revolution, and passion amidst the turbulence and destruction of the World Wars.

Writer/composer/lyricist Jim Bauer earned a Bachelor's degree in music composition and theory at Haverford College, where he was mentored by composers Harold Boatrite and John Davison. He has composed and produced music scores for film and television while performing as singer/songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist in a variety of bands he periodically assembles. With DAGMAR, his current project with singing partner Meghan McGeary, he performs in the New York City subways under the Music Under New York (MUNY) banner and on the streets of Boston and Cambridge. DAGMAR recently released its third CD, Door No. 3. He has received numerous songwriting and performance awards, including the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Award in 2004 with his wife Ruth Bauer for their work on The Blue Flower. www.dagmartheband.com.

Co-writer/visual artist/videographer Ruth Bauer is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. Her oil paintings, watercolors, collages and monotypes have been shown in group exhibits in museums including Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, The Hudson River Museum, The Tuscon Museum of Art, The DeCordova Museum, The Brockton Museum and the Rose Art Museum, and in solo exhibitions in galleries across the United States. Her work is included in notable private and public collections and has been reviewed in a number of articles in art journals and newspapers, including ArtNews and The Boston Globe. As an illustrator she has created book jacket covers for Hougton Mifflin, Viking, Harvard University Press and Orchard Books. She is a faculty member and Chair of the Arts Department at Shore Country Day School in Beverly, Mass. She is a 2004 recipient of a Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Award.

Director Will Pomerantz has directed and developed new plays, musical theater, and opera with such theaters as Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theatre, Hartford Stage, New York Theater Workshop, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Soho Rep, Culture Project, The Signature Theatre, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Studio Theatre, Bard Summerscape and The Guthrie. He has directed world premieres by John Guare, David Auburn, Neil LaBute, Craig Lucas, Kia Corthron, David Lindsay-Abaire, Stephen Belber, Noah Haidle and Linda Cho. His production of The Shape of Things was voted Outstanding Production of the Year in Washington, D.C. by Metro Weekly and received a Helen Hayes Award for outstanding performance, as well as being cited as among the year's best by The Washington Post and The Washington Times. His production Dai (starring Iris Bahr) received a Drama Desk nomination for Best Solo Performance 2006-2007 and won the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Solo Performance. He received an OOBR Award for Outstanding Production (for A Tale of Two Cities) and his work has been a Critic's Pick in Time Out NY and The Village Voice. Pomerantz is Associate Director for Artistic Development for Epic Theatre Ensemble, where he directed the New York premiere of Howard Barker's A Hard Heart (starring Kathleen Chalfant) and Mahida's Extra Key to Heaven. Pomerantz is the first American director ever invited to direct for The National Theatre of Poland, where his production if Cinders, by Janusz Glowacki, was performed as part of the repertory for four years. In addition, he has been the Boris Sagal Fellow in Directing for Williamstown Theatre Festival, Staff Repertory Director for The Acting Company, Director-In-Residence for Culture Project and is an alumnus of the Directors Lab at Lincoln Center, a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop and a member of Ensemble Studio Theater.

LONELY, I'M NOT

World Premiere
By Paul Weitz
Director TBD
Previews begin in early 2012

At an age when most people are discovering what they want to do with their lives, Porter has been married and divorced, earned seven figures as a corporate "ninja," and had a nervous breakdown. It's been four years since he's had a job or a date, and he's decided to give life another shot. LONELY, I'M NOT is a comic journey that follows one man as he tries to put the many pieces of his life back together.

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