La Jolla Playhouse Premieres Doug Wright's CREDITORS Tonight, 9/29

La Jolla Playhouse presents the world premiere of Creditors, adapted and directed by Pulitzer Prize-winner Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife) from the play by August Strindberg. A La Jolla Playhouse commission, Creditors opens tonight, September 29, and will run through October 25 in the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre.

Adaptor/director Doug Wright gives August Strindberg’s Creditors a modern-day urgency in this compelling and savagely witty play. Two men — an artist and a mysterious stranger — strike up a seemingly innocent conversation at a seaside resort. As they exchange increasingly intimate perspectives on art, marriage and women — in particular, the artist’s wife — undercurrents of sexuality, language and economics explode into a tangled web of intrigue, suspicion and revenge in this gripping 19th century psychological thriller.

“We are delighted to continue our long association with Doug Wright, whose acclaimed I Am My Own Wife inaugurated our Page To Stage program,” said La Jolla Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley. “Commissions represent a core component of our artistic mission, and we couldn’t be more excited to help originate Doug’s latest creation.”

Wright stated, “Creditors is Strindberg's underappreciated masterpiece; on its surface, it's a tautly structured thriller, but underneath its heart-pounding plot lies a rich, unsettling rumination on the toxicity of love."

La Jolla Playhouse has commissioned more than 30 plays over the last several seasons. Commissions are a fundamental part of The Playhouse’s mission to advance theatre as an art form and provide unfettered creative opportunities for the leading artists of today and tomorrow. Past Playhouse commissions include Claudia Shear’s Restoration (2009), Current Nobody (2005), The Burning Deck (2003), Tony Kushner’s Good Person of Setzuan (1994), Lee Blessing’s Fortinbras (1991), Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters (1997), and many others.

The cast features: Kathryn Meisle (Broadway’s A Touch of the Poet, Tartuffe) as “Tekla,” Omar Metwally (Tony Award nomination for Sixteen Wounded) as “Adolf” and T. Ryder Smith (Equus, Dead Man’s Cell Phone) as “Gustav.”

The production team includes: Doug Wright, director; Robert Brill, scenic designer; Susan Hilferty, costume designer; Japhy Weideman, lighting designer; Jill BC DuBoff, sound designer; Shirley Fishman, dramaturg; and Jennifer Wheeler, stage manager.

Tickets are $30 – $65 and are available by calling the La Jolla Playhouse Box Office at (858) 550-1010 or online at www.lajollaplayhouse.org.

Performance times for Creditors are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 pm; Thursday and Friday at 8:00 pm; Saturday at 2:00 pm and 8:00 pm; and Sunday at 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm.

Creditors is sponsored by California Bank & Trust. The production is co-sponsored by Dr. Howard and Barbara Milstein and Molli and Arthur Wagner.

In 2004, playwright Doug Wright was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award for Best Play, and the Drama Desk Award for his play I Am My Own Wife. In 2006, he received Tony and Drama Desk nominations for his book for the Broadway musical Grey Gardens.  He also authored the book for the stage incarnation of Disney’s beloved film The Little Mermaid. His stage work has been seen internationally in countries from Japan to Romania. Earlier in his career, Mr. Wright won an Obie Award for his play Quills.  He went on to write the screenplay adaptation, making his motion picture debut. The film was named Best Picture by the National Board of Review and nominated for three Academy Awards.  His screenplay was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and received the Paul Selvin Award from the Writer’s Guild of America.   Other notable film work includes production rewrites on major releases at Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox and The Weinstein Company. For director Rob Marshall, Doug penned the television special Tony Bennett: An American Classic, which received seven Emmy Awards. Directing credits include his own play, Unwrap Your Candy, at the Vineyard Theater in New York, and Kiki and Herb: Pardon Our Appearance in Washington DC, Philadelphia and London.  Acting credits include Little Manhattan, Two Lovers and Law and Order. Currently, Doug serves on the boards of the New York Theater Workshop, the Pen American Center,  and the Dramatists Guild.  He is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and of the Writer’s Guild of America.

The nationally-acclaimed, Tony Award-winning La Jolla Playhouse is renowned for its tradition of creating the most exciting and adventurous new work in regional theatre. The Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, and is considered one of the most well-respected not-for-profit theatres in the country. Numerous Playhouse productions have moved to Broadway, including Big River, The Who’s Tommy, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, A Walk in the Woods, Dracula, Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays, the Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Jersey Boys, The Farnsworth Invention, Cry-Baby, 33 Variations and Memphis. Located on the UCSD campus, La Jolla Playhouse is made up of three primary performance spaces: the Mandell Weiss Theatre, the Mandell Weiss Forum Theatre, and the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Center for La Jolla Playhouse, a state-of-the-Art Theatre complex which features the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre.