Amber Tamblyn, Thomas Sadoski, Zach Grenier, Judith Ivey and Peter Scolari to Close Out Vassar's 2016 Powerhouse Season

Vassar & New York Stage and Film just announced casting for the final weeks of the 32nd Powerhouse Season, running through July 31st at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY.

Among the standouts are Amber Tamblyn ("Two and a Half Men," "Joan of Arcadia") and Thomas Sadoski ("The Newsroom") joining Josh Radnor's first-ever play Sacred Valley; Zach Grenier ("The Good Wife") joining John Patrick Shanley's The Portuguese Kid; and Judith Ivey (The Audience) and Peter Scolari ("Girls") joining Dan LeFranc's Rancho Viejo. Past highlights from the celebrated Powerhouse program include the recent Tony-winners Hamilton and The Humans.

As previously announced, a musical workshop presentation of Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, co-directed by Mac and Niegel Smith, will receive a 3-hour/3-decade work-in-progress presentation on July 22 and 23, and will culminate in the project's first-ever 12-hour/12-decade performance cycle from noon to midnight on July 30.

The mainstage production of Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves (July 21-31), directed by Lila Neugebauer will feature Susannah Perkins (Every Angel is Brutal), Lauren Patten (Fun Home), Jenna Dioguardi, Tedra Millan (LOL), Sarah Mezzanotte ("Royal Pains"), Brenna Coates ("Ice Girls"), Samia Finnerty, Midori Francis (Connected), Lizzy Jutila, and Jodie Markell (Machinal, Balm in Gilead, Snakebit).

An "Inside Look" workshop of the new play Fingersmith (July 29-31) by Alexa Junge ("Friends", "The West Wing"), based on the novel by Sarah Waters, directed by Bill Rauch (All the Way), will feature Colby Minifie (Long Day's Journey Into Night), Elise Kibler (The Heidi Chronicles), Deirdre O'Connell ("The Path"), Nick Westrate (Casa Valentina, Tribes), Rocco Sisto (The King and I), Mandi Masden (Our Lady of Kibeho), Kathryn Kates ("Orange is the New Black"), Jade Wu (Marvel's "Luke Cage"), Daniel Molina (The Ape), Mitchell Sink (Matilda The Musical), Barzin Akhavan, Steve Mellor, Alejandra Escalante (Goodman Theatre's2666), and Ripley Sobo (Steve Jobs, Matilda The Musical).

The second Readings Festival includes:

The Portuguese Kid (July 22), written and directed by Academy Award®, Tony®, and Pulitzer Prize winner John Patrick Shanley, featuring, Zach Grenier ("The Good Wife"), Elizabeth Canavan (Between Riverside and Crazy), Marylouise Burke (Fish in the Dark), Pico Alexander (Punk Rock) and Kate Rockwell (Bring It On).

We Are Among Us (July 23), written by Stephen Belber, directed by Daniella Topol, and featuring Devika Bhise (The Man Who Knew Infinity), Heidi Armbruster ("Younger"), Angel Desai (Company), Shiloh Fernandez (Ironbound), and Albert Jones ("The Night Of").

Sacred Valley (July 23), written by Josh Radnor, directed by Sheryl Kaller, and featuring Amber Tamblyn ("Two and a Half Men," "Joan of Arcadia"), Thomas Sadoski ("The Newsroom"), and Michael Oberholtzer (Hand to God).

Between the Lines (July 24), music and lyrics by Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson, book by Timothy Allen McDonald, based on the books Between the Lines & Off the Page by Jodi Picoult & Samantha Van Leer, directed by Jeff Calhoun, and featuringSarah Lasko, Curt Hansen (Next to Normal), Becca Ayers, Christina DeCicco (Evita), Krystina Alabado (American Psycho),Luke Hawkins (Hail, Caesar!), Matt Stocke, Madeline Doherty (The Producers), Martin Landry (Twilight: The Musical), Janice Landry (Deployed), and Megan Rozak.

Rancho Viejo (July 24), by Dan LeFranc, directed by Daniel Aukin, and featuring Judith Ivey (The Audience), Peter Scolari("Girls"), Mark Zeisler (Piece of My Heart), Lisa Emery (Casa Valentina), JohAnna Day ("Madame Secretary"), Tyrone Mitchell Henderson, Socorro Santiago ("All My Children"), and Luke Slattery ("The Family").

Vassar & New York Stage and Film's Powerhouse Theater casting by Telsey + Company / Will Cantler, CSA; Karyn Casl, CSA.

Members of the noted Powerhouse Theater Training Program will present a reimagining of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (July 22-24), directed by Andrew Willis-Woodward; Soundpainting (July 21, 28), a series of improvisational performances; and The Price of Salt (July 24-25), by Emily Mendelsohn and Maggie Namaulyanga, directed by Mendelsohn.Young actors, playwrights, and directors from around the country and internationally, along with an exceptional faculty of artists, comprise this important component of the Powerhouse artistic community.

For tickets and additional information on the season, visit Powerhouse.Vassar.edu.

The Powerhouse Season is a vital incubator for artists and their work, and can count over twenty projects which recently had or will soon have major productions, including: Bright Star by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell; The Fortress of Solitude, by Michael Friedman and Itamar Moses (Public Theater & Dallas Theater Center); Michael John LaChiusa and Sybille Pearson's Rain, The Last Match, by Anna Ziegler, and In Your Arms (The Old Globe); Found, by Hunter Bell, Eli Bolin & Lee Overtree (Atlantic Theater Company, Philadelphia Theater Co.); Ayad Akhtar's Junk (La Jolla Playhouse) and The Invisible Hand (New York Theatre Workshop); Hadestown, by Anais Mitchell (NYTW); Dry Land, by Ruby Rae Spiegel (Colt Coeur at HERE); The House That Will Not Stand by Marcus Gardley (Berkeley Rep, Yale Rep); Big Sky by Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros (The Geffen); and Ripcord, by David Lindsay-Abaire (Manhattan Theatre Club).

Now in its 32nd year, Powerhouse Theater is a collaboration between New York Stage and Film and Vassar College dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development and production of new works for theater and film. The Powerhouse program consists of an eight-week residency on the Vassar campus during which more than 250 professional artists and 40 participants in the Powerhouse Training Program live and work together to create new theater works. Recent highlights at Powerhouse include Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton; Bright Star, an original musical from Steve Martin and Edie Brickell; The Fortress of Solitude, Itamar Moses, Michael Friedman and Daniel Aukin's musical adaptation of the best-selling novel by Jonathan Lethem, and Richard Greenberg's The Babylon Line. Many additional shows from past seasons have found their way to Broadway, Off-Broadway, and theaters nationwide, including Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet and The Humans (Roundabout Theater);The Invisible Hand by Ayad Akhtar (NYTW), Found by Hunter Bell, Lee Overtree and Eli Bolin (Atlantic Theater Co), Michael Mayer and Peter Lerman's Brooklynite (Vineyard Theater), Julia Jordan and Juliana Nash's Murder Ballad (Manhattan Theater Club); and Pulitzer finalist Nathan Englander's The Twenty-Seventh Man (The Public Theater; Old Globe Theater);. Other projects developed at the Powerhouse include the Tony Award-winning Side Man and Tru; the multi-award-winning Doubt by John Patrick Shanley; the groundbreaking Broadway musical American Idiot, and A Steady Rain, produced on Broadway in 2009 with Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig.

New York Stage and Film (Johanna Pfaelzer, Artistic Director; Thomas Pearson, Executive Director; Mark Linn-Baker, Max Mayer, Leslie Urdang, Producing Directors) is a not-for-profit company dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development of new works for theater and film. Since 1985 New York Stage and Film has played a significant role in the development of new plays, provided a home for a diverse group of artists free from critical and commercial pressures, and established itself as a vital cultural institution for residents of the Hudson Valley and the New York metropolitan region www.newyorkstageandfilm.org.

Vassar College (Ed Cheetham, Michael Sheehan, Producing Directors) is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential, liberal arts college founded in 1861. Consistently ranked as one of the country's best liberal arts colleges, Vassar is renowned for its long history of curricular innovation, and for the natural and architectural beauty of its campus. More than 50 academic departments and degree programs - from Anthropology to Cognitive Sciences to Urban Studies - encompass the arts, foreign languages, natural sciences, and social sciences, and combine to offer a curriculum of more than 1,000 courses. Vassar College is sited in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley in Poughkeepsie, NY. www.vassar.edu