Betty Buckley, Hallie Foote, Annalee Jefferies and Veanne Cox to Lead the Cast of THE OLD FRIENDS at Houston's Alley Theatre, 8/15-9/7

The "Alley Theatre @ UH" season begins with Betty Buckley, Hallie Foote, Annalee Jefferies and Veanne Cox in award-winning Texas playwright Horton Foote's The Old Friends, a Southwestern premiere.

Tony Award winner Betty Buckley will reprise her role as Gertrude Hayhurst Sylvester Ratliff from the world premiere off-Broadway production, directed by Michael Wilson, who also directs the Alley Theatre production. Hallie Foote (Alley's Dividing the Estate) returns as Sibyl Borden, Annalee Jefferies (Alley's The Clean House) returns to the Alley as Mamie Borden and Veanne Cox makes her Alley debut as Julia Price. The cast of The Old Friends also includes Alley Theatre Resident Actors Jeffrey Bean as Albert Price and Jay Sullivan as Tom Underwood.

Also featured in the cast are Michelle Elaine as Catherine, Novella Nelson as Hattie and Cotter Smith as Howard Ratliff. Michael Wilson directed the Alley's acclaimed productions of Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate, The Trip to Bountiful, and The Carpetbagger's Children. On Broadway, Wilson directed the 2013 Tony Award winning revival of The Trip to Bountiful and also directed the 2014 Emmy-nominated Lifetime movie version.

The Old Friends tells the story of Matriarch Mamie Borden and the remaining members of two longtime Texas families who await a visit from Mamie's son Hugo and his wife Sybil. When Sybil arrives with alarming news, old friends on opposing sides must confront the issues surrounding legacy, loyalty, and the meaning of happiness that have hounded them for generations. Called "transcendent" by the New York Post, named the "critic's pick" by The New York Times and given "five stars" by Bloomberg, The Old Friends is an absorbing and vital chapter in Foote's beloved, distinctly American body of work. Contains mature themes.

The design team includes scenic design by Jeff Cowie and costume designer David C. Woolard. Lighting Design is by Rui Rita with Original Music and Sound design by John Gromada. Wig and Hair Design is by Paul Huntley with Choreography by Peter Pucci.

The work of the late Texas playwright, Horton Foote comes back to the Alley where his play The Carpetbagger's Children premiered in 2001. His many plays include Dividing the Estate (Alley 2011) The Day Emily Married, The Roads to Home, The Young Man From Atlanta (Alley 1996), The Trip to Bountiful (Alley 2003), Lily Dale, The Widow Claire, Laura Dennis and The Traveling Lady (Alley 1986). His honors include the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for The Young Man From Atlanta and two Academy Awards for his screenplays for To Kill A Mockingbird and Tender Mercies.

As the Alley Theatre undergoes the first major renovation in its history, all 2014-2015 season performances are at the University of Houston's (UH) main campus. Details about the previously announced renovation can be found at www.alleytheatre.org/renovation. Construction on the Alley Theatre building began in July, 2014 and will continue through the summer of 2015, with the grand opening of the renovated Alley Theatre scheduled for October 2015. For more information about the venue at UH visit www.alleytheatre.org/gettouh.

The Old Friends, by Horton Foote, directed by Michael Wilson, begins performances Friday, August 15 opens officially Wednesday, August 20, and runs through September 7, 2014 at the University of Houston's Wortham Theatre.

Horton Foote (Playwright) was born in Wharton, Texas, on March 14, 1916. His first play, Texas Town, was produced in 1941 in New York. For the next 68 years, until his death on March 4, 2009, Foote continued to write plays that illuminated a century of rural Texas life. Foote first achieved prominence in the 1950s and 1960s writing television plays, especially for Philco-Goodyear Playhouse, Playhouse 90, and DuPont Play of the Month. In 1953, he adapted his television play The Trip to Bountiful for a Broadway production featuring Lillian Gish, Eva Marie Saint, and Jo Van Fleet. In 2008 Dividing the Estate, directed by Michael Wilson, appeared on Broadway and earned a Tony nomination for Best Play. It later moved to Hartford Stage in May 2009 and now is being revived by the Alley Theatre in collaboration with The Old Globe, San Diego. The Alley produced The Trip to Bountiful in 2003, featuring Devon Abner and Hallie Foote. On Broadway, Michael Wilson directed the 2013 Tony Award winning revival of The Trip to Bountiful and also directed the 2014 Emmy-nominated Lifetime movie version. In 2001, the Alley Theatre commissioned and produced the world premiere of The Carpetbagger's Children in collaboration with Hartford Stage. The production transferred Off-Broadway in March 2002 and received the American Theatre Critics Award for Best Play. The Alley also presented The Young Man from Atlanta in 1996 and The Traveling Lady in 1986. In 2009, the nine-play The Orphans' Home Cycle, which includes Roots in a Parched Ground, Convicts, Lily Dale, Courtship, Valentine's Day, 1918, The Widow Claire, Cousins, and The Death of Papa, premiered at Hartford Stage and Off-Broadway at Signature Theatre. The three-part repertory under the direction of Michael Wilson and designed by Jeff Cowie, David C. Woolard, Rui Rita and John Gromada, featured Devon Abner, James DeMarse, Hallie Foote, Maggie Lacey and Jenny Dare Paulin. It received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, Drama Desk Award (Special Award), Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play and New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. Other plays by Foote include The Habitation of Dragons, The Last of the Thorntons and The Roads to Home.

Foote's numerous film credits include screenplays of his own work - including Courtship, On Valentine's Day, 1918 and Lily Dale, as well as adaptations. Foote received an Academy Award and the Writers Guild of America Award for his screenplay of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. His original screenplay Tender Mercies also won him an Academy Award. He adapted John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men for the 1991 film featuring John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.

In 1994, Signature Theatre dedicated its entire season to the works of Horton Foote. In 1995, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Lucille Lortel Award for an Individual Body of Work for The Young Man from Atlanta, which also received a Tony nomination for Best Play in 1997. Foote was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998, and in 2000, he received the National Medal of Arts and was awarded an honorary degree at the University of Hartford. In 2002, he received the Texas Medal of the Arts Award in literature and arts.

A memoir of his childhood, Farewell, was published in 2000, and a second volume about his early career, Beginnings, was published in 2001.

ABOUT THE CAST

Jeffrey Bean (Albert Price) is in his 20th season as an Alley Company Artist and has appeared in over 100 Alley productions since 1989. Recently he has appeared in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike as Vanya, Communicating Doors as Reece, the World Premiere of Fool as King William, A Christmas Carol as Ebenezer Scrooge, You Can't Take it With You as Mr. De Pinna, The Elephant Man as Frederick Treves, Clybourne Park as Russ/Dan, Death of a Salesman as Charley and November as Charles Smith. Previous Alley highlights include Amadeus as Salieri, Boeing-Boeing as Robert, The Farnsworth Invention as David Sarnoff, Cyrano de Bergerac as Cyrano, The Scene as Charlie, Doubt as Father Flynn, Subject to Fits as Prince Myshkin, Much Ado About Nothing as Benedick, The Pillowman as Michal, Twelfth Night as Feste, The Importance of Being Earnest as Algernon, Billy Bishop Goes to War as Billy Bishop, Gross Indecency as Oscar Wilde, The Foreigner as Charlie Baker and Stones in His Pockets as Charlie Conlon, et al. Broadway credits include Bells Are Ringing as Francis and Amadeus as Kappelmeister Bonno. Film & Television credits include Clinger, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU and All My Children. He is a graduate of Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts and a Princess Grace Award winner. www.jeffreybean.com

Betty Buckley (Gertrude Hayhurst Sylvester Ratliff) was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame for 2012. She won a Tony Award for Cats and received her second Tony Award nomination for Triumph of Love, an Olivier Award nomination in London for her performance in Sunset Boulevard, which she repeated to more rave reviews on Broadway. Her other Broadway credits include 1776, Pippin, Song And Dance, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Carrie. She starred in the London production of Dear World in 2013 and Promises, Promises. Off Broadway she has starred in The Old Friends (2014 Drama Desk Nomination), White's Lies, Juno's Swans, Edwin Drood for the New York Stage and Film and Getting My Act Together And Taking It On The Road. Regional credits include The Perfectionist, Gypsy, Threepenny Opera, Camino Real, Buffalo Gal, and Arsenic And Old Lace. Her film credits include M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, Brian de Palma's Carrie, Bruce Beresford's Tender Mercies, Roman Polanski's Frantic, Woody Allen's Another Woman and Lawrence Kasden's Wyatt Earp. Her TV credits include the mini-series The Pacific and the series OZ for HBO. She starred for four seasons as Abby on Eight is Enough and has made guest appearances on Law & Order: SVU , Without A Trace and Pretty Little Liars. She also starred in the miniseries Evergreen and Roses for the Rich and various films for television. She has received two Emmy nominations. Ms. Buckley has recorded 15 CD's, most recently "Ah, Men! The Boys of Broadway." Her CD Ghostlight produced by T Bone Burnett will be released in 2014. She has received two Grammy nominations and tours extensively in concert with her ensemble of musicians. For over forty years Ms. Buckley has been a teacher of scene study and song interpretation in various Universities and Arts Conservatories and currently gives Master Classes in Fort Worth, Texas. In 2009, Ms. Buckley was given the Texas Medal of Arts Award for Theater and was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in 2007.

Veanne Cox (Julia Price) recently appeared in The Old Friends at Signature Theatre, "Smash," "Pan Am," "Louie," The Most Deserving at Women's Project Theater and Present Laughter at Two River Theatre. Broadway credits include A Free Man of Color; La Cage aux Folles; Caroline, or Change; The Dinner Party; Company, which received Tony and Drama Desk Nominations; and Smile. Off-Broadway credits include an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence; Dam Yankees with Encores!; Blind at Rattlestick; Paradise Park at Signature Theatre, which received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination; Spain which received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination, Last Easter which received a Drama Desk nomination, The Wooden Breeks at MCC; House and Garden, Labor Day at MTC; The Altruists, Batting Cage, The Waiting Room and Flora, the Red Menace at Vineyard; Freedomland at Playwrights Horizon; and A Queen of Mercy at NYTW. Regional credits include The Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night, The Way of the World, The Beaux' Stratagem which received a Helen Hayes nomination, at STC; Private Lives at the Guthrie; and Betty's Summer Vacation at Bay Street. She recently received a 2014 Drama Desk Award in the Special Awards Category for excellence in the theatre.

Michelle Elaine (Catherine) most recently played Vera Stark in By The Way, Meet Vera Stark at The Ensemble Theatre. Her work at Stages Repertory Theatre includes Failure: A Love Story and Dollhouse. Other Ensemble Theatre credits include Knock Me a Kiss, Lotto: Experience the Dream, Jitney, and Gee's Bend as the strong willed Sadie. She has toured the city performing in several shows with The Ensemble Theatre's Touring Education Company. Michelle made her Classical Theatre Company debut in Miss Julie. She has also starred in Woody Allen's comedies, God and Death with The Back Porch Players and has worked with The Driven Theater Company in Fragmentation and Fragmentation II, which showcased the works of young playwrights. You may also remember her from The Theatre Southwest's skin crawling production of Bug as R.C.

Hallie Foote (Sybil Borden) returns to the Alley, where she has been seen in three of her father's plays: The Carpetbagger's Children, The Trip to Bountiful, and Dividing the Estate. On Broadway, she received a Tony Award nomination for her performance in Dividing the Estate. Off-Broadway, her credits include The Orphans' Home Cycle which received a Drama Desk Award; Laura Dennis, Talking Pictures, & Night Seasons which received a Drama Desk Award; The Trip to Bountiful which received a Lucille Lortel Award; The Roads to Home which received an Obie Award; The Carpetbagger's Children which received a Drama League Award; The Last of the Thorntons which received a Drama League Award; When They Speak of Rita and Him, both by sister Daisy Foote; and The Widow Claire. Hallie has performed nationally at Arena Stage, The Guthrie Theater, Hartford Stage, and The Old Globe, among others. Her film roles include Paranormal Activity 3, On Valentine's Day, Courtship and 1918. In addition to acting, Hallie produces for stage and screen, including most recently the 2013 Tony Award winning revival and the 2014 Lifetime Emmy nominated movie version of The Trip to Bountiful, both starring Cicely Tyson and Vanessa Williams.

Annalee Jefferies (Mamie Borden) is very happy to return to the Alley where she spent 20 years as a resident company member from 1986 to 2007. Some of her favorite roles were in A Streetcar Named Desire, Angels in America, Bad Dates, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Hedda Gabler, Danton's Death, Orpheus Descending, and Moon for the Misbegotten. She was in the nine hour trilogy of Horton Foot's The Orphans' Home Cycle in New York, directed by Michael Wilson, which won the Drama Desk and Tony awards for "Theatrical Event of the Season" of 2010. She played Violet in Suddenly Last Summer at Westport Country Playhouse, Hannah in Night of the Iguana at Hartford Stage, Amanda in The Glass Menagerie at Kansas City Rep. which was among the Wall Street Journal's best 10 productions of 2009. She toured England in John Barton's ten hour epic Tantalus, directed by Sir Peter Hall. She did 3 years as a resident company member at the Arena Stage from 1978 to 1981. Film credits include Hellion which appeared at Sundance and SXSW, Arlo and Julie which appeared at SXSW, the World premier of The Sideways Light this fall, The Girl which appeared at Sundance, Monsters, Violets Are Blue, and No Mercy. Television credits include Dallas in 2013 and PBS American Experience War of The Worlds in 2013. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. She currently lives on a farm in Brenham Texas.

Novella Nelson (Hattie) Broadway and Off-Broadway credits include Having Our Say; The Little Foxes; Caesar and Cleopatra; Purlie; Hello, Dolly; Division Street; A Piece of My Heart; Simon McBurney's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui; Passing Games and In White America, among others. Regional credits include Seattle Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alliance Theatre, Hartford Stage and American Conservatory Theater. She has appeared in such productions as The People's Temple at The Guthrie Theater, The Big White Fog at London's Almeida Theatre, Oedipus at American Repertory Theater and in a highly acclaimed London production of A Raisin in the Sun which played both the Lyric Hammersmith and the Young Vic theatres. Film/TV credits include RIPD, Lars Von Trier's Dear Wendy, Denzel Washington's Antwone Fisher, Chris Rocks' Head of State, Spike Lee's Clockers, Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club, Peter Weir's Green Card, Taylor Hackford's The Devil's Advocate, Jonathan Glazer's Birth, Emily Hubley's The Toe Tactic, The Starter Wife, One Life to Live, Sex and the City, and Oz, among others. She has directed projects at Lincoln Center Theater, Hartford Stage, Manhattan Class Company, The Public Theater, and the Negro Ensemble Company.

Cotter Smith (Howard Ratliff) Broadway credits include Next Fall, American Daughter, Burn This. Off Broadway credits include The Old Friends at Signature Theatre; Cock, the Royal Court production and American premiere; Dreams of Flying Dreams of Falling with Atlantic Theater Company; Side Effects at MCC Theater; Kin with Playwrights Horizons; How I learned to Drive and The Dying Gaul at Vineyard Theatre; Blood Knot at Roundabout Theatre Company; A Soldier's Play with Negro Ensemble Company; as well as many new American play premieres as a member of the Circle Repertory Company. He is also a founding member of the Matrix Theatre Company in Los Angeles. He was in the National tour of Art with Judd Hirsch. Film/TV work ranges from debut as Robert Kennedy in the miniseries Blood Feud to the President in X2: X-Men United and prosecutor of Al Pacino's Dr. Kevorkian in Barry Levinson's HBO film You Don't Know Jack. Over 50 television shows along the way, from the early days of Hill Street Blues to the more recent Person of Interest, The Good Wife and recurring roles as another President on Revolution and the Deputy Attorney General on The Americans. He is currently on both the MFA and BFA faculty at The New School for Drama and also taught for several years in the Conservatory program at the Stella Adler Studio.

Jay Sullivan (Tom Underwood) is an Alley Company Artist. Alley appearances include Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike as Spike, Freud's Last Session as C.S. Lewis, You Can't Take it With You as Tony Kirby, The Hollow as Edward Angkatell, Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club as Prince Nikita Starloff, The Elephant Man as Merrick, A Few Good Men as Cpl. Howard, Clybourne Park as Jim/Tom/Kenneth, A Christmas Carol as Fred/Scrooge at 21, Death of a Salesman as Happy, Black Coffee as Richard Amory, Red as Ken, Peter Pan as Peter, Our Town as George Gibbs and Eurydice as Orpheus. Jay recently made his Broadway debut in Jerusalem as Lee. Other theatre credits include Durango as Red Angel/Bob at The Public Theater and Long Wharf Theatre; DogSeesGod as Matt/Pigpen at Soho Repertory Theater; Orestes: A Tragic Romp as Orestes at Folger Theatre and Two River Theater Company; Afternight Seating as James at Abingdon Theatre Company; and The Bilbao Effect as Grole Andacht at The Center for Architecture, as well as The History Boys as Dakin and Rock 'n' Roll as Stephen at The Studio Theatre; Much Ado About Nothing as Claudio produced by As Written Productions; and Romeo and Juliet as Benvolio at Arkansas Repertory Theatre. Film and television credits include The Good Wife, Law & Order: SVU and The Unidentified. He is a graduate of Florida State University.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM

Michael Wilson (Director) returns to the Alley, where he has directed over 20 productions, most recently Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate. On Broadway, he directed the 2013 Tony Award winning revival of Foote's The Trip to Bountiful; he also directed the 2014 Emmy nominated Lifetime movie version. Also on Broadway, he has directed Gore Vidal's The Best Man, Dividing the Estate at Lincoln Center Theater, Enchanted April, and Old Acquaintance at Roundabout Theater Company. Off-Broadway, he has directed numerous plays, including Foote's three-part, nine-hour epic The Orphans' Home Cycle for which he received Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards. Internationally, his Alley productions of Tony Kushner's Angels in America played the 1995 Venice Biennale. He has directed at our nation's major theaters, including Hartford Stage, where as Artistic Director from 1998 to 2011 he commissioned and developed numerous new works, including Quiara Alegria Hudes' 2012 Pulitzer Prize winning play Water By the Spoonful. Wilson is a Morehead scholar graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, where he trained under Alley Artistic Director Gregory Boyd.

Jeff Cowie (Scenic Designer) has designed sets for numerous Alley Theatre productions, including Hapgood, The Trip to Bountiful, Bad Dates, The Carpetbagger's Children, Sylvia, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Mystery of Irma Vep, and Tony Kushner's Hydriotaphia, amongst others. Broadway credits include The Trip to Bountiful and Dividing the Estate. Selected New York credits include The Old Friends at Signature Theatre, Talley's Folly and The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore at Laura Pels Theater, Dividing the Estate and The Carpetbagger's Children at Lincoln Center Theater, The Orphans' Home Cycle at Signature Theatre, What Didn't Happen at Playwrights Horizons, The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant at Henry Miller's Theater which received a Drama Desk Nomination, The Day Emily Married at Primary Stages, and The Red Devil Battery Sign at WPA Theatre. His regional theatre work includes productions at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Berkley Repertory Theatre, The Guthrie Theater, Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Center Theatre Group (Ahmanson & Taper), New York Stage & Film, Philadelphia Theatre Company, among others. Current projects include the national tour of The Trip to Bountiful. Mr. Cowie is a recipient of the NEA/Rockefeller Foundation Award, the Edward Albee Foundation Fellowship, a 2010 Drama Desk nomination, and the American Theatre Wing's Henry Hewes Award for his co-design of Horton Foote's 3-part, nine hour epic, The Orphans' Home Cycle. He is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design.

David C. Woolard (Costume Design) is very happy to be back at the Alley Theatre. Broadway credits include Bronx Bombers, A Time to Kill, First Date, Lysistrata Jones, West Side Story, Jane Fonda's clothing for 33 Variations, Dividing the Estate, The Farnsworth Invention, Old Acquaintances, Ring of Fire, All Shook Up, 700 Sundays, The Rocky Horror Show which received a 2001 Tony Award nomination Voices in the Dark, The Who's Tommy which received a 1993 Tony and Olivier Award nominations, Bells are Ringing, Marlene, Wait Until Dark, Horton Foote's The Young Man from Atlanta, Damn Yankees, A Few Good Men. Other credits include Piece of My Heart, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at Encores, The Orphans' Home Cycle at Signature Theatre which received a Drama Desk and Hewes Award, Heir Apparent which received a Drama Desk nomination, Toxic Avenger off Broadway and at the Alley Theatre, The Donkey Show at A.R.T., Death and the Powers at Opera De Monte Carlo and Oscar at Santa Fe Opera. He is currently designing the opera Cold Mountain.

Rui Rita (Lighting Design) has designed Alley productions since 1996. His recent Alley credits include Freud's Last Session, The Seafarer, Dividing the Estate, Pygmalion, The 39 Steps, Sherlock Holmes and the Crucifer of Blood, Eurydice, A Christmas Carol, Cyrano de Bergerac, To Kill a Mockingbird, Sherlock Holmes, The Trip to Bountiful, The Invention of Love and Dinner with Friends, among others. On Broadway his designs include Trip to Bountiful, Present Laughter, Dividing the Estate, Old Acquaintance, Enchanted April and The Price. His Off-Broadway credits include the premieres of Horton Foote's Old Friends and The Orphans' Home Cycle for Signature Theatre Company, Big Bill, The Carpetbagger's Children, Far East, and Ancestral Voices for Lincoln Center, Moonlight and Magnolias for Manhattan Theatre Club, Endpapers, and Dinner with Friends both at Variety Arts Theatre, Dividing the Estate and The Day Emily Married for Primary Stages as well as revivals of Talley's Folly and The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore at Roundabout Theatre Company, Crimes of the Heart at Second Stage Theatre and Antony and Cleopatra at New York Shakespeare Festival and Piano Lesson at Signature Theatre Company. He has also designed productions at numerous regional theatres including the American Conservatory Theatre, Arena Stage, CenterStage, Ford's Theatre, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre Company, Long Wharf Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, The Old Globe Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Vancouver Opera, Westport Country Playhouse and Williamstown Theatre Festival.

John Gromada (Original Music & Sound Design) Alley highlights include The Elephant Man, The Greeks, Subject to Fits, A Christmas Carol and many more. He has composed music or designed sound for more than 30 Broadway productions, including The Trip to Bountiful which received a Tony nomination, The Best Man which received a Drama Desk Award, Clybourne Park, Seminar, Man and Boy, The Road to Mecca, The Columnist, Next Fall, A Bronx Tale, Prelude to a Kiss, Proof, Sight Unseen, Well, Rabbit Hole, A Streetcar Named Desire, Twelve Angry Men and A Few Good Men. His other New York credits include Domesticated, Old Hats, My Name is Asher Lev, Measure for Measure at Delacorte Theater, The Orphans' Home Cycle which received Drama Desk and Henry Hewes Awards, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, The Screwtape Letters including the national tour, Shipwrecked! which received a Lucille Lortel Award, The Singing Forest, Julius Caesar, The Skriker which received a Drama Desk Award, Machinal which received a OBIE Award and many, many more. His regional theatre credits number more than 300 at major regional theatres and abroad. His television credits include a score for the Emmy nominated film version of The Trip to Bountiful, on Lifetime in March. Other awards and honors include an NEA Opera/Music Theatre Fellowship, Connecticut Critics Circle Awards, Eddy Awards, and grants from the NJ State Council on the Arts and Meet the Composer. For more info visit www.johngromada.com

Paul Huntley (Wig & Hair Design) has worked on hundreds of Broadway shows since his 1972 arrival in New York, most memorably the original productions of Amadeus, Cats, Evita, LES MISERABLES, Sweeney Todd, The Producers, and Hairspray. A recipient of the Drama Desk and Tony awards, he has also worked with the some of the most legendary leading ladies of the cinema, ranging from Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich and Vivien Leigh to Jane Fonda, Glenn Close, Jessica Lange and Scarlett Johansson. Current Broadway shows include Bullets Over Broadway, and Cinderella.

Peter Pucci (Choreography) Off Broadway credits include The Old Friends, The Orphans' Home Cycle, Queens Boulevard the musical, Paradise Park, People Be Heard, After Ashley, The Late Henry Moss and True Love. Regional credits include Paper Mill Playhouse's Carnival!; Yale Rep's The Cherry Orchard, Miss Julie, The Black Monk; The Magic Theater's The Late Henry Moss; Great Lakes Theatre Festival's Romeo and Juliet; Westport Playhouse's A Marriage Minuet; Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Fall; The Shakespeare Theatre's Ion, Beaux Stratagem, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night; The McCarter Theater's Hamlet, Fool for Love, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Learned Ladies; Hartford Stage's The Orphans' Home Cycle, Midsummer Night's Dream, Summer and Smoke, Eight by Tenn, MacBeth, Camino Real; National Tours include Big Apple Circus' The Civil War; TheatreWorks USA's Romeo and Juliet; Baltimore Opera's Samson and Delilah; Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Renard; Dance Commissions include Ballet Hispanico; Joffrey Ballet; Colorado Ballet; Dance Theater of Harlem, Pittsburgh Ballet and Pilobolus Dance Theatre. He is a Lucille Lortel Award winner for Outstanding Choreographer for Queens Boulevard and received a Drama Desk Award Nominaton for Outstanding Choreographer and a Special Drama Desk Award for The Orphans' Home Cycle. He is a Guest Artist at Juilliard School of Drama and an Artist in Residence at Manhattanville College.

ABOUT THE ALLEY THEATRE - With its 177 employees, the Alley Theatre produces 393 performances annually, more than all other performing arts organizations in the Theater District combined. The Alley has attracted over 8 million people to Houston's Theater District since 1968 and has a $34.5 million annual economic impact on the City of Houston ("Arts & Economic Prosperity III: The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts & Culture Organizations and their Audiences in the City of Houston," Americans for the Arts, 2005.)

The Alley Theatre, one of America's leading not-for-profit theatres, is a nationally recognized performing arts company focused on collaborating with resident actors, visiting artists, directors, designers and authors to cultivate the new voices, new work, and new artists of the American theatre. Under the direction of Artistic Director Gregory Boyd and Managing Director Dean R. Gladden, the Alley has also brought its productions to 40 American cities, and to Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg and New York's Lincoln Center, as well as to major European festivals (including two in one season at the Venice Biennale) and Broadway. As a recipient of the Special Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, the Alley creates a wide-ranging repertoire and innovative productions of classics, neglected modern plays, and premieres, as well as new works that will become classics for the future developed through the Alley's New Play Initiative. During the 2014 - 2015 season the Alley Theatre will be performing at the University of Houston's Wortham Theatre as the Alley's downtown home is being renovated. For more information go to www.alleytheatre.org/uh.

Individual tickets for The Old Friends are currently on sale at www.alleytheatre.org or by calling 713.220.5700. Individual tickets for the rest of the 2014-2015 season will be available beginning August 25, 2014. Groups of 10 or more can receive special concierge services and select discounts by calling 713.220.5700 and asking for the group sales department.

Part of the Alley's mission is to produce thought-provoking and diverse works that should be experienced by all. Theatre lovers can experience these plays for as little as $26 each! Season tickets may be purchased at alleytheatre.org or by calling 713.220.5700. Subscribers can purchase a 5 play package containing The Old Friends, Dracula, All My Sons, Tristan & Yseult and The Foreigner. A 7 play package is also available containing all the plays in the 5 play package plus As You Like It and George Gershwin Alone. A Christmas Carol is available to all subscribers as an add-on.

Photo Credit: Scogin Mayo

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