Bob Dylan Musical GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY, MOTHER OF THE MAID & More Coming to the Public Theater in 2018-19 Season

The Public Theater has just announced the lineup for their 2018-19 Season at their landmark home on 425 Lafayette Street.

The season will feature new work by Emerging Writers Group alum and 2017-18 Tow Foundation Playwright-in-Residence Patricia Ione Lloyd, Public Studio alumni Hansol Jung and Jordan E. Cooper, Master Writer Chair Suzan-Lori Parks, Conor McPherson, Simon Stephens, Nick Payne, Jane Anderson, Tim Blake Nelson, and Luis Alfaro, as well as the continuation of year-round and community engagement programming: Mobile Unit, Public Works, Under the Radar Festival, Public Studio, Public Forum, Public Shakespeare Initiative, Emerging Writers Group, and the beloved Free Shakespeare in the Park.

"This is a season of spectacular, ambitious projects, highlighted by a burst of young playwrights," said Artistic Director Oskar Eustis. "Patricia Ione Lloyd, Hansol Jung, and Jordan E. Cooper will be making their Public Theater mainstage debuts. Public Master Writer Chair Suzan-Lori Parks has written a brilliant and disturbing reflection on our current state of race relations, White Noise; masters Jane Anderson, Luis Alfaro, Conor McPherson, and Bob Dylan are working at the height of their powers; and actors Glenn Close, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Tom Sturridge will light up Astor Place."

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The Public Theater'S 2018-19 SEASON:

North American Premiere
GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY
Written and Directed by Conor McPherson
Music and Lyrics by Bob Dylan
September 11 - November 4, 2018

Following a critically acclaimed, sold-out run at London's Old Vic and a West End transfer, the astonishing new show from Olivier Award winner and Tony Award nominee Conor McPherson and music icon Bob Dylan will make its North American premiere at The Public with an American cast. Dylan's inimitable songbook is authentically transformed into this achingly beautiful story of a down-on-its-luck community on the brink of change in Dylan's hometown, Duluth, Minnesota, in 1934. Named "one of the greatest playwrights working today" by Ben Brantley of The New York Times, McPherson has created a mythical new show, weaving the music of our greatest poet-singer-songwriter into a piercing drama about home, heart, and the searching determination of the American soul.

New York Premiere
MOTHER OF THE MAID
Written by Jane Anderson
Directed by Matthew Penn
Featuring Glenn Close
September 25 - November 18, 2018

Six-time Academy Award nominee and three-time Tony and Emmy Award winner Glenn Close returns to The Public in a breathtaking new play by Emmy winner Jane Anderson. MOTHER OF THE MAID tells the story of Joan of Arc's mother (Glenn Close), a sensible, hard-working, God-fearing peasant woman whose faith is upended as she deals with the baffling journey of her odd and extraordinary daughter. This riveting play is an epic tale told through an unexpected and remarkable new perspective. Emmy nominee Matthew Penn directs this deeply moving drama about the glories and challenges of raising an exceptional child.

World Premiere
EVE'S SONG
Written by Patricia Ione Lloyd
Directed by Jo Bonney
October 23 - December 2, 2018
Developed in residence as the Tow Playwright-in-Residence at The Public Theater

From The Public's Emerging Writers Group alum and 2017-18 Tow Playwright-in-Residence Patricia Ione Lloyd and Obie Award-winning director Jo Bonney comes a stunning, genre-bending new drama about the haunting of a black family in America. In the aftermath of a messy divorce and a daughter coming out as queer, Deborah is trying to keep things normal at home. But as black people continue to be killed beyond their four walls, the outside finds its way in, blurring the lines between family dynamics, politics, and the spirit world. How long can family dinners keep the dangers outside at bay? Filled with dark humor and boiling suspense, EVE'S SONG examines our present racial climate through the eyes of a regular American family.

New York Premiere
WILD GOOSE DREAMS
Written by Hansol Jung
Directed by Leigh Silverman
October 30 - December 9, 2018
A co-production with La Jolla Playhouse

After its initial run in The Public's Public Studio, Hansol Jung's fascinating and unforgettable new play WILD GOOSE DREAMS returns in a co-production with La Jolla Playhouse, where it had a critically acclaimed run last season. Minsung is a "goose father," a South Korean man whose wife and daughter have moved to America for a better life. Deeply lonely, he escapes onto the internet and meets Nanhee, a young defector forced to leave her family behind in North Korea. Amidst the endless noise of the modern world, where likes and shares have taken the place of love and touch, Minsung and Nanhee try their best to be real for each other. But after a lifetime of division and separation, is connection possible? Tony Award nominee Leigh Silverman directs this strikingly original play with music about two people, from two cultures, forced to choose between family and freedom.

FREE Mobile Unit: Fall
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Jenny Koons
Sit-down run at The Public Theater: October 29 - November 18, 2018
Following a three-week tour in the five boroughs

This fall, a classic New York City block party becomes the enchanted setting where fairies work their mischief in Shakespeare's beloved play A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Acclaimed director Jenny Koons takes you to the royal wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, where a celebratory play is being rehearsed. But the real drama is unfolding in the concrete jungle of fairy King Oberon. There, four young New Yorkers discover the course of true love runs anything but smooth, as supernatural sprites and the lovable Puck conspire to reveal what fools we mortals be, and draw us all into the collective dream of romance and merriment.

15th Edition
UNDER THE RADAR FESTIVAL
January 3-13, 2019

Curated by UTR Director Mark Russell, the 15th edition of this highly-anticipated downtown winter festival will bring together exciting artists from around the world who are redefining the act of making theater.

FRANKENSTEIN (First Show Announced of the Festival)
By Manual Cinema

Two hundred years ago, 18-year-old Mary Shelley conceived a ghost story about birth, creation, and abandonment that would become the world's first science-fiction masterpiece. Internationally renowned multimedia company Manual Cinema stitches together the classic story of Frankensteinwith Mary Shelley's biography to create a full-length, unexpected story about the beauty and horror of creation. Using an ingenious "laboratory" of cameras, overhead projectors, actors, and puppets-and accompanied live by a chamber ensemble-Manual Cinema's FRANKENSTEINassembles music, theater, and silent film to create a Frankenstein like you've never seen before. Full UTR line-up to be announced in the fall.

New York Premiere
SEA WALL / A LIFE
Written by Simon Stephens and Nick Payne, respectively
Directed by Carrie Cracknell
Featuring Tom Sturridge and Jake Gyllenhaal, respectively
January 26 - March 24, 2019

Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal and Tony Award nominee Tom Sturridge make their Public Theater debuts in an unforgettable and incredibly intimate evening of theater. Sturridge, in his third collaboration with Tony and Olivier Award winner Simon Stephens, performs SEA WALL, an astonishing monologue about love and the human need to know the unknowable. Gyllenhaal continues his artistic collaboration with Olivier Award-nominated playwright Nick Payne in A LIFE, a meditation on how we say goodbye to those we love most. Directed by Carrie Cracknell, this heart-filled exploration of the beauty of life and the meaning of love, SEA WALL / A LIFE is an evening of dramatic storytelling at its best.

World Premiere
WHITE NOISE
Written by Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by Oskar Eustis
February 19 - March 31, 2019

Following her critically acclaimed trilogy Father Comes Home From The Wars, Parts 1, 2, & 3, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and The Public's Master Writer Chair Suzan-Lori Parks returns with a world premiere play about race, friendship, and our rapidly unraveling social contract. Long-time friends and lovers Leo, Misha, Ralph, and Dawn are educated, progressive, cosmopolitan, and woke. But when a racially motivated incident with the cops leaves Leo shaken, he decides extreme measures must be taken for self-preservation. The Public's Artistic Director Oskar Eustis directs this fierce new drama about what happens when the unspoken and the unspeakable come head-to-head.

World Premiere
AIN'T NO MO'
Written by Jordan E. Cooper
Directed by Stevie Walker-Webb
March 12 - April 21, 2019

AIN'T NO MO', first seen in The Public's Public Studio, is a vibrant satirical odyssey portraying the great exodus of black Americans out of a country plagued with injustice. In a kaleidoscope of scenes of the moments before, during, and after this outrageous departure, Jordan E. Cooper's masterful new work explores the value of black lives in a country hurtling away from the promise of a black president. Stevie Walker-Webb directs this wildly imaginative and emotionally charged play.

World Premiere
SOCRATES
Written by Tim Blake Nelson
Directed by Doug Hughes
April 2 - May 19, 2019
In collaboration with the Onassis Cultural Center NY, with support of Onassis Foundation USA

SOCRATES is a witty and endlessly fascinating new drama about a complicated man who changed how the world thought. This powerful new play by actor, director, and writer Tim Blake Nelson is an intellectual thrill ride from the philosopher's growing prominence in democratic Athens through the military and social upheavals that led to one of the most infamous executions in Western history. Tony Award winner Doug Hughes directsSOCRATES, a timely and timeless new work that serves as a passionate tribute to the man who continues to inspire us to question authority and defend freedom of belief.

FREE Mobile Unit: Spring
THE TEMPEST
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Lucas Caleb Rooney
Sit-down run at The Public Theater: April 29 - May 19, 2019

Following a three-week tour in the five boroughs and mayhem continue their wicked work in THE TEMPEST, directed by Obie Award winner Lucas Caleb Rooney. When a storm shipwrecks King Alonso and his royal entourage on the island home of Prospero and his daughter Miranda, secrets and suspicions lead to drunken distrust and murderous plots. But love plays games with revenge, and the stuff of nightmares becomes the stuff of dreams in this magical comedy about the human heart, lost at sea.

New York Premiere
MOJADA
Written by Luis Alfaro
Directed by Chay Yew
July 2 - August 11, 2019

MacArthur Genius Award-winning playwright Luis Alfaro returns with the New York premiere of his stirring drama about love, immigration, and sacrifice, inspired by the Ancient Greek story of Medea. Helmed by Chay Yew, this play masterfully combines ancient storytelling with the most pressing issues facing our country today, following a young Mexican mother who gives up everything to bring her son to America, only to find America demands even more. Alfaro's Oedipus El Rey, produced last season in collaboration with The Sol Project, was hailed by The New York Times as a "dynamic reminder that we are living in a political moment when stories matter." With great poetry, humor, and heart, MOJADA is a bold new telling of a story as old as tragedy itself.

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Joe's Pub at The Public celebrates 20 years of extraordinary programming this fall. In addition to presenting cutting-edge performances year-round, Joe's Pub continues its Vanguard Residency with Nona Hendryx, featuring a new show commissioned with Carrie Mae Weems titled Refrigerated Dreams; presents a new commission in the fall with Murray Hill; ongoing residencies with Pub favorites Shaina Taub, This Alien Nation, Isaac Oliver, Mx Justin Vivian Bond, The Illustrious Blacks, Public Forum, Public Shakespeare Initiative, and more; as well as Joe's Pub national and international projects in Philadelphia, Long Island, Washington, D.C., and Edinburgh this year.

Hamilton, the acclaimed Public Theater production, can be seen on Broadway, London's West End, and on tours nationally, while the Tony Award-winning musical Fun Home will play at the Young Vic in London this fall. Public Works continues to expand its global reach with continuing partnerships in Dallas, presenting The Winter's Tale at the end of summer 2018; and in Seattle, presenting As You Like It in fall 2019. In London, The National Theatre will present a Public Works-inspired production of Pericles in August 2018, developed by their own community-based initiative, PUBLIC ACTS.

Patrons who join The Public Theater as a donor starting with a gift of $65 gain early access to tickets for shows and events throughout the year. To find out how you can support The Public by joining one of the donor programs, visit www.publictheater.org/support or call 212-967-7555. Tickets for the 2018-19 season will go on sale later this year.

The Library at The Public continues to be open nightly for food and drinks, beginning at 5:30 p.m., with an American menu created by Chefs Andrew Carmellini and John Ramirez, featuring local ingredients and New York influence.