Bruce Norris Play to Conclude Yale Rep's '06-'07 Season

Yale Repertory Theatre, under the leadership of Artistic Director James Bundy and Managing Director Victoria Nolan, announced today the sixth play of the Tony Award-winning theatre's 2006-2007 season.  Bruce Norris's comedy The Unmentionables will serve as the season finale, running May 4 through May 26, 2007; the press opening will be on Thursday, May 10.  The production will be staged by Anna D. Shapiro, who directed the play's 2006 world premiere at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre. 

In The Unmentionables, "tensions reach a boiling point on the equator when Americans filled with beneficence and missionary zeal clash with each other and the local residents of an African town.  A wealthy entrepreneur, Christian charity workers, an exasperated doctor, a flamboyant government official and an abrasive teenager become entangled in a scathingly funny web of good intentions and selfish motives.  Bruce Norris's incisive comedy exposes those unmentionable things that we hide when we do the right thing for the wrong reasons.  The production includes strong language," as press materials describe.

Norris enjoyed a recent success in New York with an extended engagement of his comedy The Pain and the Itch at Playwrights Horizons.  The Chicago production of the play received the 2005 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work.  Mr. Norris has an ongoing collaboration with Steppenwolf where his other premieres include We All Went Down to Amsterdam, The Infidel and Purple Heart.  Other Chicago premieres include The Actor Retires at Remains Theatre and The Vanishing Twin at Lookingglass Theatre.  Also an actor, Norris has appeared at Steppenwolf in Closer and the films School of Rock and The Sixth Sense.

Director Anna D. Shapiro has been affiliated with Steppenwolf since 1995, serving as the original director of the New Plays Initiative, later joining the artistic staff as the Resident Director, and currently serving as an Associate Artist. Her recent Steppenwolf credits include I Never Sang For My Father featuring John Mahoney and the world premieres of Man From Nebraska by Tracy Letts, Until We Find Each Other by Brooke Berman, The Infidel and Purple Heart (also in Ireland) by Norris, and The Ordinary Yearning of Miriam Buddwing by Alexandra Gersten.  Shapiro directed the premiere of Norris' The Pain and the Itch at Steppenwolf in 2005 and its subsequent New York production at Playwrights Horizons.  She has been a guest artist at the New School for Social Research, Columbia College, and the University of Illinois. Anna is a graduate of Columbia College and the Yale School of Drama and the recipient of a 1996 Princess Grace Award.

Production support for The Unmentionables is provided by TIAA-CREF.

Tickets for The Unmentionables are on sale now and can be purchased by calling (203) 432-1234.  For more information on Yale Repertory Theatre, please visit www.yalerep.org.