Christopher Fitzgerald Joins Cast of MCC's SMALL ENGINE REPAIR; David Wilson Barnes, Michael Cristofer Join DON'T GO GENTLE

MCC Theater today announced full casting for Don't Go Gentle and additional casting for Small Engine Repair, two productions in their upcoming 2012-13 season, which marks the company's 27th consecutive year producing and developing new work by today's most provocative and vibrant artists.

The complete cast of Stephen Belber's Don't Go Gentle includes David Wilson Barnes (Broadway's The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Becky Shaw at Second Stage), newcomer Maxx Brawer, Michael Cristofer (NBC's hit series "Smash," Broadway's A View from the Bridge with Liev Schreiber), Angela Lewis (Rapture, Blister, Burn at Playwrights Horizons), and Jennifer Mudge (Roundabout Theatre Company's The Philanthropist).

Additionally, Tony Award-nominee Christopher Fitzgerald (Young Frankenstein, Finian's Rainbow) will join the cast of John Pollono's Small Engine Repair. Fitzgerald joins the previously announced Jon Bernthal, of AMC's "The Walking Dead," and actor/playwright John Pollono, whose dazzling play took home nearly every theater award in the city of angels, including the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for Playwriting.

Stephen Belber's world premiere Don't Go Gentle (September 27 – November 4, 2012) follows Judge Lawrence Driver: conservative powerhouse on the bench, failure at home. Now retired, widowed, and seeking redemption, Lawrence volunteers to do pro bono legal work with Tanya, a vulnerable ex-con with a troubled teenage son, while working to repair the increasingly complicated relationships with his own adult children. But do-overs don't come easy, and when his newfound generosity is perceived as condescension, Lawrence runs the risk of losing everything.

Don't Go Gentle is a world premiere by Stephen Belber, an MCC Theater Playwrights' Coalition member, whose chronicles of moral ambiguity include Tape, Dusk Rings a Bell, and Match on Broadway. Belber is also a member of MCC Theater's Playwrights' Coalition, the theater's play development fellowship. Acclaimed director Lucie Tiberghien, a frequent collaborator with Belber, directed his play Geometry of Fire at the Rattlestick Theater. She most recently directed the West Coast premiere of Blood and Gifts at the La Jolla Playhouse.

John Pollono's Small Engine Repair (May 16 – June 23, 2013) tells the story of Frank, Swaino, and Packie - buddies since high school, now past their prime – who meet off-hours in Frank's out-of-the-way repair shop under cloudy circumstances that only Frank has a handle on. Enter Chad, a plugged-in preppy college jock, whose arrival ignites an explosion of long-simmering resentment and rage in this taut, twisty, comic thriller.

A hit at L.A.'s Rogue Machine Theatre last spring, Small Engine Repair makes its New York premiere at MCC Theater with a new production directed by MCC veteran Jo Bonney (Neil LaBute's The Break of Noon, Some Girls(s), Fat Pig).

MCC Theater's season will also include the New York Premiere of Paul Downs Colaizzo's startlingly funny, boozed-soaked Really Really (January 31 – March 10, 2013) directed by David Cromer, whose visionary take on Our Town took New York by storm in 2009, and whose Tribes is one of this year's biggest Off Broadway hits. Casting for this production is forthcoming.

Season subscriptions for all three 2012-2013 mainstage productions are priced at $115-$155 and are available by visiting www.mcctheater.org. Additionally, MCC Theater offers a $60 "Under 30" subscription for patrons 30 years or younger as of September 27, 2012. Individual tickets will go on-sale Monday, August 13. All performances will take place at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street, NYC).

MCC Theater – founded in 1986 as Manhattan Class Company – is committed to developing and producing new work that challenges artists and rewards audiences. Our mission is carried out through an annual season of world, American, and New York premieres, literary development programs for emerging writers, and ground-breaking education programs that enable more than 1,000 New York City high school students to find - and use - their own unique voice each year through the creation and performance of original theater pieces. Notable MCC Theater highlights include: the 2008 Tony Award-nominated Reasons to Be Pretty by Neil LaBute, The Pride, Fifty Words, the 2004 Tony-winning production of Bryony Lavery's Frozen, Neil LaBute's Fat Pig, Rebecca Gilman's The Glory of Living, Marsha Norman's Trudy Blue, Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit, Tim Blake Nelson's The Grey Zone, Alan Bowne's Beirut, The Submission, winner of the inaugural Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award for new American plays, and last season's newly reworked and fully re-imagined production of Carrie, the musical. Over the years, the dedication to the work of new and emerging artists has earned MCC Theater a variety of awards.

For a complete production history, visit www.mcctheater.org.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / Retna Ltd.