Dana Ivey to Direct WASTE for The Acting Company

The Acting Company (Ian Belknap, Artistic Director; Elisa Spencer-Kaplan, Executive Director) will launch its 2016 John McDonald Salon Series with a reading of Harley Granville-Barker's controversial British drama Waste on Monday, January 25th at 7 PM at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater at the West Side YMCA, 10 W. 64th Street, New York, NY. Single tickets are $35 and include a post-show reception with the cast. Series subscriptions are also available. Purchase at www.theactingcompany.org or call (212) 258-3111.

Five-time Tony Award nominee Dana Ivey directs a cast including Matthew Amendt (Theatre for a New Audience's Much Ado About Nothing), Tom Bloom (Racing Demon, Henry IV), Michael Countryman (Wit), Kristin Griffith (Park Your Car in Harvard Yard), Patricia Hodges (Born Yesterday), Neal Huff (Spotlight), Paul O'Brien (On A Clear Day...), Ciaran O'Reilly (A Touch of the Poet), Angela Pierce (The Norman Conquests), Maren Searle (Mint Theatre's Fashions For Men), J. Smith-Cameron, (Tony Nominee, Our Country's Good), and Henry Stram (The Elephant Man).

Harley Granville Barker's timely British drama chronicles the downfall of a politician seduced by ambition, corruption and scandal. Censored when it was first written, this master work articulates the scornful collide of politics and sex.

The Salon Reading Series continues on April 18th with Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, directed by Tony nominee Moritz von Stuelpnagel (Hand to God) and featuring Michael Urie (Buyer and Cellar) and Tony Award winner Gabriel Ebert (Matilda The Musical). The series will conclude on May 16th with The House That Will Not Stand by award-winning playwright Marcus Gardley.

2016 marks the 20th anniversary of The Acting Company's John McDonald Salon Reading Series. The Salon Series offers New York audiences a range of works that are thematically linked to the company's repertory season and provides a first opportunity to see works that are being considered for future production.

Founded by John Houseman and Margot Harley in 1972, The Acting Company has toured to 48 states and 10 foreign countries, presenting more than 130 classic and new works while earning a Tony Award for Excellence in Theater, Obies, Audelcos and Los Angeles Critics Circle Awards. Kevin Kline, Rainn Wilson, Patti LuPone, Frances Conroy, Jeffrey Wright, Harriet Harris, David Ogden Stiers, Keith David, Hamish Linklater and Jesse L. Martin are among the more than 400 performers who began their careers on tour with The Acting Company. The Acting Company serves a dual mission of providing opportunities for gifted early-career theatre artists and fostering a discerning audience for theatre across the country, often in communities that would otherwise lack access to high-quality professional arts programming.