Darko Tresnjak to Direct Atlantic Theater Co's THIS AIN'T NO DISCO

Atlantic Theater Company (Neil Pepe, Artistic Director; Jeffory Lawson, Managing Director) is proud to announce that Tony Award winner Darko Tresnjak (A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Anastasia) will stage the world premiere of This Ain't No Disco, a new musical from Stephen Trask (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) and Peter Yanowitz (The Wallflowers).

Featuring a book by Trask, Yanowitz and Rick Elice (Jersey Boys, Peter and the Starcatcher), preview performances will now begin Friday, June 29. The production will play through Sunday, August 12, 2018 Off-Broadway at the Linda Gross Theater (336 West 20th Street). Opening Night will be announced at a later date.

Trip Cullman, who was previously announced to direct, is unavailable due to scheduling conflicts. His latest project, Lobby Hero by Kenneth Lonergan, began its Broadway run Thursday, March 1.

Set against the grit, the garbage strikes and the graffiti of 1979 New York City, This Ain't No Disco tells the story of drifters and dreamers searching for their place in the night world of Studio 54 and Mudd Club. In their uptown / downtown quest for revelry and kinship, every decision is fateful in a city where one's fate can turn on a dime bag.

Director Darko Tresnjak makes his Atlantic Theater Company debut with This Ain't No Disco. As the Artistic Director of Hartford Stage since June of 2011, Tresnjak directed the hit Broadway musical Anastasia and the 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, for which he earned the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Direction of a Musical. In 2015 he received an Obie Award for TFANA's The Killer, starring Michael Shannon.

Workshop productions of This Ain't No Disco were presented by New York Stage and Film & Vassar at the Powerhouse Theater, Summer 2015 and Summer 2017.

This Ain't No Disco is produced in cooperation with Miramax. The authors gratefully acknowledge Joy Gorman, Adam Shulman, and Steve Golin of Anonymous Content for their role in the development of This Ain't No Disco.

This Ain't No Disco is supported by generous funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. It is the recipient of a Laurents / Hatcher Theater Development Grant as well as a 2018 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. This Ain't No Disco is also supported by the National Fund for New Musicals, a program of National Alliance for Musical Theatre - www.namt.org.

Tickets for This Ain't No Disco will go on sale in the late spring. For more information, visit https://atlantictheater.org/playevents/this-aint-no-disco/.

BIOGRAPHIES

Stephen Trask (Music & Lyrics, Book) first achieved widespread acclaim as the co-creator / composer / lyricist of the award-winning stage musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which was also developed into a feature film release by Fine Line Features and for which he won an Obie Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical, and a 1998 New York Magazine Award, in addition to earning Drama Desk nominations for Outstanding Music, Lyrics and New Musical, a Grammy nomination for Best Cast Album, two GLAMA Awards, and Entertainment Weekly's Best Soundtrack Award for 2001. The Broadway production of the show won four 2014 Tony Awards, and the cast album was nominated for a Grammy. Since 2003 Trask has been scoring films at both the independent and studio levels for directors as diverse as Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent, Miramax Films), Paul Weitz (In Good Company, American Dreamz, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, Little Fockers, Universal Pictures), Todd Graff (Camp, IFC Productions / Jersey Films / Killer Films), Tamara Jenkins (The Savages, Fox Searchlight), Jon Kasdan (In the Land of Women, Warner Brothers), Robert Benton (Feast of Love, MGM / Lakeshore), John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Fine Line), Sean Anders (Sex Drive, Summit Entertainment), Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Dreamworks / Paramount), Alan Poul (The Back-up Plan, CBS Films), Tom Vaughn (So Undercover, Exclusive Media), Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (Lovelace). In addition to Hedwig, Trask's work for the Broadway stage includes orchestrations for the Broadway production of Rocky, the musical based on the classic film. He is also at work on a new musical in collaboration with book writer Chris D'Arienzo (Rock of Ages) to bring the Martin Scorsese / New Regency film The King of Comedy to the stage. Known for his time fronting '90s NYC punk band Cheater, Trask has also recorded and performed with artists such as Stone Temple Pilots, Bob Mould, Sleater-Kinney and Yoko Ono.

Peter Yanowitz (Music & Lyrics, Book) is a songwriter and performer living in New York City. He made his Broadway debut as 'Schlatko,' the drummer in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Yanowitz was the original drummer of The Wallflowers, and for Natalie Merchant on her first three solo records: Tigerlily, Ophelia, and Live in Concert. Other artists he has recorded and performed with include Yoko Ono, Allen Ginsberg and Wilco. Yanowitz was also the bass player and main songwriter for the band Morningwood on Capitol Records.

Rick Elice (Book). Jersey Boys, Rick's first Broadway credit, co-authored with Marshall Brickman, won the Tony Award, the Grammy Award and the Olivier Award for Best Musical, ran for more than eleven years, and entered the record books as the twelfth longest-running show in Broadway history. With Marshall Brickman and Andrew Lippa, he wrote The Addams Family, starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth, later starring Roger Rees and Brooke Shields. His first play, Peter and the Starcatcher, received more Tony Award nominations than any American play in Broadway history and won five 2012 Tony Awards. Upcoming projects include Magnificent Climb (music and lyrics by Will Van Dyke, directed by Trip Cullman),Monopoly (music and lyrics by Dan Lipton & David Rossmer); Bag of Nails (directed by Jerry Mitchell), and The Cher Show (directed by Jason Moore).

Darko Tresnjak (Direction) received the 2014 Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for his direction of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, starring Jefferson Mays. He received an Obie Award in 2015 for his direction of The Killer at TFANA, starring Michael Shannon. Favorite productions include The Ghosts of Versailles with Patti LuPone and Patricia Racette (Los Angeles Opera); The Women with Kate Baldwin (The Old Globe); Rear Window with Kevin Bacon (Hartford Stage); The Merchant of Venice with F. Murray Abraham (TFANA, The Royal Shakespeare Company); All's Well That Ends Well with Kate Forbes (TFANA); The Skin of Our Teeth with Marian Seldes and Kristine Nielsen (Williamstown Theatre Festival); What the Butler Saw with Paxton Whitehead (Huntington Theatre Company); and Titus Andronicus with John Vickery (Stratford Shakespeare Festival). His production of Anastasia, currently on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre, is opening in Spain and Germany and going on a national tour this fall. In September, his production ofSamson et Dalila, starring Elina Garanca and Roberto Alagna, will open the Metropolitan Opera's 2018-2019 season. Darko is the Artistic Director of Hartford Stage.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos