David Hyde Pierce Will Lead Adam Bock's A LIFE at Playwrights Horizons This Fall

Playwrights Horizons announced today that acclaimed and beloved stage and television star, Tony Award winner and Emmy Award winner David Hyde Pierce (The Heidi Chronicles and The Maderati at PH; "Frasier," Broadway's Curtains, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Monty Python's Spamalot, next season's Hello, Dolly!) has joined the cast of A LIFE, the world premiere of a new play by Obie Award winner Adam Bock (A Small Fire and The Drunken City at PH, The Receptionist, The Thugs, Swimming in the Shallows).

Directed by two-time Obie Award winner Anne Kauffman (Marjorie Prime, Detroit, Maple and Vine at PH; You Got Older; Belleville; This Wide Night; Smokefall), A LIFE will be the second production of the theater company's 2016/2017 Season.

The production will begin previews Friday, September 30 with an opening night set for Monday, October 24 at the company's Peter Jay Sharp Theater (416 West 42nd Street). The limited engagement is currently scheduled to play through Sunday, November 13.

David Hyde Pierce won a Tony Award in 2007 for his performance in Curtains and was also nominated for a Tony for his role in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, which he went on to direct at The Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles. Other directing credits include Broadway's It Shoulda Been You, Ripcord for Manhattan Theater Club and The Importance of Being Earnest for Williamstown Theatre Festival. Pierce will return to Broadway next year as Horace Vandergelder in the revival of Hello, Dolly! opposite Bette Midler. He made his Playwrights Horizons debut in 1987 in Richard Greenberg's The Maderati and also appeared in their 1989 Broadway production of The Heidi Chronicles.

Additional casting for A LIFE and the rest of the 2016/2017 Season will be announced in the coming weeks.

Nate Martin (Mr. Pierce) is hopelessly single. When his most recent breakup, another in a lifelong string of ill-fated matches, casts him into a funk, he turns to the only source of wisdom he trusts: the stars. Poring over astrological charts, he obsessively questions his past and his place in the cosmos. But in Adam Bock's disarming new play, the answer he receives, when it comes, is shockingly obvious - and totally unpredictable.

The performance schedule for A LIFE will be Tuesdays through Fridays at 7:30 PM, Saturdays at 2:30 & 7:30 PM and Sundays at 2:30 & 7PM. Beginning the week of August 29, single tickets, $60-80, may be purchased online via www.PHnyc.org and www.Facebook.com, by phone at (212) 279-4200 (Noon-8pm daily) and in person at the Ticket Central Box Office, 416 West 42nd Street (between Ninth & Tenth Avenues).

The complete Playwrights Horizons 2016/2017 Season will include (in season order): AUBERGINE, the New York premiere of a new play by Julia Cho, directed by Kate Whoriskey (previews begin August 19, 2016); A LIFE, the world premiere of a new play by Obie Award winner Adam Bock, directed by two-time Obie Award winner Anne Kauffman (previews begin September 30); RANCHO VIEJO, the world premiere of a new play by Dan LeFranc, directed by three-time Obie Award winner Daniel Aukin and commissioned by Playwrights Horizons with the support of the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust; THE LIGHT YEARS, the world premiere of a new play written by Drama Desk Award winner Hannah Bos and Obie Award winner Paul Thureen, directed and developed by Obie Award winner Oliver Butler, made by The Debate Society; THE PROFANE, the world premiere of a new play by Zayd Dohrn; and BELLA: AN AMERICAN TALL TALE, the co-world premiere of a new musical with book, music and lyrics by Obie Award winner Kirsten Childs, directed by two-time Obie Award winner Robert O'Hara and commissioned by Playwrights Horizons through the Musicals in Partnership Initiative with funds provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This production will first be staged at Dallas Theatre Center this fall.