Erbe, Glover, Cerveris & More Star in Lincoln Center's NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS, Beg. Tonight

Lincoln Center Theater previously announced that Betsy Aidem, Blair Brown, Michael Cerveris, Anthony Cochrane, Lauren Culpepper, Alvin Epstein, Kathryn Erbe, John Glover, Jennifer B. Grace, Katie Kreisler, Stephen Kunken, Haviland Morris, Dale Place, John Procaccino, Gareth Saxe and Alan Schmuckler would be featured in the 18-member cast of its world premiere production of NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS, a new play by Richard Nelson. The play, which was commissioned by Lincoln Center Theater, will be directed by David Cromer and will begin performances tonight, April 4 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. Opening night is Monday, May 6.

It's 1948 and during a spring weekend in Westport, CT a close-knit group of Russian emigres, including choreographer George Balanchine (to be played by Michael Cerveris), composer Igor Stravinsky (John Glover), conductor Serge Koussevitsky (Dale Place), painter/set designer Sergey Sudeikin (Alvin Epstein) and composer Nikolai Nabokov (Stephen Kunken), gather to eat, drink and talk. In NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS playwright Richard Nelson reimagines, during the course of this weekend, the creation of Balanchine and Stravinsky's historic collaboration, the ballet Orpheus, and explores the interesting and controversial ways American art was funded at the outset of the Cold War. Interspersed throughout the action of the play will be moments of Balanchine's original Orpheus choreography.

NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS will have sets by Marsha Ginsberg, costumes by Jane Greenwood, lighting by Ken Billington, sound by Daniel Kluger, choreography by George Balanchine and ballet staging by Rosemary Dunleavy. Jeff Edwards is Ballet Master.

Richard Nelson's plays include Some Americans Abroad and Two Shakespearean Actors (both plays produced by Lincoln Center Theater, the latter receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Play), The General From America, Franny's Way, Madame Melville, Goodnight Children Everywhere, New England, Life Sentences, Principia Scriptoriae, The Vienna Notes and Conjuring An Event. He wrote the book and lyrics and directed the musical My Life with Albertine, wrote the book for the musical Chess, and wrote the book, conceived and adapted the lyrics and directed the musical The Dead, winning a Tony Award for his book.

David Cromer directed LCT's production of When the Rain Stops Falling, for which he won a Lucille Lortel Award for Best Direction. His other credits include the recent Broadway productions of The House of Blue Leaves and Brighton Beach Memoirs. Off-Broadway credits include, Our Town, Adding Machine, the musical (Lortel and Obie Awards for Best Direction for both), Orson's Shadow, Tribes and the current Really Really. He recently directed Sweet Bird of Youth at the Goodman Theater in Chicago and A Streetcar Named Desire at Williamstown Theatre Festival and the Writers Theatre of Chicago. He is a recipient of a 2010 MacArthur Fellowship.

This spring Lincoln Center Theater is also presenting The Nance, a new play by Douglas Carter Beane, directed by Jack O'Brien, beginning performances Thursday, March 21 at the Lyceum Theatre and the LCT3 productions of Luck of the Irish by Kirsten Greenidge, directed by Rebecca Taichman (now through March 10) and A Kid Like Jake by Daniel Pearle, directed by Evan Cabnet (June 2 through July 14) at the Claire Tow Theater.

Tickets to NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS, priced from $75 to $85, will go on sale beginning Sunday, March 10 at the Lincoln Center Theater box office, at telecharge.com or by visiting www.lct.org. A limited number of tickets priced at $30 will be available at every performance through LincTix, LCT's new program for 21 to 35 year olds. For information and to enroll, visit LincTix.org.

Betsy Aidem LCT: Road. Off-Broadway: Steel Magnolias, A Lie of the Mind, Balm in Gilead, and productions at the Atlantic, Vineyard, 2nd Stage, Playwrights Horizons, 2007 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance. Film: Margaret, Arbitrage, Far From Heaven, You Can Count on Me, Music of the Heart, Fool's Fire. TV: The Big C, Smash, Law & Order SVU, The Good Wife, Nurse Jackie, Rescue Me, The West Wing, Sex and the City.

Blair Brown LCT: The Clean House, Arcadia. Broadway: Copenhagen (Tony Award), James Joyce's The Dead (OCC nomination), Cabaret, The Secret Rapture, Threepenny Opera. Off-Broadway: Humble Boy, The Comedy of Errors. Film: The Sentinel, Loverboy, Dogville, Space Cowboys, Random Hearts, The Astronaut's Wife, Strapless, A Flash of Green, Continental Divide (Golden Globe Award nomination), Altered States, One Trick Pony. TV: many credits include Fringe, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd (five Emmy Award nominations), Kennedy (Golden Globe, BAFTA Award nominations), Wheels, The Captains and the Kings, Hamlet, In His Life: The John Lennon Story.

Michael Cerveris LCT: In The Next Room, or the vibrator play, Cymbeline. Broadway: Evita (Tony nomination), Hedda Gabler, LoveMusik (Tony, Drama Desk, OCC Award nominations), Sweeney Todd (Tony, Drama Desk, OCC nominations), Assassins (Tony, OCC Awards), Titanic, Tommy (Tony, OCC nominations, Theatre World Award). Off-Broadway: Road Show, King Lear, Fifth of July, Hedwig & The Angry Inch. Film: Cirque du Freak, Temptation, The Mexican, Lulu on the Bridge. TV: Fringe, Treme, Fame, The Equalizer, Person of Interest, CSI, Dream On.

Anthony Cochrane LCT: War Horse, The Coast of Utopia, Cymbeline. Off-Broadway: 12 years and 18 productions with Aquila Theatre, Dense Terrain (BAM). Regional: Amadeus, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest (Old Globe), Henry VIII (Helen Hayes nomination). Composed music for over 30 productions. Film: Wall Street, II, Apocalypse Watch. TV: Law & Order SVU, Benjamin Franklin (PBS).

Lauren Culpepper Off-Broadway: Really Really, I Capture The Castle. Film/TV: Twylight Zones, House of Cards, Lie Detector.

Alvin Epstein Former Artistic Director of the Guthrie Theater and Associate Director of Yale Repertory Theater. Broadway: Marcel Marceau and Company, Orson Welles' King Lear, Peachum in The Threepenny Opera with Sting, A Kurt Weill Cabaret. Off-Broadway: Hamlet (Theater for a New City), Tuesdays With Morrie, The Madwoman of Chaillot, the title role in King Lear, Dynamite Tonight (Obie Award), Howard Katz, The Cherry Orchard, Sam Mendes' Bridge Project at BAM and internationally. Known for his dedication to the works of Samuel Beckett he created the roles of Luck and Clov in the American premieres of Beckett's Waiting For Godot and Endgame.

Kathryn Erbe Broadway: A Month in the Country, Speed of Darkness (Tony Award nomination), The Grapes of Wrath. Off-Broadway: Yosemite, Down the Shore, The My House Play. Regional: many productions with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Film: Speaking of Sex, Entropy, Love From Ground Zero, Kiss of Death, The Addiction, D2: The Mighty Ducks, Rich in Love, What About Bob?. TV: Law & Order: CI, Oz, Homicide: Life on the Street.

John Glover Broadway: Death of a Salesman; The Royal Family; Waiting for Godot (Tony Award nomination); The Drowsy Chaperone; Love! Valour! Compassion!; Tartuffe. Off-Broadway: The Marriage of Bette & Boo, The Paris Letter (Drama Desk nomination), The Winter's Tale, Sorrows and Rejoicings, Oblivion Postponed. Film: Sanitarium; Dead Broke; Batman & Robin; Love! Valour! Compassion!; Robocop 2; Scrooged; Rocket Gibraltor; 52 Pick-Up; White Nights; Melvin and Howard; Annie Hall; Julia. TV: many credits include regular roles on the series Smallville and Brimstone and Emmy Award-nominated appearances in the series Frasier, L.A. Law, Crime & Punishment and in the TV film David.

JENNIFER B. GRACE Off-Broadway: Emily in Our Town (Theatre World Award). Regional theater: Our Town (with Helen Hunt), Chemin de Fer, The Sea Gull, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Angels In America, Balm in Gilead, Arcadia. Film: The Escape, The Casserole Club, Anecdote.

Katie Kreisler Broadway: The House of Blue Leaves, Noises Off. Off-Broadway: Our House, I'm in Love With Your Wife, Psych. Film: Children of Invention, Full Grown Men, Approaching Union Square, Heights, Melinda & Melinda. TV: Law & Order, The Good Wife, Medium, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Without A Trace.

Stephen Kunken LCT: Rock n' Roll. Broadway: The Columnist, High, Enron (Tony Award nomination), Frost/Nixon, Festen, Proof. Off-Broadway: RX, Lost in the Stars, Our Town, Our House, Arrangements, The Story, A Dybbuk, Henry VIII. Film: The Wolf of Wall Street, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, All Good Things, Taking Woodstock, Bamboozled. TV: Blue Bloods, Elementary, The Good Wife, Law & Order: CI, Gossip Girl, Sopranos, Mary and Rhoda.

Haviland Morris LCT: Ring 'Round the Moon, Arcadia. Broadway: Tartuffe: Born Again. Off-Broadway: Rodney's Wife, The Uneasy Chair, Uncommon Women and Others, Aristocrats, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. Film: Home Alone 3, Dear Diary, The Last Supper, Gremlins 2, Who's That Girl, Sixteen Candles, Reckless. TV: The Good Wife, Girls, Army Wives, Law & Order: CI, Third Watch, Homicide: Life on the Street, Sex and the City, Cosby.

DALE PLACE Off-Broadway: Happy Birthday, Wanda June, Hedda Gabler, The Water Engine. Regional theatre: many credits include productions at the Huntington Theatre Company, Lyric Stage of Boston, Cleveland Play House. Film: The Fighter, The Proposal, Gone Baby Gone.

John Procaccino LCT: Blood and Gifts, An American Daughter, The Light in the Piazza. Broadway: An Enemy of the People, Conversations with My Father, A Thousand Clowns, Art. Off-Broadway: Coming of Age in Soho. Film: The Runner Stumbles, Born to be Wild. TV: Law & Order, Red Rose, NYPD Blue, Northern Exposure.

Gareth Saxe Broadway: The Lion King, The Homecoming, Heartbreak House. Off-Broadway: Harper Regan, The Duchess of Malfi, Kimberly Akimbo, Futher From the Futhers Thing, The Wax, The Winter's Tale. Regional theater: many productions at such theaters as the Mark Taper Forum, ACT (San Francisco), Huntington Theatre Company, the Kennedy Center, the Denver Center Theatre Company and Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Film/TV: Public Enemies, The Auction.

Alan Schmuckler: Theater credits in Chicago include Rent, Sugar, Murder for Two, A Minister's Wife (Jefferson nominations for the last three productions), Merrily We Roll Along, The Two Noble Kinsmen, The Time of Your Life, She Stoops To Conquer.