Hoffman, Dafoe, Ortiz, Sellars and Parks Among Talents For Public Theater's 2009/2010 Season

The Public Theater's Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Andrew D. Hamingson announced today that the 2009-2010 Season will feature premieres by Peter Sellars, Richard Foreman, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Mike Daisey, and Suzan-Lori Parks and include performances by John Ortiz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Willem Dafoe.

The Public's season will open in September with OTHELLO, directed by Peter Sellars, and featuring John Ortiz as Othello and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Iago. Willem Dafoe will make his Public Theater debut in October with the world premiere of IDIOT SAVANT, written and directed by Richard Foreman.

Tarell Alvin McCraney, one of America's most acclaimed young writers, will return to The Public in October to complete his trilogy with the world premiere of THE BROTHER/SISTER PLAYS Part 1 & Part 2. Tina Landau will direct In The Red and Brown Water and Robert O'Hara will direct The Brothers Size and Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet. These three powerful plays will be presented in two separate shows to be enjoyed independently, in any order, or experienced together. Marathon performances will be scheduled for weekends so audiences can experience all three plays in one day.

Mike Daisey will return to The Public in December with a new monologue THE LAST CARGO CULT, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Suzan-Lori Parks will premiere her newest play SNAKE in March.

"This ambitious season spans the breadth of The Public's mandate from thrilling Shakespeare produced by some of our greatest American artists to groundbreaking new plays by writers young and old," said Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis.

"We are honored and thrilled to be producing such a broad array of playwrights, directors, actors, and theater artists," said Executive Director Andrew D. Hamingson. "Even in these challenging times, The Public's stages will be filled with the artists that best uphold the mission of this 54-year old institution."

 

2009-2010 Season

OTHELLO
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Peter Sellars

September 12 - October 4 at NYU Skirball Center

With John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman

The Public launches its 2009-2010 season with a contemporary production of Shakespeare's most passionate and spiritually-charged creation. Longtime artistic collaborators and Public Theater favorites John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman, are Othello and Iago, roles of fire and intensity in Shakespeare's globalized contest of deception, ambiguity and overpowering love.

 

Peter Sellars, renowned for tearing through boundaries with his visionary stagings of the classics, explores the new prospects for hope in 21st-century America giving the play a modern resonance that raises a mirror to our culture's racial struggles and achievements, both darkened and illuminated by overwhelming personal and political yearning. Presented by The Public Theater and LAByrinth Theater Company in association with Wiener Festwochen and K15 Festival and by special arrangement with NYU Skirball Center.

 

IDIOT SAVANT (World Premiere)
Written and Directed by Richard Foreman
October 27 - December 13

 

With Willem Dafoe

Marie asks the Idiot Savant, "But what makes certain words - magic?" What follows is a wild theatrical odyssey that could only have sprung from the fantastical mind of Richard Foreman (The Threepenny Opera), New York's legendary avant-garde genius. This new work is a philosophical comedy, in the great tradition of Ionesco and Preston Sturges. From precise existential and metaphysical acrobatics, to a ridiculous game of inter-species golf with a Giant Duck, IDIOT SAVANT is a fresh, bracing and hilarious exploration of the boundaries of the legitimate. Presented in association with Ontological-Hysteric Theater.

 

THE BROTHER/SISTER PLAYS PART 1 & PART 2 (World Premiere)
By Tarell Alvin McCraney

October 21 - December 13 (Marathon performances on weekends)

Part 1: In the Red and Brown Water

Directed by Tina Landau

Part 2: The Brothers Size and Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet

Directed by Robert O'Hara

 

Tarell Alvin McCraney, one of America's most acclaimed young writers and the winner of the inaugural New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award, returns to The Public with a trilogy of modern-day stories of kinship, love, heartache and coming-of-age centered around an extended family and community in the Bayou. McCraney's stories traverse the gritty and lyrical, urban and mythic. Be among the first to hear the words of one of the most startling new voices of the 21st century, who is thrilling audiences around the globe by pushing the boundaries of language, form, and sexuality in provocative, musical and poetic ways. This trilogy, offered over two performances, can be viewed independently, or in either order, but have a special resonance when experienced together. Presented by The Public Theater in association with McCarter Theatre.

 

Part 1:

In The Red and Brown Water

How far will Oya go to make a mark in the world? Fast, beautiful Oya is a young runner with enormous promise, forced to choose between her ailing mother and her own dreams. This intoxicating story charts a young girl's thrust into womanhood and her subsequent fall into the murky waters of life.

Part 2:

The Brothers Size

Reconceived as part of the trilogy since it premiered as part of The Public's 2007-2008 season, this taut, rhythmic and playful drama follows two brothers as they walk the line between law and liberty, locked in a fierce tug-of-war for their own souls and a test of their fraternal bond.

 

Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet

A beautiful and touching tale of a young man's awakening to his tenuous connections with his history, his friends, his sexuality, and himself.

THE LAST CARGO CULT (New York Premiere)

Created and Performed by Mike Daisey

Directed by Jean-Michele Gregory

December 2009

 

Groundbreaking monologist Mike Daisey (If You See Something Say Something) returns to The Public with the true-life story of his time on a remote South Pacific island whose inhabitants worship America at the base of a constantly erupting volcano. Their religion is explored alongside our own to form a sharp and searing examination of the international financial crisis. Daisey wrestles with the largest questions of what the collapse means, and what it says about our deepest values. Part adventure story and part memoir, he uses each culture to illuminate the other to find, between the seemingly primitive and the achingly modern, a human answer. The Last Cargo Cult is an add-on production for Public Theater members and not part of their Membership package.

 

SNAKE (World Premiere)
By Suzan-Lori Parks

Directed by James Macdonald
March 2 - April 4, 2010

 

Treasured for her groundbreaking poetic and inventive language, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks (Topdog/Underdog) has drawn a family portrait shattered by issues of rage, revenge, power and betrayal. When a young man returns home to South Texas to confront his father, everyday life erupts into a battle for personal survival. At once fiercely intimate and explosive, SNAKE weaves the story of three people bound together by passion and ambition, love and longing. Currently, Parks is the Master Writer Chair at The Public Theater.

 

ALSO SCHEDULED FOR NEXT SEASON AT THE PUBLIC THEATER:

 

The 2009-2010 Season will see the third year of Public LAB, the popular annual series conceived with LAByrinth Theater Company that lets New Yorkers see new work in stripped-down productions. Tickets to all performances will remain $10.

 

Under the Radar will return for its sixth year (January 6-17, 2010), showcasing cutting-edge theater from around the world on the many stages of The Public.

 

The 2009-10 Season will also feature the return of New Work Now!, the popular free readings series that showcases new work.

 

THE PUBLIC THEATER (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis; Executive Director Andrew D. Hamingson) was founded by Joseph Papp in 1954 as the Shakespeare Workshop and is now one of the nation's preeminent cultural institutions, producing new plays, musicals, productions of Shakespeare, and other classics at its headquarters on Lafayette Street and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The Public's mandate to create a theater for all New Yorkers continues to this day on stage and through its extensive outreach and education programs. Each year, over 250,000 people attend Public Theater-related productions and events at six downtown stages, including Joe's Pub, and Shakespeare in the Park. The Public has won 41 Tony Awards, 149 Obies, 40 Drama Desk Awards, 24 Lucille Lortel Awards and 4 Pulitzer Prizes.

 

The Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, New York University, is the premier venue for the presentation of cultural and performing arts events at NYU and lower Manhattan. Located at 566 LaGuardia Place (at Washington Square South), it provides a large-scale performance space for university events and live professional performances from around the world. The 860-seat theater opened in October 2003 and hosts the only major university-based professional multi-arts presenting program in Manhattan. As a result, one natural and continuing mission of the Skirball Center is to build young audiences for live performance through a broad range of compelling performance events at affordable ticket prices. For more information and a current schedule of events, visit www.skirballcenter.nyu.edu.

The Public Theater is located at 425 Lafayette Street.

A renewal offer is going out soon to current Members, and following that, Memberships will become available to the general public.The LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust provides leadership support for The Public Theater's

year-round activities.

 

The Public's 2009-2010 downtown season is made possible with the generous support of both The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation and The Ian Madover and Arielle Tepper Madover Family Foundation.

Time Warner is the Supporting Sponsor of The Public's 2009-2010 season.

Bank of America is the proud season sponsor of Shakespeare in the Park.

Major support for The Public Theater is provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Shubert Foundation, the Booth Ferris Foundation, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Susan Stein Shiva Foundation, the George T. Delacorte Fund at the New York Community Trust-Fund for Performances at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, and by Warren Spector and Margaret Whitton.

Pepsi is the official beverage sponsor of The Public Theater.

Additional generous support is provided by Debra and Leon Black, the Horace W.

Goldsmith Foundation, New York Magazine, and the Starr Foundation. Public support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the National Endowment for the Arts, An independent federal agency.

Special thanks to Continental Airlines, the official airline of The Public Theater.

The Public Theater is a participant in the New Generations Program, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for the American theatre.

Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinski