Josiah Bania and Marcel Spears Sign on for IRONBOUND at the Geffen Playhouse

The Geffen Playhouse today announced that Josiah Bania (CBS's The Good Wife) and Marcel Spears (ABC's The Mayor) will join Tony Award nominee Marin Ireland (Broadway's reasons to be pretty, Amazon's Sneaky Pete) in the West Coast Premiere of Martyna Majok's Ironbound, directed by Tyne Rafaeli (Actually).

Bania will be reprising the role of Maks, which he played Off-Broadway at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2016 alongside Ireland, who is reprising the lead role of Darja. Spears will play Vic.

Chris Messina, who was previously announced to play Tommy, had to exit the role. A replacement will be announced shortly.

Previews for Ironbound begin Tuesday, January 30, 2018 in the Gil Cates Theater at The Geffen Playhouse, with opening night on Wednesday, February 7. The production closes Sunday, March 4, 2018.

At once humorous and heartrending, Ironbound spans 22 years to tell the story of Darja, a Polish immigrant getting by on a cleaning job, aggressive pragmatism and sheer will. In this wry drama, award-winning playwright Martyna Majok points out that sometimes survival is the only measure of success.

Ironbound had its world premiere at the Round House Theatre as part of the Women's Voices Theater Festival in September 2015. Majok's script was awarded the National New Play Network Smith Prize and the David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize.

Rafaeli recently directed the Geffen's world premiere of Anna Ziegler's play Actually, which made its Off-Broadway debut at New York's Manhattan Theatre Club on November 14.

On the creative team are: Scenic Designer Tim Mackabee; Costume Designer Elizabeth Caitlin Ward; Lighting Designer Lap Chi Chu; Sound Designer Leon Rothenberg; Production Stage Manager Elizabeth A. Brohm; Assistant Stage Manager Ross Jackson; and Casting Director Phyllis Schuringa, CSA.

The run of Ironbound will feature the Geffen's popular Talk Back Tuesdays, which give theater lovers a chance for a deeper conversation to discuss plot, character themes and other questions directly with the artists in a post-show Q&A from the stage. Dates: February 13, February 20 and February 27, 2018.

All performances take place at the Gil Cates Theater at The Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024.

Tickets currently priced at $32.00 - $90.00. Available in person at The Geffen Playhouse box office, by phone at 310.208.5454 or online at www.geffenplayhouse.org. Fees may apply. Rush tickets for each day's performance are made available to the general public 30 minutes before showtime at the box office. $35.00 General / $10.00 Student.

Through a variety of events and other opportunities, The Geffen Playhouse welcomes college students to experience the live storytelling presented on our stages. We are proud of our association with UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television, and open our doors to all college students throughout Los Angeles. More information is available at www.geffenplayhouse.org/college.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Martyna Majok (Playwright)

Martyna Majok's plays have been presented at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Women's Project Theater and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, among others. Awards include Dramatists Guild's Lanford Wilson Award, Lilly Award, Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award, Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding Original New Play (Helen Hayes Awards), Ashland New Plays Festival Women's Invitational Prize, The Kennedy Center's Jean Kennedy Smith Award, David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize, New York Theatre Workshop's 2050 Fellowship, Aurora Theatre's Global Age Project Prize and the NNPN/Smith Prize for Political Playwriting. Commissions from Lincoln Center Theater, Bush Theatre in London, Geffen Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Repertory and Manhattan Theatre Club. BA: University of Chicago; MFA: Yale School of Drama, Juilliard. Majok was a 2012-2013 NNPN Playwright-in-Residence and the 2015-2016 PoNY Fellow at the Lark Play Development Center. Upcoming: queens at LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater.

Tyne Rafaeli (Director)

Tyne Rafaeli directs classics, new plays and musicals, including the recent world premiere of The Geffen Playhouse's production of Actually by Anna Ziegler. Her work has been seen at Classic Stage Company, Playwrights Realm, Atlantic Theater Company, Roundabout Theatre Company, Two River Theater, California Shakespeare Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, New York Stage & Film, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Goodspeed Musicals, Julliard, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Great Lakes Theater, American Players Theatre, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, the O'Neill Playwrights Conference and PlayPenn, among others. Rafaeli is a 2016-2018 Time Warner Directing Fellow at the Women's Project Theater and was awarded the 2013-2014 SDCF Sir John Gielgud Fellowship for Classical Direction. She has served as Associate Director on the Broadway productions of The King & I, Fiddler on the Roof, The Bridges of Madison County and Golden Boy and the West End's Women on the Verge.

Josiah Bania (Maks)

Off-Broadway: Ironbound (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater). Regional: Archduke (Mark Taper Forum), Fingersmith (American Repertory Theater), The Way of the World (Dorset Theatre Festival), Love's Labour's Lost (Chautauqua Theater Company), The History Boys (Artists Repertory Theatre), A Christmas Carol (Portland Center Stage) and Three Sisters (Yale Repertory Theatre). Yale School of Drama: Othello, The Seagull, Petty Harbour, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, and No More Sad Things. Television: The Good Wife, The Mysteries of Laura, and Leverage. Education: Yale School of Drama (MFA).

Marin Ireland (Darja)

Marin Ireland's theater credits include reasons to be pretty, for which she won a Theatre World Award and was nominated for a Tony Award. Her other New York credits include The Big Knife on Broadway (opposite Bobby Cannavale); Ironbound at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater; Kill Floor at Lincoln Center Theater; Blasted and Marie Antoinette, both at Soho Rep; Three Sisters at Classic Stage Company; Cyclone at Studio Dante (Obie Award) and In the Wake at The Public Theater. Some of her television and film work includes Girls, Homeland, Masters of Sex, The Divide, The Slap, Glass Chin (Independent Spirit nomination 2016), Sparrows Dance, The Family Fang, 28 Hotel Rooms, In the Radiant City and Hell or High Water. Most recently she was seen in the Lifetime movie Flint, about the Flint water crisis, playing activist Melissa Mays. She currently appears on the Amazon series Sneaky Pete.

Marcel Spears (Vic)

Marcel Spears plays "TK" on the ABC comedy The Mayor. Theater credits include At the Old Place as "Will" (La Jolla Playhouse); Picasso at the Lapin Agile as "Schmendiman" (The Old Globe); Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Two Rivers Theater, directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson); Trouble in Mind (Guthrie Theater); Othello, Mother Courage and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Classic Stage Company). Spears starred Off-Broadway opposite Deirdre O'Connell in Page 73's production of Judy by Max Posner, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll; Light (directed by Brian Kulick), The Threepenny Opera, The Emperor Jones and The Maids (Columbia University/Columbia Stages). Awards and Education: 2015 Rosemarie Tichler Fund Grant recipient, M.F.A. Columbia University.

Geffen Playhouse has been a hub of the Los Angeles theater scene since opening its doors in 1995. Noted for its intimacy and celebrated for its world-renowned mix of classic and contemporary plays, provocative new works and second productions, the not-for-profit organization continues to present a body of work that has garnered national recognition. Named in honor of entertainment mogul and philanthropist David Geffen, who made the initial donation to the theater, the company was founded by Gilbert Cates and is currently helmed by Executive Director Gil Cates, Jr., Artistic Director Matt Shakman and Board ChairA. Howard Tenenbaum. Proudly associated with UCLA, the Geffen welcomes an audience of more than 130,000 each year, and maintains extensive education and community engagement programs, designed to involve underserved young people and the community at large in the arts.