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Kline, Harris, Hoffman and More Coming to Public in 06/07
By: BWW News Desk Jun. 01, 2006
The Public Theater's Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Mara Manus announce its 2006-07 Season, exciting new productions that will usher in The Public's next 50 years as one of the nation's leading producers of Shakespeare and new work.
The
2006-07 Season will lead with Shakespeare, whose works are central to The
Public's artistic vision uptown at Shakespeare in the Park and downtown at
425 Lafayette Street. A
Shakespeare production downtown will be directed by James Lapine
and feature Kevin Kline, who has a
Also coming to The Public's stages downtown this season are ambitious new works by three American masters – Wrecks by Neil LaBute, The Singing Forest by Craig Lucas, and 365 Days / 365 Plays by Suzan-Lori Parks. Exciting new work by new voices will also be heard – Durango by Julia Cho and directed by Chay Yew, Passing Strange by Stew in collaboration with Heidi Rodewald and Director Annie Dorsen, and Emergence-SEE! by Daniel Beaty.
Every month at The Public will be the continued presence of America's greatest actors. Following Liev Schreiber and Meryl Streep's performances at Shakespeare in the Park will be Kevin Kline performing Shakespeare and Ed Harris, who will return to The Public with Wrecks, written and directed by Neil LaBute. Harris last appeared in The Public's 1994 production of Sam Shepard's Simpatico, for which he won a Lucille Lortel Award for outstanding performance. Additionally, Philip Seymour Hoffman will appear in the LAByrinth Theatre Company's production of Jack Goes Boating.
In addition to seven new productions downtown, the 2006-07 Season will feature the return of two popular free readings series – New Work Now! and New Work Then!, which showcases new works and landmark plays developed during The Public's history, respectively; two annual festivals – Under The Radar, which highlights cutting-edge theater from around the world, and globalFEST, an all-star musical performance event at Joe's Pub featuring the latest in world music, co-produced by The Public Theater, World Music Institute and World Music/Crash Arts, Boston.
The Public welcomes back
LAByrinth Theater Company for its fourth season of residency; it is proud
to give a home to one of America's most daring, innovative and talented
theater companies dedicated to developing and producing new plays that
reflect the very fabric of New York City. At The Public this season,
LAByrinth will stage A Small, Melodramatic Story directed by Lucie Tiberghien and featuring Carlo Alban, Ron Cephas Jones, Chris
McGarry and Portia, and Jack Goes Boating by Bob Glaudini, directed by Peter Dubois and featuring Beth Cole, Daphne Rubin-Vega, John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman. For more information, please visit
www.labtheater.org.
2006-07
SEASON
To Be Announced
By
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE / Directed by James Lapine /
Fall
Featuring Kevin Kline
America's leading
Shakespearean actor Kevin Kline returns to The Public in a new
production of one of Shakespeare's greatest epics, directed by Tony
Award-winning director James Lapine.
WRECKS
Written and directed by NEIL LABUTE / October
Featuring Ed Harris
U.S. PREMIERE
First produced at Everyman Palace Theatre in Cork, Ireland.
Two of Americas most exciting artists team up to create a theatrical tour de force in this new solo work. In true LaBute fashion, this new play promises to thrill, surprise and challenge your assumptions about love, family and marriage.
DURANGO
Written by JULIA CHO /
Directed by CHAY YEW / November
WORLD PREMIERE
Single father Boo-Seng decides it's time for a family road trip to Durango, Colorado. As he and his two teenage sons get closer to their destination, secrets are revealed that intensify the sons' struggle with growing up in the shadow of their father, who left Korea to pursue the American Dream. From the award-winning playwright who brought you BFE, Durango is new American drama at its best. A co-production with the Long Wharf Theatre.
EMERGENCE-SEE!
Written and
performed by DANIEL BEATY / November
NEW YORK
PREMIERE
In 2006, a slave ship rises out of the Hudson River in front of the Statue of Liberty, sending New York into a whirlwind of emotion. Through slam poetry and song, award-winning actor/singer and writer/composer Daniel Beaty portrays a multitude of characters whose responses to the slave ship reflect on issues of identity and personal freedom. This explosive one-man play presents a stirring commentary on modern black life.
PASSING STRANGE
Book and lyrics by STEW /
Music by STEW & HEIDI RODEWALD / Directed and created in collaboration
with ANNIE DORSEN / January
WORLD PREMIERE
From
THE
By Craig Lucas / Directed by
Bartlett Sher
NEW YORK
PREMIERE / Spring
The writer who brought us The Light in the Piazza, Reckless and Prelude to a Kiss now interrogates how history collides with the human heart in the aftermath of the Holocaust. The Singing Forest takes you on a passage through time — from today's world of Starbucks, celebrity and therapy to Freud's inner circle in 1930s Vienna and to Paris at the end of WWII. It's the story of three generations of a family whose lives are intertwined despite the secrets that have torn them apart.
365 DAYS / 365
PLAYS
By SUZAN-LORI PARKS
NEW
YORK PREMIERE
In November 2002, the Pulitzer prize-winning Suzan-Lori Parks sat down and committed to writing a play a day for the next 365 days. For the 2006-07 Season, The Public will produce the New York premiere of these works by gathering together a widely diverse cross-section of New York's theater companies to participate in this project. Over the course of one year, the selected theaters - curated by The Public, Suzan-Lori Parks and Producer Bonnie Metzger - will perform these brief, brilliant snapshots from the imagination of one of America's leading playwrights. This will be part of a yearlong national festival of the play cycle that will take place in major cities around the country including Atlanta, Los Angeles and Denver. Tickets at The Public will be FREE.
Founded by Joseph Papp as the Shakespeare Workshop and now one of the nation's preeminent institutions, The Public is an American theater in which all the country's voices, rhythms, converge. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Mara Public's mandate to create a theater for all New Yorkers continues to this day on stage and extensive outreach and education programs. Over 250,000 people annually attend Public Theater events at its six downtown stages including Joe's Pub, and at Shakespeare in the Park.
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