Lincoln Center Theater (under the direction of Andre Bishop, Artistic Director, and Bernard Gersten, Executive Producer) has announced its 2009 Fall productions of two new plays which will mark the Broadway and New York debuts for their respective playwrights: IN THE NEXT ROOM or The Vibrator Play, by Sarah Ruhl, directed by Les Waters; and BROKE-OLOGY a new play by Nathan Louis Jackson, directed by Thomas Kail. IN THE NEXT ROOM or The Vibrator Play, which will be presented on Broadway while LCT's Tony Award winning production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific continues its run at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, will begin previews on Thursday, October 22 and open on Thursday, November 19 at a Shubert theater to be announced. BROKE-OLOGY will begin previews Thursday, September 10 and open on Monday, October 5 at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (150 W 65 Street).
IN THE NEXT ROOM or The Vibrator Play is a comedy about marriage, intimacy and electricity which had its world premiere last month at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
Sarah Ruhl returns to Lincoln Center Theater where she made her New York debut with her play The Clean House. Her other plays include Dead Man's Cell Phone, Demeter in the City, Eurydice, Late: a cowboy song, Melancholy Play, Orlando and Passion Play: a cycle. Her work has also been produced in New York at
Playwrights Horizons and the Second Stage and nationally at many theaters including the Goodman, Yale Rep and the Woolly Mammoth Theaters. Les Waters, an Obie Award winning director, is the associate artistic director of Berkeley Rep. His New York credits include productions at BAM. the Manhattan Theatre Club, CSC,
Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater, Second Stage Theater and Signature Theatre Company.
Casting and designers for IN THE NEXT ROOM or The Vibrator Play will be announced at a later date.
BROKE-OLOGY is the story of the King family who have weathered the hardships of life and survived with their love for each other intact. But when two brothers are called home to take care of their ailing father, one of them must choose to follow
The Life he dreams of or honor the unspoken promise of loyalty to his family.
Nathan Louis Jackson is a student at the Juilliard School and is a graduate of Kansas State University. He is a past participant in The Kennedy Center Summer Playwriting intensive, the
William Inge 24 Hour Play Festival and the winner of two
Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Awards, the
Mark Twain Playwrighting Award and the recipient of the Kennedy Center's Gold Medallion. BROKE-OLOGY premiered last summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.
Thomas Kail directed the hit Broadway musical
In The Heights, for which he won a 2007 Joseph A. Callaway Award and was nominated for a Tony Award, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. He is a consulting producer and a Music Director on the new PBS television show The Electric Company. This summer he'll direct the City Center Encores! Summer Star series production of The Wiz.
BROKE-OLOGY will have sets by
Donyale Werle, costumes by
Emily Rebholz, lighting by
Jason Lyons and sound by
Jill BC DuBoff. Casting for the production will be announced at a later date.
In addition to these two productions, LCT3, Lincoln Center Theater's new programming initiative devoted to the work of emerging playwrights, directors and designers, will present a fall production, to be announced, at The Duke on 42nd Street (249 West 42 Street).
This season, in addition to the continuing run of Rodgers & Hammerstein's
South Pacific at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, Lincoln Center Theater is also presenting a new production of
August Wilson's prize-winning early work
Joe Turner's Come and Gone, directed by
Bartlett Sher, opening Thursday, April 16 on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre,
Happiness a new musical with book by
John Weidman, music by
Scott Frankel, lyrics by
Michael Korie and direction and choreography by
Susan Stroman, opening Monday, March 30 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater and the return of
John Lithgow in his critically acclaimed one man show
John Lithgow: Stories By Heart on Sunday and Monday nights in the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, April 12 - May 25. LCT3 will present its second production Stunning, a new play by David Adjmi, directed by Anne Kauffman, June 1 - 27 at The Duke on 42nd Street.
