Lena Hall, Marisa Tomei & More Join HOW TO TRANSCEND A HAPPY MARRIAGE

Lincoln Center Theater (under the direction of André Bishop) has announced that Lena Hall, Brian Hutchison, David McElwee, Naian González Norvind, Omar Metwally, Austin Smith, Marisa Tomei, and Robin Weigert will be featured in the cast of its upcoming production of HOW TO TRANSCEND A HAPPY MARRIAGE, a new play by Sarah Ruhl. The production, which will be directed by Rebecca Taichman, begins previews Thursday, February 23 and opens on Monday, March 20 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (150 West 65 Street).

At a dinner party in the wilds of New Jersey, two married couples (to be played by Marisa Tomei & Omar Metwally and Robin Weigert & Brian Hutchison) discuss a younger acquaintance - a polyamorous woman who also hunts her own meat (to be played by Lena Hall). Fascinated, they invite this mysterious woman and her two live-in boyfriends to a New Year's Eve party, which alters the course of their lives. HOW TO TRANSCEND A HAPPY MARRIAGE asks: how much love can a twosome contain? What are the limits of friendship, and what happens when parents who have forgotten their own wildness have a wild rumpus all their own?

HOW TO TRANSCEND A HAPPY MARRIAGE will have sets by David Zinn, costumes by Susan Hilferty, lighting by Peter Kaczorowski, sound by Matt Hubbs, and original music by Todd Almond.

Sarah Ruhl LCT: The Oldest Boy; In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (Pulitzer Prize finalist); and The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize). Other plays include For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday; Stage Kiss; Dear Elizabeth; Passion Play, a cycle (Pen American Award, The Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center); Dead Man's Cell Phone (Helen Hayes Award); Melancholy Play; Eurydice; Orlando; and Late: a cowboy song. In addition to LCT, her plays have been produced around the country and internationally, translated into fourteen languages. Her new book of essays, 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write, was published by Faber and Faber. Awards: Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award, Whiting Writers' Award, MacArthur Fellowship, Lily Award, and PEN Center Award for a mid-career playwright. Education: M.F.A., Brown University (with Paula Vogel). An alumna of New Dramatists and 13P, she teaches at the Yale School of Drama.

Rebecca Taichman LCT: The Oldest Boy and The Luck of the Irish (LCT3). Off-Broadway: Indecent (Vineyard Theatre); Familiar,Stage Kiss, and Milk Like Sugar (Playwrights Horizons); Orlando (CSC); Orpheus (New York City Opera); Dark Sisters (Music Theatre Group, Gotham Opera); Rappaccini's Daughter (Gotham Chamber Opera); The Scene (Second Stage, Humana); and Menopausal Gentleman (Ohio Theatre). Regional: Familiar and Evildoers (Yale Rep.); Indecent (Yale Rep., LJP); Twelfth Night and Time and the Conways (Old Globe); Marie Antoinette (ART, Yale Rep.); Sleeping Beauty Wakes and Milk Like Sugar (LJP); She Loves Me (OSF); Winter's Tale (McCarter, STC); Cymbeline, Twelfth Night, and The Taming of the Shrew (STC); Twelfth Night and Sleeping Beauty Wakes (McCarter); Dead Man's Cell Phone and The Clean House (Woolly Mammoth). Education: M.F.A., Yale School of Drama.

Lincoln Center Theater is currently producing The Babylon Line, a new play by Richard Greenberg, directed by Terry Kinney, at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater through Sunday, January 22. Upcoming productions include the LCT3 production ofBull in a China Shop, a new play by Bryna Turner, directed by Lee Sunday Evans, beginning Saturday, February 11 at the Claire Tow Theater and the remounting of its critically acclaimed production of J.T. Rogers' Oslo, directed by Bartlett Sher, beginning Thursday, March 23 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. LCT will also co-produce the new Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, directed by Sam Gold and starring Sally Field and Joe Mantello, at the Belasco Theatre.

HOW TO TRANSCEND A HAPPY MARRIAGE will be performed Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8pm, withWednesday and Saturday matinees at 2pm and Sunday matinees at 3pm. (PLEASE NOTE: There is no matinee performance on Saturday, February 25 and no evening performance on Tuesday, March 21). Tickets, priced at $77 and $87, will be available beginning Sunday, January 29 at the Lincoln Center Theater box office, telecharge.com, and lct.org. A limited number of tickets priced at $32 are available at every performance through LincTix, LCT's program for 21 to 35 year olds. For information and to enroll, visit LincTix.org.

HOW TO TRANSCEND A HAPPY MARRIAGE is the recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. LCT also acknowledges generous grants for this production from the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and The Henry Nias Foundation courtesy of Dr. Stanley Edelman. The original music for this play is made possible by The Frederick Loewe Fund for Dramatic Theater Music at LCT. Special thanks to the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust for supporting new American plays at LCT. The Mitzi E. Newhouse season is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos