Lori Wilner, David Wohl, Annie Purcell, Michael Goldsmith and More Star in AWAKE AND SING!, Beginning Tonight at Huntington Theatre

Obie Award winner Melia Bensussen (Luck of the Irish, Circle Mirror Transformation) returns to the Huntington Theatre Company to direct Awake and Sing!, Clifford Odets' stirring American classic about a working-class Jewish family striving for a better future. Performances at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre begin tonight, November 7 and continue through Sunday, December 7, 2014.

"Since her gorgeous, moving production of Luck of the Irish in 2011, I've wanted to bring director Melia Bensussen back to the Huntington to mount a classic," says Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois. "She has a great passion for Clifford Odets' work -- Awake and Sing! evokes stirring memories of her relatives, she once told me. Her talent for telling intimate family stories that play out on a broad social canvas makes now the perfect opportunity for her return."

"We don't want life printed on dollar bills," the passionate Ralph Berger proclaims to his mother Bessie. In Awake and Sing!, three generations of an immigrant Jewish family are crammed into a Bronx apartment where they dream of a brighter future. Matriarch Bessie's fierce determination keeps her family afloat whatever the cost as she faces opposition from those with vastly different definitions of success. Gritty, passionate, funny, and heartbreaking, Odets' 1935 masterpiece beautifully captures both the hopes and the struggles of an unforgettable American family fighting for security and prosperity as they emerge from the Great Depression.

"Awake and Sing! portrays the emotional battlefields that ensue when economic pressures overwhelm," says Bensussen. "How can we love purely and generously when we are in constant danger of losing our homes, our savings. Odets captures the complexities of intimacy and tension in a close-knit family. To find a balance between love, support, and self-interest in any nuclear family is the stuff of great plays."

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

The cast includes Lori Wilner (The Assembled Parties and A Catered Affair on Broadway) as matriarch Bessie Berger; David Wohl (Golden Boy and Dinner at Eight on Broadway) as her husband Myron; Annie Purcell (The Coast of Utopia and Dividing the Estate on Broadway) as headstrong daughter Hennie; and Michael Goldsmith (Now or Later at the Huntington and Tales from Red Vienna at Manhattan Theatre Club) as ardent, romantic Ralph who is inspired by his grandfather's ideals, the left-leaning Jacob, played by Boston favorite Will LeBow (Act One on Broadway, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Huntington). Stephen Schnetzer (The Goat or, Who is Sylvia on Broadway and at The Lyric Stage Company of Boston) plays successful American businessman Uncle Morty; Eric T. Miller (The In-Between and Wink Off Broadway) plays Moe Axelrod, a border in the Berger's home; Nael Nacer (The Seagull and Our Town at the Huntington) plays Sam Feinschreiber; and Kevin Fennessy (Our Town at the Huntington) appears as Schlosser, the janitor.

Clifford Odets (Playwright) is the author of Waiting for Lefty, Awake and Sing!, Paradise Lost, Golden Boy, Rocket to the Moon Clash by Night, The Big Knife, The Country Girl, and The Flowering Peach among others. In 1931, he began his career as an actor with The Group Theater, a New York company of which he was a founding member. He soon turned to writing, and his first play for the Group, Waiting for Lefty (1935), almost immediately launched him as the most celebrated American playwright of the 1930s. It and four other major Broadway productions in that decade introduced theatre audiences to subject matter and language that had never before been heard on the American stage. Odets' work spanned the three decades preceding his death in 1963 and deeply influenced generations of American playwrights to follow. Screenplay credits include The General Died at Dawn, None but the Lonely Heart, Humoresque, The Sweet Smell of Success, and Story on Page One. Film directing credits include None but the Lonely Heart and Story on Page One. Odets also directed the New York premieres of The Country Girl (1950) and The Flowering Peach (1954).

Melia Bensussen (Director) previously directed the world premiere of Kirsten Greenidge's Luck of the Irish (2013 IRNE Award winner for Best New Play) and Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation at the Huntington. Her directing credits include work with Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Actors' Shakespeare Project, La Jolla Playhouse, Baltimore's Center Stage, Hartford Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, New York Shakespeare Festival, MCC Theater, Primary Stages, Long Wharf Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and People's Light and Theatre Company, where she received a Barrymore Award nomination for Best Direction and many others. Her production of Twelfth Night at Actors' Shakespeare Project, received the 2012 Elliot Norton Award for Best Production. Her edition of the Langston Hughes translation of Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding is published by Theatre Communications Group, and she is currently working with Melinda Lopez on a new adaptation of Lorca's Yerma. She recently co-authored and directed a workshop of The War Department, a new musical with Jim and Ruth Bauer at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. Her play Bluebeard, co-authored with playwright Masha Obolensky, was a part of the Huntington Playwriting Fellowship workshops this past July. She is the recipient of an Obie Award for Outstanding Direction. Ms. Bensussen is chair of the performing arts department at Emerson College.

The Huntington's production of Awake and Sing! will feature scenic design by James Noone (Luck of the Irish, The Corn is Green, She Loves Me, and others at the Huntington), costume design by Michael Krass (Before I Leave You, Butley, Dead End, and others at the Huntington), lighting design by Brian J. Lilienthal (Off Broadway at Cherry Lane and La MaMa), and sound design by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen (Good People and Private Lives at the Huntington). Casting is by Alaine Aldaffer. Production stage manager is Emily McMullen. Assistant stage manager is Jeremiah Mullane.

ABOUT THE HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY - Recipient of the 2013 Regional Theatre Tony Award and named Best of Boston 2013 and 2014 by Boston magazine, the Huntington Theatre Company has developed into Boston's leading professional theatre and one of the region's premiere cultural assets since its founding in 1982. Bringing together superb local and national talent, the Huntington produces a mix of groundbreaking new works and classics made current to create award-winning productions, runs nationally renowned programs in education and new play development, and serves the local theatre community through its operation of the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. Under the direction of Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso and in residence at Boston University, the Huntington cultivates, celebrates, and champions theatre as an art form. For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org.

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