Mamie Gummer Leads Cast of SCHOOL FOR LIES at Classic Stage Company, 4/13 - 5/22

Classic Stage Company (CSC), under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Jessica R. Jenen, will present David Ives' new comedy, THE SCHOOL FOR LIES, adapted from the Molière classic The Misanthrope, directed by Tony Award winner Walter Bobbie, beginning performances TONIGHT (April 13) at CSC (136 East 13th Street) for a limited engagement through Sunday, May 22. The official press opening is scheduled for Sunday, May 1 at 7pm. The cast of THE SCHOOL FOR LIES will feature Mamie Gummer, Jenn Gambatese and Hamish Linklater, as well as Steven Boyer, Frank Harts, Rick Holmes, Hoon Lee and Matthew Maher.

THE SCHOOL FOR LIES reunites long-time collaborators Ives and Bobbie, who worked together last season at CSC on the acclaimed sold-out production of Venus in Fur and in 2008 on the acclaimed New Jerusalem. The two men have collaborated for more than 15 years on numerous productions as writer/producer, writer/director, co-authors, writer/actor, and writer/dramaturg. Their productions together range from Broadway, Off-Broadway, City Center Encores, Carnegie Hall and Public Television.

The design team for THE SCHOOL FOR LIES will include scenery by Tony Award winner John Lee Beatty, costumes by Tony Award winner William Ivey Long, lighting by Tony Award winner Peter Kaczorowski, hair design by special Tony Award winner Paul Huntley and sound by Tony nominated ACME Sound Partners.

THE SCHOOL FOR LIES will perform Tuesdays through Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays at 2pm and 8pm and Sundays at 2pm. Tickets are $70 for weekday performances and $75 for weekends. For tickets and information, visit www.classicstage.org or call (866) 811-4111, or (212) 352-3101, or visit the CSC box office at 136 East 13th Street, Monday through Friday 12 pm to 6 pm.

Now in its 44th year as one of New York's most exciting theatres, Classic Stage Company is the award-winning Off-Broadway theatre committed to re-imagining the classical repertory for a contemporary American audience. Led by Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Jessica R. Jenen, the company this season presented the sold-out, highly-acclaimed production of Chekhov's Three Sisters, featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Josh Hamilton, Jessica Hecht, Juliet Rylance and Peter Sarsgaard, directed by Austin Pendleton. The company recently presented David Ives' highly acclaimed Venus In Fur, directed by Walter Bobbie as well as Ostrovsky's The Forest, adapted by Kathleen Tolan, starring Dianne Wiest and John Douglas Thompson, and directed by Brian Kulick. In the previous season they presented three sold-out acclaimed productions: Shakespeare's The Tempest, starring Mandy Patinkin; Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, starring Denis O'Hare, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard; and Anne Carson's An Oresteia. Recent productions: critically acclaimed sold-out runs of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, starring Dianne Wiest and Alan Cumming; the world premiere of David Ives' New Jerusalem, directed by Walter Bobbie; Hamlet, Richard II, and Richard III starring Michael Cumpsty and directed by Brian Kulick; and Zoe Caldwell in Yasmina Reza's A Spanish Play, directed by John Turturro.

CSC presents plays from the past that speak directly to the issues of today. As we return to works of the past, we endeavor to keep a clear eye on the future, particularly in terms of the next generation of artists and audiences. Founded in 1967, CSC has received wide recognition for its significant contributions to theatre as an art form through productions of classic plays, translations and adaptations and a long-standing commitment to the identification and nurturing of leading and emerging artists. Classic Stage's artists are the finest established and emerging theater practitioners working in this country. Highly respected and widely regarded as a major force in New York and American theatre, Classic Stage has been cited repeatedly by all the major Off-Broadway theater awards: Obies, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League and the 1999 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work. Memberships to Classic Stage Company productions are available at various price levels, including the flexible MasterPass membership, which in addition to prime seats entitles members to participate in CSC special series, including their sold-out Open Rehearsal events. The company is currently presenting William Shakespeare and John Fletcher's DOUBLE FALSEHOOD, directed by Brian Kulick. For more information on Classic Stage Company visit the theatre's website at www.classicstage.org.

For further information on Classic Stage Company, call (212) 352-3101, visit the theatre in person at 136 East 13th Street, or go to www.classicstage.org.

CREATIVE TEAM BIOS

David Ives (Playwright) returns to CSC following last season's acclaimed Venus In Fur, directed by Walter Bobbie, and 2008's New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza, also directed by Bobbie, and which won the prestigious Hull-Warriner Award. Other plays include Is He Dead? (adapted from Mark Twain);Irving Berlin's White Christmas; Polish Joke; and Ancient History. He has translated Feydeau's classic farce A Flea In Her Ear as well as Yazmina Reza's drama A Spanish Play (also at CSC), and his translation/adaptation of Pierre Corneille's The Liar premieres at Washington's Shakespeare Theatre Company. He is well-known for his evenings of one-act comedies called All In The Timing and Time Flies. All In The Timing won the Outer Critics Circle Playwriting Award, ran for two years Off-Broadway, and in the 1995-96 season was the most performed play in the country after Shakespeare productions. He is also the author of three young-adult novels, Monsieur Eek, Scrib, and Voss. A graduate of Yale School of Drama and a former Guggenheim Fellow in playwriting, he lives in New York City.

Walter Bobbie (Director) directed the holiday perenniAl White Christmas on Broadway and across the country over the last 6 seasons. His international hit Chicago has become the longest-running revival in Broadway history and won him the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards as Best Director. Other Broadway credits include High Fidelity, Sweet Charity, Twentieth Century and Footloose. Recent productions include The Savannah Disputation at Playwrights Horizons; The Marriage of Bette & Boo at Roundabout; No, No, Nanette at Encores! and David Ives' Venus and Fur and New Jerusalem at Classic Stage. Mr. Bobbie served as the Artistic Director of City Center's Encores! and sits on the Executive Board of SDC, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

John Lee Beatty (Scenic Designer). Broadway: Time Stands Still, A View From the Bridge, Driving Miss Daisy, The Royal Family, The Color Purple, Doubt, Chicago, Dinner at Eight, Proof, Rabbit Hole, Last Night of Ballyhoo, A Delicate Balance, The Heiress, The Most Happy Fella, The Sisters Rosensweig, Frankie and Johnnie..., Burn This, Penn & Teller, Ain't Misbehavin', Talley's Folly, Crimes of the Heart, Morning's at Seven, among others. Off-Broadway: Venus in Fur at CSC, Other Desert Cities; The Substance of Fire; A Life in the Theatre; Sylvia; Lips Together, Teeth Apart. Thirty-six seasons with MTC, Lincoln Center, Circle Rep, all City Center Encores! productions. Tony, Obie, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle awards; Theatre Hall of Fame.

William Ivey Long (Costume Designer) is a five-time Tony Award winner whose credits include Grey Gardens (Tony); Hairspray (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics); The Producers (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics); Chicago; Crazy for You (Tony, Outer Critics); Guys and Dolls (Drama Desk); Assassins (Obie); Lend Me a Tenor (Drama Desk, Outer Critics); Nine (Tony, Drama Desk); the Rolling Stones' "Steel Wheels" tour; as well as Siegfried and Roy and the Pointer Sisters in Las Vegas. Mr. Long has 11 Tony nominations and, in 2006, was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.

Peter Kaczorowski (Lighting Designer). Broadway: more than 40 plays and musicals including Driving Miss Daisy; Anything Goes; Time Stands Still; A View From the Bridge; Waiting for Godot; Curtains; Grey Gardens; Contact; The Producers; Kiss Me, Kate; Steel Pier. Recent Off-Broadway: Venus in Fur and The Forest at CSC, Ruined, The Brother/Sister Plays. Extensive credits for most leading resident and regional theatres in the U.S. Opera: The Met, NYCO, San Francisco, Houston Grand, Santa Fe, LAMCO, Seattle. Abroad: Royal Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera/North, Maggio Florence, L'Arena di Verona, La Fenice, Bonn, Lisbon. Recipient of Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama-Logue and Hewes design awards.

ACME Sound Partners (Sound Designer) have received three Tony Award nominations for Fences, Hair and In the Heights. Additional Broadway credits include The Merchant of Venice, Lombardi, The Addams Family, Ragtime (Drama Desk Award), Bye Bye Birdie, The Country Girl, Coram Boy, Legally Blonde, High Fidelity, A Chorus Line (2006), Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Drowsy Chaperone, Hot Feet, The Light in the Piazza, Monty Python's Spamalot, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Dracula the Musical, Twentieth Century, Fiddler on the Roof, Never Gonna Dance, The Boy From Oz, Avenue Q, Gypsy, La Bohème (Drama Desk Award), Flower Drum Song, Elaine Stritch: At Liberty, Bells Are Ringing, A Class Act. National: Irving Berlin's White Christmas. The partners are Tom Clark, Mark Menard and Nevin Steinberg.

Paul Huntley (Hair Designer). London-born Paul Huntley is a Special Tony Award winner and a Drama Desk recipient. Paul has worked on hundreds of Broadway projects including Cats; Amadeus; Kiss Me, Kate; The Producers; and Hairspray. His previous credits at CSC include Three Sisters, The Forest and Uncle Vanya. Current Broadway projects are The Importance of Being Earnest and The People in the Picture, both with Roundabout.
CAST BIOS

Jenn Gambatese (Elainte). Broadway: Is He Dead?, Jane in Tarzan, All Shook Up (OCC nomination), Hairspray, A Year With Frog and Toad, Hairspray, Footloose. Off-Broadway: Stairway to Paradise (Encores!), Reefer Madness. Upcoming: Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun at Goodspeed. Tour (Europe and North America): Fame. TV: "All My Children." Film: The Good Shepherd.

Mamie Gummer (Celimene) made her New York stage debut in 2005 in Noah Haidle's Mr. Marmalade with the Roundabout (Theatre World Award). Since then she has appeared in Les Liaisons Dangereuses on Broadway, Uncle Vanya (CSC, Lucille Lortel nomination), Theresa Rebeck's The Water's Edge (Second Stage, Lucille Lortel nomination) and Hunting and Gathering (Primary Stages). Regional: Lillian Hellman's The Autumn Garden at Williamstown. She had her breakthrough film role in the 2007 release Evening and currently stars in the new ABC drama "Off the Map." Other TV/film includes "The Good Wife," The Ward, Twelve Thirty, Coach, Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, HBO's "John Adams," The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, The Hoax, Stop-Loss.

Hamish Linklater (Frank) appeared this past summer in the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater Productions of The Winter's Tale and The Merchant of Venice. His other Off-Broadway credits include Twelfth Night (NYSF/Public Theater); Hamlet, The Square, Love's Fire (Public); The Busy World is Hushed (Drama League nomination), Recent Tragic Events (Playwrights Horizons); Good Thing (New Group); Cyclone (Studio Dante); Romeo & Juliet (Acting Co.). Regionally, he has appeared in Hamlet, Violet Hour (South Coast Rep); Hamlet, Singing Forest (Long Wharf); A Midsummer Night's Dream and Measure for Measure (Ahmanson). He currently appears as Julia Louis-Dreyfus' brother in the CBS sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine." Other TV and film include "Gideon's Crossing," "Pushing Daisies," "Ugly Betty," Fantastic Four, "Live from Baghdad," Groove, and Miranda July's upcoming feature The Future.

Steven Boyer (Dubois/Basque). Broadway: I'm Not Rappaport (also at Coconut Grove, Ford's Theatre, Paper Mill). Off-Broadway: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Public), Enjoy (59E59), Misalliance (Pearl Theatre), Jollyship the Whiz-Bang (Ars Nova), Richard III (Classic Stage), Oliver Twist (Theatre for a New Audience). Regional: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Hartford Stage), Oliver Twist (A.R.T & Berkeley Rep). TV includes "Law & Order" and "Ed." Training: The Juilliard School.
(Guthrie), McCarter, Bay Street, Yale Rep., La Jolla, Long Wharf, Old Globe. Film/TV: Marci X, Big Eden, Erin Brockovich, You've Got Mail, Henry Fool, "Royal Pains," "Law & Orders," "Boston Legal," "Seinfeld," "Cinderella."

Frank Harts (Clitander). Theater credits include A Raisin in the Sun with Sean Combs and Phylicia Rashad on Broadway, Enjoy (The Play Company), Instructions for Breathing (Passage Theatre), Fabulation (Baltimore Center Stage), US premiere of Sa Ka La (Oslo Elsewhere/Norway), Michael Grief's production of Monster (CSC). Film/TV: Happy New Year (upcoming), Salt, Gigantic, In the Cut, "Law & Order," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," "Queens Supreme," "Hope & Faith," "Early Edition."

Rick Holmes (Oronte). Broadway: Spamalot, The Pillowman, Cabaret, Major Barbara, The Deep Blue Sea, Saint Joan, The Government Inspector, Timon of Athens. Off-Broadway: The New York Idea (Lortel); Stop Kiss, Dog Opera (Public); Clean (Atlantic); Christina Alberta's Father (Vineyard); Hapgood (LCT); Othello, Richard III (NYSF). National tours: Spamalot, Cabaret, Angels in America, Shadow of a Gunman. Film: The Girl in the Park, Melinda and Melinda, Stepford Wives, Glow Ropes. TV: "Law & Order," (CI and SVU) "Talk to Me," "The City," "The Petrified Forest," "All My Children." Training: MFA from NYU.

Hoon Lee (Philante) received a Theatre World Award and Drama League nomination for his performance in David Henry Hwang's Yellow Face at The Public Theater. Broadway: Pacific Overtures, Urinetown, Flower Drum Song. Off-Broadway/Regional: Hamlet (New York Shakespeare Festival), Yellow Face (Mark Taper Forum), American Hwangap (Ma-Yi Theatre), Sides: The Fear is Real (Culture Project, P.S.122, Ma-Yi Theater), Children of Vonderly (Ma-Yi Theater), The King & I (Paper Mill Playhouse). TV/film: "White Collar," "Royal Pains," "Fringe," "The Unusuals," "Sex and the City," "Law & Order," We Own the Night (Universal), Saving Face (Sony Pictures). Interactive: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Midnight Club III. He is a founding member of Mr. Miyagi's Theatre Company and a graduate of Harvard University.

Matthew Maher (Acaste). New York: Orange, Hat & Grace (Soho Rep); The Small (Clubbed Thumb); The Communist Dracula Pageant (A.R.T.); world premiere of Eric Bogosian's 1+1 (NY Stage & Film); Richard III (Public Theater); Coriolanus (TFANA); The World Over (Playwrights Horizons); Molly's Dream (Soho Rep). Regional: A Seagull in the Hamptons (McCarter), The Pillowman (Berkeley Repertory Theatre). He received an Obie Award for his performance in The Foundry Theatre's production of The Race of the Ark Tattoo and is an Associate Artist of The Civilians. Film: It's Kind of a Funny Story, The Killer Inside Me, Gone Baby Gone, Jersey Girl, Dogma, Bringing Out The Dead, Vulgar, The Third Wheel. TV: "Bored to Death," "The Unusuals," "John from Cincinnati" (HBO, recurring role), "The Jury" and all three "Law and Order" series.