Michael C. Hall to Star in Staged Reading of Will Eno's GNIT at Theatre for a New Audience

Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA; Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director) announces a public reading of Obie and Drama Desk Award-winning playwright Will Eno's Gnit, directed by Oliver Butler (The Open House, 2014), and starring acclaimed stage and screen actor Michael C. Hall (stage: Hedwig and the Angry Inch on Broadway, David Bowie's Lazarus at NYTW; screen: Six Feet Under, Dexter). The reading will take place June 18 at 7pm at Polonsky Shakespeare Center (262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY).

Ibsen's five-act, forty-scene play, published in 1867, challenged theatre-makers to expand their ideas of what the stage could do and be. When Gnit made its world premiere at Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays in 2013, Charles Isherwood wrote in the New York Times, "the marvel of [this] new version is how closely it tracks [Ibsen's] original while also being, at every moment and unmistakably, a Will Eno play."

Jeffrey Horowitz says, "TFANA is committed to producing classic plays in new adaptations, translations, and versions by contemporary authors. TFANA's 2016 production of Strindberg's The Father in a new version by David Grieg was, for example, thrilling. To give Will, Oliver, and Michael an opportunity to explore Gnit with our audience is exciting."

This reading of Gnit is presented through the Theatre's Studio program (Susanna Gellert, Director), which offers residencies to a diverse range of theatre artists who engage in risk-taking, artistic development, and experimentation.

Ticketing

Tickets are $45; $25 for subscribers. Each ticket comes with a complimentary beverage at the post-show party afterwards.

About Will Eno

Will Eno's recent work includes Wakey, Wakey which premiered at the Signature Theatre in 2017. The Realistic Joneses was on Broadway in 2014, where it won a Drama Desk Award, was named USA Today's "Best Play on Broadway," and topped the The Guardian's 2014 list of best American plays. The Open House won the 2014 Obie Award, the Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, and a Drama Desk Award, and was included in both the Time Out New York and Time Magazine Top 10 Plays of the Year. The acclaimed London premiere of The Open House, at The Print Room, was directed by Sir Michael Boyd, who directed Tamburlaine to such powerful effect at TFANA. Will's play Thom Pain (based on nothing) ran at The Geffen Playhouse in 2016 starring Rainn Wilson and was made into a film directed by Oliver Butler and Will, which is available to stream on BroadwayHD. The play was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and has been translated into more than a dozen languages, and will appear this fall at the Signature Theatre. Will's plays are published by Samuel French, TCG, Dramatists, and Oberon Books. www.willeno.com

About Oliver Butler

(Director) Co-Artistic Director of The Debate Society: The Light Years (Playwrights Horizons), Jacuzzi (Ars Nova), Blood Play (Bushwick Starr), Buddy Cop 2 (Ontological), Cape Disappointment (PS122), You're Welcome, The Eaten Heart, The Snow Hen, A Thought About Raya. Off-Broadway: The Amateurs (Vineyard Theater), The Open House (Signature Theater, Lortel Award Best Play, Obie Award Direction), What The Constitution Means To Me (Clubbed Thumb, Berkeley Rep, NYTW upcoming). Regional: Thom Pain (Geffen Playhouse, Signature upcoming), Legacy (Williamstown Theater Festival), Bad Jews (Long Wharf), An Opening In Time (Hartford Stage). International: Timeshare (The Malthouse, Australia). He is a Sundance Institute Fellow and a Bill Foeller Fellow (Williamstown).

About Theatre for a New Audience

Founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz, Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) is a modern classic theatre. It produces Shakespeare alongside other major authors from the world repertoire, such as Harley Granville Barker, Edward Bond, Adrienne Kennedy, Richard Nelson, Wallace Shawn and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. TFANA has played Off- and on Broadway and toured nationally and internationally.

In 2001, Theatre for a New Audience became the first American theatre invited to bring a production of Shakespeare to the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), Stratford-upon-Avon. Cymbeline, directed by Bartlett Sher, premiered at the RSC; in 2007, TFANA was invited to return to the RSC with The Merchant of Venice, directed by Darko Tresnjak and featuring F. Murray Abraham. In 2011, Mr. Abraham reprised his role as Shylock for a national tour.

After 34 years of being itinerant and playing mostly in Manhattan, Theatre for a New Audience moved to Brooklyn and opened its first permanent home, Polonsky Shakespeare Center, in October 2013. Built by The City of New York in partnership with Theatre for a New Audience, and located in the Brooklyn Cultural District, Polonsky Shakespeare Center was designed by Hugh Hardy and H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture with theatre consultants Akustiks, Milton Glaser, Jean-Guy Lecat, and Theatre Projects. Housed inside the building are the Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage (299 seats)-the first stage built for Shakespeare and classical drama in New York City since Lincoln Center's 1965 Vivian Beaumont-and the Theodore C. Rogers Studio (50 seats).

TFANA's productions have been honored with Tony, Obie, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Lortel and Audelco awards and nominations and reach an audience diverse in age, economics and cultural background.

Theatre for a New Audience created and runs the largest in-depth program in the New York City Public Schools to introduce students to Shakespeare and has served over 130,000 students since the program began in 1984. TFANA's New Deal ticket program is one of the lowest reserved ticket prices for youth in the city: $20 for any show, any time for those 30 years old and under or for full-time students of any age.

Funding Credits

Support for The Studio is provided by a challenge grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and by matching funds from the Booth Ferris Foundation.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Broski