New Company Premieres Horovitz Play; Lebensraum is First

One of America's most celebrated and produced playwrights, Israel Horovitz, will be launching a new theater company in NYC that has been 32 years in the making.

This February will mark the start of a producing wing of The New York Playwrights Lab, a "secret society" founded by Horovitz in 1975. The new company's first offering will be the NYC premiere of Horovitz's newest play The Secret of Mme. Bonnard's Bath. Prior to the official launch of the New York Playwrights Lab, there will be a production of Horovitz's Lebensraum, directed by Jonathan Rest, with previews beginning Wednesday, December 13, 2006, press opening Sunday, December 17, and running through December 30, 2006 at Theatre Row Theatre; it will be produced by Studio J Productions in association with Erika Feldman and Adam Fitzgerald (kef productions). 

And in January, Israel Horovitz's New Shorts, the NYC premiere of nine new Horovitz plays, opens at the 78th Street Théàtre Lab.  It will be presented by Barefoot Theatre Company (Francisco Solorzaro Artistic Director, Victoria Magvalno, Managing Director).

"A cast of three actors create an ensemble of over eighty characters in Lebensraum. Horovitz's daring comic-drama is based on the premise that a German Chancellor might, as an act of redemption, invite six million Jews to relocate in Germany, with promises of citizenship and employment. Lebensraum follows an out of work Jewish dock-worker from Massachusetts to Bremerhaven, an Auschwitz survivor who returns to Berlin to find the woman who betrayed his family to the Nazis,  a young German girl who falls in love with a teenaged Jewish American 'new citizen,' and scores of others.  Ultimately, Lebensraum explores the roots of WWII, and the terrifying possibility that history may well repeat itself in our time," state production notes.

The cast includes: T. Ryder Smith (Drama Desk nom., Underneath the Lintel, Thom Pain), Suli Holum (currently Live Girls – Urban Stages, Film: Say Yes Quickly, Two Headed Calf), and Ryan Young (most recently with the RSC, in Britain).  The creative team includes: Susan Zeeman Rogers (NEA/TCG award winner for scenic design), Chris Bailey (lighting and sound design) and Samantha Miller (costume design).

Horowitz is the award-winning author of more than 50 produced plays, several of which have been translated and performed in as many as 30 languages, worldwide.  Horovitz plays have introduced such notable actors as Al Pacino, John Cazale, Richard Dreyfuss, Jill Clayburgh, Marsha Mason, and Gerard Depardieu.  In 1975, Horovitz founded the New York Playwrights Lab, and remains the Lab's Artistic Director. In 1979, Horovitz co-founded The Gloucester Stage Company in Massachusetts as a "safe harbor for playwrights and new plays".  Under Horovitz's artistic direction, Gloucester Stage produced more than 50 world premieres.  Plays developed at Gloucester Stage have gone on to critical and popular acclaim on Broadway, off-Broadway, across the United States, and around the world. Horovitz visits France, frequently, where he often directs French premieres of his plays. He is the most-produced American playwright in French theatre history.

Lebensraum begins performances December 13, with opening on Sunday, December 17.  It plays through December 30, 2006.  Performances are Wednesday – Saturday at 8PM; Saturday at 2PM; Sunday at 3PM.  Theatre Row's Kirk Theatre is located at 410 West 42nd Street.  Tickets are $18. Please visit www.ticketcentral.com or call 212 -279-4200

Israel Horovitz's New Shorts begins performances Wed,, January 17, with an opening Sat., January 20.  It plays through February 4, 2007, at the 78th Street Lab, Broadway at West 78th Street.

The Secret of Mme. Bonnard's Bath plays February – March, 2007, at Theatre Row Theatre.