Second Stage Will Bring Lynn Nottage Play to Broadway in 2021, Plus Rajiv Joseph's LETTERS OF SURESH Off-Broadway

Second Stage Theater has confirmed two plays for its Broadway home, The Hayes Theater, as well as one play for its off-Broadway home, The Tony Kiser Theater, for its upcoming 42nd Season in 2021. An additional off-Broadway production will be announced in the coming months.

Second Stage Theater's 2021 Season will feature the New York premiere of Lynn Nottage's latest work, directed by Nottage's frequent collaborator, Kate Whoriskey. Performances begin on Broadway in the fall of 2021.

Spring of 2021 will see the return of playwright Rajiv Joseph, whose plays All This Intimacy, Animals Out of Paper and Gruesome Playground Injuries received productions at Second Stage Theater. Directed by May Adrales, Letters Of Suresh will have its world premiere at Second Stage's off-Broadway Tony Kiser Theater (305 West 43rd Street).

They join the previously announced production of Richard Greenberg's Tony Award-winning play, Take Me Out. Postponed due to the current Broadway suspension, Take Me Out will be coming to Broadway next year with performances beginning the week of March 22, 2021 at Second Stage's Hayes Theater (240 West 44th Street). Opening night is set for Thursday, April 22, 2021.

Take Me Out will star Patrick J. Adams, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jesse Williams with Julian Cihi, Hiram Delgado, Brandon J. Dirden, Carl Lundstedt, Ken Marks, Michael Oberholtzer, Eduardo Ramos and Tyler Lansing Weaks and is directed by Scott Ellis.

"We are thrilled to welcome Lynn Nottage (2ST's Crumbs from the Table of Joy; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark) and Rajiv Joseph (2ST's All This Intimacy, Animals Out of Paper, Gruesome Playground Injuries) back to Second Stage and to continue our longstanding collaborations," said 2ST President and Artistic Director Carole Rothman. "As Broadway works together to return even stronger than before, our dedication to living American Playwrights feels vital to the resurgence of the theatrical landscape."

Subscription and ticket information will be available in the Fall. For more information visit 2ST.com.

At Broadway's Hayes Theater:

New York Premiere of a new play by Lynn Nottage
Directed by Kate Whoriskey
Fall 2021

In this stirring new play from the team of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage and director Kate Whoriskey (Ruined, Sweat), a truck stop sandwich shop offers its formerly incarcerated kitchen staff a shot at reclaiming their lives. Even as the shop's callous owner tries to keep them under her thumb, the staff members are given purpose and permission to dream by the enigmatic, zen-like chef and his belief in the possibility of the perfect sandwich. Funny, moving, and urgent, it's an example of Nottage's "genius for bringing politically charged themes to life by embodying them in ordinary characters living ordinary lives" (The Wall Street Journal).

The production is supported by a grant from the Art for Justice Fund, a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

Lynn Nottage's recent credits include the opera adaptation of Intimate Apparel, an Opera (Lincoln Center Theater), Floyd's (Guthrie), The Secret Life of Bees (Atlantic). Upcoming: MJ (Broadway). Plays include Mlima's Tale, Sweat (Pulitzer Prize, Obie, Evening Standard Award, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize); By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (Lilly Award); Ruined (Pulitzer Prize, Obie, Lortel, NY Drama Critics' Circle, AUDELCO, Drama Desk and OCC awards); Intimate Apparel (American Theatre Critics and NYDCC awards). TV: Writer/producer: She's Gotta Have It (Netflix). PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award, Doris Duke Artist Award, Merit and Literature Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship, a Guggenheim Grant, Lucille Lortel Fellowship, Associate Professor at Columbia, and Member of the Dramatist Guild.

Kate Whoriskey's most recent directing credits include All the Natalie Portmans at MCC, Floyd's at the Guthrie and Benjamin Britten's Turn of the Screw at Mannes Opera. Broadway credits include Sweat at Studio 54, and The Miracle Worker at Circle in the Square. Off Broadway: Songs for a New World (Encores Off Center), The Cardinal, How I Learned to Drive (Second Stage), Ruined (MTC), Her Requiem (Lincoln Center Theater), Aubergine, Fabulation and Inked Baby (Playwrights Horizons) and The Piano Teacher (Vineyard), among others. Regional credits include productions at the Guthrie Theater, The Goodman Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, South Coast Rep., Sundance Theatre Lab, Shakespeare Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Baltimore Center Stage and Arena Stage among others. Her opera direction has been seen at the Mannes Opera, Theatre Du Chatelet in Paris and Teatro Municipal in Brazil.

LETTERS OF SURESH
At Second Stage's off-Broadway Tony Kiser Theater
World Premiere
By Rajiv Joseph
Directed by May Adrales
Spring 2021

In Letters Of Suresh, playwright Rajiv Joseph reveals intimate mysteries through a series of letters between strangers, friends, daughters, and lovers - many with little in common but a hunger for human connection. a??Sending their hopes and dreams across oceans and years, they seek peace in one another while dreaming of a city once consumed by the scourge of war. a??A companion piece to Joseph's play Animals Out of Paper, Letters Of Suresh, directed by May Adrales, is the latest work from the Pulitzer Prize-short listed playwright hailed as "wonderfully daring, imaginative, and compassionate" (The New York Times).

Letters of Suresh was commissioned with the support of a grant from the Time Warner Foundation.

Rajiv Joseph returns to Second Stage Theater, which has produced three of his plays: Animals Out of Paper, All This Intimacy, and Gruesome Playground Injuries. His play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama and was also awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. He has twice won the Obie Award for Best New American Play, first in 2016 with Guards at the Taj (also a 2016 Lortel Winner for Best Play) and then in 2018, for Describe the Night. Other plays include Archduke, The Lake Effect, The North Pool and Mr. Wolf. Joseph has been awarded artistic grants from the Whiting Foundation, United States Artists and the Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. He is a board member of the Lark Play Development Center in New York City, where he develops all his plays. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

May Adrales is a director, artistic leader and teacher and has directed over 25 world premieres. She recently was awarded the prestigious Theater Communications Group Alan Schneider 2018 award for freelance directors. She is a Drama League Directing Fellow, Women's Project Lab Director, Soho Rep Writers/Directors Lab and New York Theater Workshop directing fellow, and a recipient of the TCG New Generations Grant, Denham Fellowship and Paul Green Directing Award. She proudly serves as an Associate Artistic Director at Milwaukee Rep. She is a former Director of On Site Programs at the Lark Play Development Center and Artistic Associate at The Public Theater. May has directed and taught at Juilliard, Harvard/ART, ACT, Fordham, NYU and Bard College. May has served on faculty at the Yale School of Drama and the Brown/Trinity MFA program. She received an MFA in Directing from the Yale School of Drama. Recent world premieres include Qui Nguyen's Lortel Award and Obie Award winning, Vietgone (MTC, South Coast Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Seattle Rep); Lauren Gunderson's Natural Shocks (WP Theater); Poor Yella Rednecks (MTC, South Coast Rep), Kemp Powers's Little Black Shadows (South Coast Rep); Idris Goodwin's The Way The Mountain Moved (OSF); Chisa Hutchinson's Somebody's Daughter (Second Stage Theater) and The Wedding Gift (Contemporary American Theater Festival); J.C. Lee's Luce (LCT3); A. Rey Pamatmat's Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them (ATL) and after all the terrible things I do (Milwaukee Rep); Thomas Bradshaw's Mary (The Goodman). Her work has been seen at Signature Theater, Lincoln Center, Second Stage Theater, Atlantic Theater, Portland Center Stage and Cleveland Playhouse.

TAKE ME OUT
At Broadway's Hayes Theater
By Richard Greenberg
Directed by Scott Ellis

Starring Patrick J. Adams, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jesse Williams with Julian Cihi, Hiram Delgado, Brandon J. Dirden, Carl Lundstedt, Ken Marks, Michael Oberholtzer, Eduardo Ramos and Tyler Lansing Weaks.

Performances begin week of March 22, 2021; Opening night is Thursday, April 22, 2021

In the Tony Award®-winning Take Me Out, playwright Richard Greenberg celebrates the personal and professional intricacies of America's favorite pastime. When Darren Lemming (Jesse Williams), the star center fielder for the Empires, comes out of the closet, the reception off the field reveals a barrage of long-held unspoken prejudices. Facing some hostile teammates and fraught friendships, Darren is forced to contend with the challenges of being a gay person of color within the confines of a classic American institution. As the Empires struggle to rally toward a championship season, the players and their fans begin to question tradition, their loyalties, and the price of victory.

The full creative team for Take Me Out includes scenic design by David Rockwell, costume design by Linda Cho, lighting design by Kenneth Posner, sound design by Fitz Patton, and casting by Jim Carnahan, CSA.