Nine Parts of Desire to Close Off-Broadway May 22

Artistic Director David Fishelson has announced that the Manhattan Ensemble Theater (MET) production of Nine Parts of Desire, written and performed by Iraqi-American actress Heather Raffo, and directed by Joanna Settle, will have its final performance on Sunday, May 22, 2005, after eight months and 211 performances (6 previews and 205 post-opening performances). The final show will be a Sunday matinee at 3pm.

Just this week, Nine Parts of Desire won the 2005 Lucille Lortel Award for both "Best Solo Show" and "Best Sound Design," and has been nominated for a 2005 Outer Critics Circle Award in the category of "Best Solo Performance." It was awarded a "Special Commendation" for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (Best Play in English by a Female Playwright) last month (April 2005) and, as of this writing, has been a "Critic's Pick" of The New York Times, Time Out NY, and The Village Voice every week since it was first reviewed in early-October 2004.

As topical as today's headlines, Nine Parts of Desire opened on October 9th to a torrent of critical raves. A portrait of the extraordinary (and ordinary) lives of a whole cross-section of Iraqi women, this work lifts the veil on exactly what it means to be female in the age-old war zone that is Iraq. An unusually timely meditation on the oppression of women in a country overshadowed by war, Nine Parts of Desire was selected last year both as "First Choice / The Best Shows in London" by The Times of London, and as one of the "Five Best Plays" in December 2003 by The Independent. It was video-recorded by Lincoln Center for its Performing Arts Library on January 12, Next stop for writer-actress Heather Raffo will be the Geffen Playhouse's production of Nine Parts, currently scheduled to open immediately after Labor Day, 2005 in Los Angeles. Director Settle, as well as all of the production's current designers, will repeat their duties at the Geffen.

The play's West Coast debut at the nonprofit Geffen will be followed by a 2005-6 national tour (all venues t.b.a.) at major nonprofit theaters in Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Dallas and the San Francisco Bay Area.

In the autumn of 2005, Nine Parts will be published both by Northwestern University Press, publisher of Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses, and Dramatists Play Service (trade paperback and acting edition respectively).

Through extensive research and dozens of interviews on four continents over a period of eleven years, Ms. Raffo collected the stories of the Iraqi and American women that have come to be included in Nine Parts of Desire. She first performed the play in August 2003 as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, after which it moved to the Bush Theatre in London's Off-West End. It was then performed as a reading at New York's The Public Theatre last Spring (2004) as part of its "NEW WORK NOW!" Festival. Originally from Michigan, Raffo now resides in New York. She is the daughter of an Iraqi father and an American mother.

Nine Parts of Desire features set design by Antje Ellerman (2005 Lortel Award Nomination), costume design by Mattie Ullrich, lighting design by Peter West, and original music & sound by Obadiah Eaves (2005 Lortel Award Winner).

The show's title is the same as the best-selling non-fiction book Nine Parts of Desire (subtitled The Hidden World of Islamic Women), written in 1996 by writer Geraldine Brooks. The title is used with Ms. Brooks' express permission, even as the play is not derived from, or based on, the book (which Ms. Raffo still credits as an inspiration for her play). The quote that informs the title is by Ali ibn Abu Taleb, founder of the Shia sect, and fourth leader of the Islamic World after Mohammed, from his 'maxims' or hadith: "God created sexual desire in ten parts; then he gave nine parts to women, and one to men."

Performance schedule for Nine Parts of Desire is as follows: Tuesday–Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 3 & 8pm and Sunday at 3pm. Tickets are $60, and are available by phoning Telecharge.com at (212) 239-6200. Student tickets are $30, and a limited number of Rush seats at $20 are available for every performance, based on availability, 30 minutes before curtain. Student and Rush seats are available at the box office only, located at Manhattan Ensemble Theater, 55 Mercer Street (@Broome), SoHo. For groups, call MET at 212-925-1900, or visit www.met.com.