Two Time Tony Award winner Norbert Leo Butz (Catch Me If You Can) and Emmy and Independent Spirit Award nominee Elizabeth Reaser (Twilight, Grey's Anatomy) will co-star in Second Stage Theatre's upcoming production of Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE. Directed by Kate Whoriskey, the production begins previews on Tuesday, January 24 and officially opens on Monday, February 13 at 7:00pm at Second Stage's Tony Kiser Theatre (305 West 43rd Street). For tickets or more information, please visit www.2ST.com.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE explores the complex relationship between Li'l Bit (Reaser) and her Uncle Peck (Butz), as a series of driving lessons progresses from innocence to something much darker. Told with surprising wit,
Paula Vogel's acclaimed play is returning to New York City for the first time since its world premiere 15 years ago.
Norbert Leo Butz won Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Musical for Catch Me If You Can (also Drama Desk Award, Best Actor in a Musical) and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (also Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Astaire Awards, Drama League Award winner, Best Actor in a Musical). His other Broadway credits include Enron, Speed-the-Plow, Is He Dead?, Wicked (original cast, Fiyero), Thou Shalt Not (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics nominations), Rent. Off-Broadway credits include Fifty Words, Buicks (Drama Desk nomination), The Last Five Years (Drama Desk and
Lucille Lortel nominations, Drama League Award), Juno and the Paycock (Roundabout), Saved (TFANA). National Tour: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Cabaret (Helen Hayes Award, Jefferson, Dora and Ovation Awards). Regional credits include Catch Me If You Can (
5th Avenue Theatre, Seattle), four seasons at the
Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. His film credits include Greetings From Tim Buckley (2012), Disconnect (2012), The English Teacher (2012), Higher Ground (Sundance Film Festival 2011), Fair Game, and Dan in Real Life. Television work includes his starring role in the series "The Deep End" (ABC); the pilots "The Miraculous Year" (HBO) and "Playing Chicken" (FOX); the mini-series "Comanche Moon" (CBS); "The Good Wife"(CBS), "CSI" (CBS), "Law & Order-Criminal Intent" (NBC). Norbert participated in the producing, writing and recording of The Angel Band Project's album, Take You With Me (now available on iTunes), for which all proceeds benefit the Voices and Faces Project. He received a BFA from Webster University and an MFA from Alabama Shakespeare Theatre.
Elizabeth Reaser earned a 2007 Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actress for her role in the drama, Sweet Land, and also received an Emmy nomination for her guest spot as Ava on "Grey's Anatomy." Reaser is well known for her role as the matriarch of the Cullen clan in the popular Twilight films, including the upcoming Breaking Dawn - Part 1, which will open nationwide on November 18. Following Twilight, Reaser will next been seen in the film Young Adult, directed by
Jason Reitman, written by
Diablo Cody, and co-starring
Charlize Theron and
Patrick Wilson. She recently finished filming the independent film Liberal Arts, written and directed by
Josh Radnor. Other film credits include the independent film The Art of Getting By; Peter Callahan's Against the Current, opposite Joseph Fiennes and
Justin Kirk; Maria Maggenti's Puccini for Beginners (2006 Sundance Film Festival/2006 Outfest Film Festival);
Ed Burns' Purple Violets; Thomas Bezucha's The Family Stone; Marc Forster's Stay; and The Believer, among others. Her TV credits include "The Good Wife," "The Ex List," "Saved," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" and "The Sopranos." A graduate of the Juilliard School, Elizabeth's stage credits include The Winter's Tale at
Classic Stage Company; Top Girls at the
Williamstown Theatre Festival; A Freeman in Paris; The Hologram Theory; Blackbird (London's
Bush Theatre); Stone Cold Serious (ART); Closer (PCS); Sweet Bird of Youth (La Jolla); Tatjana in Color (CATF); O'Neil Playwrights Conference.
Paula Vogel's plays include The Baltimore Waltz, Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief, The Oldest Profession, And Baby Makes Seven, Hot ‘N Throbbing, The Mineola Twins, The Long Christmas Ride Home, and Civil War Christmas, among others. They have been performed at the Vineyard Theatre, Lortel Theatre, Signature Theatre, and Circle Repertory in New York, and regionally at The American Repertory Theatre, Intiman Theatre, Center Stage and Alley Theatre, among others. The Baltimore Waltz won the Obie Award for Best Play in 1992, and her anthologies, The Baltimore Waltz and Other Plays and The Mammary Plays (including How I Learned to Drive), have been published by TCG. Other awards include a 1996 John Simon Guggenheim, a Peco Charitable Trust/TCG Senior Artist residency fellowship, several National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the AT&T New Plays Award, and The Fund for New American Plays. She is a member of New Dramatists. How I Learned to Drive won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Obie Awards for Best Play.
Kate Whoriskey directed the acclaimed off-Broadway and ChicaGo Productions of Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning Ruined (Drama Desk, Lortel and Jeff Award noms.). Other New York credits include The Miracle Worker (Broadway), The Piano Teacher (Vineyard Theatre), Fabulation (Playwrights Horizons), Massacre... (LAByrinth Theater Company). Her many regional credits include The Tempest (Shakespeare Theatre); Vigils, Heartbreak House, The Rose Tattoo (Goodman); Life Is a Dream, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Antigone (South Coast Rep); The Master Builder (ART); Lady From the Sea and The Chairs at the Intiman Theatre, where she recently served as artistic director.
Tickets are $75 and may be purchased by phoning 212-246-4422 or online at www.2ST.com.
