Playwrights Horizons to Begin Accepting 'LIVEforFIVE'

Starting tomorrow, Wednesday, September 17 at 10:00 AM, Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) will be accepting entries for its popular LIVEforFIVE online lottery for $5 tickets to its next production, the World Premiere of KINDNESS, a new play written and directed by Adam Rapp (Essential Self-Defense at Playwrights Horizons, Red Light Winter).  A total of 40 tickets will be available via the online lottery.

A ticketing initiative created last season as part of the theater company's Arts Access program, LIVEforFIVE makes $5 tickets available for the first preview performance of each Playwrights Horizons production through a lottery via the company's website (www.playwrightshorizons.org).  The LIVEforFIVE lottery for KINDNESS will be for tickets to the first preview on Thursday, September 25 at 7:30 PM at Playwrights Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater (416 West 42nd Street). 

KINDNESS will have its official opening on Monday, October 13 at 7:00 PM and continue through Sunday, November 2.  The cast features Academy Award and Emmy Award nominee Annette O'Toole (Best Original Song for A Mighty Wind, plus The Seagull at CSC, Martha Kent on TV's "Smallville"), Christopher Denham (Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter and the Broadway productions of The Lieutenant of Inishmore and "MASTER HAROLD"...and the boys), Obie Award winner Ray Anthony Thomas (Forced Continuum) and Katherine Waterston (Los Angeles at The Flea, the film The Babysitters).

Details for the LIVEforFIVE lottery are as follows: beginning Wednesday, September 17 at 10:00 AM, theatergoers can enter the lottery by filling out an entry form at www.playwrightshorizons.org. Entries will be accepted until Monday, September 22 at 12 Noon.  Winners of the lottery will be notified via email no later than 12 Noon on Tuesday, September 23 with instructions on how to book their $5 tickets.  One or two tickets may be purchased for $5 each.  At least 40 tickets will be available for Sharp shows via the lottery.

In KINDNESS, an ailing mother (Annette O'Toole) and her teenaged son (Christopher Denham) flee Illinois and a crumbling marriage for the relative calm and safety of a midtown Manhattan hotel.  Mom holds tickets to a popular musical about love among bohemians.  Her son isn't interested.  So Mom takes the kindly cabdriver (Ray Anthony Thomas) instead, while the boy entertains an enigmatic, potentially dangerous young woman (Katherine Waterston) from down the hall.  Adam Rapp's KINDNESS is a play about the possibility for sympathy in a harsh world, and the meaning of mercy in the face of devastating circumstances.

The Arts Access program at Playwrights Horizons allows the institution to reach out to those who may not be able to afford the cost of a full-price theater ticket. 

Reflecting Playwrights Horizons' ongoing commitment to making its productions more affordable to younger audiences, the theater company will offer HOTtix, $20 rush tickets, subject to availability, day of performance only, starting one hour before showtime to patrons aged 30 and under. Proof of age required. One ticket per person, per purchase. STUDENT RUSH, $15 rush tickets, subject to availability, day of performance only, starting one hour before curtain to full-time graduate and undergraduate students. One ticket per person, per purchase. Valid student ID required.

LIVEforFIVE, HOTtix and STUDENT RUSH are some of Playwrights Horizons' popular Arts Access initiatives, which allow the theater company to reach out to those who may not be able to afford the cost of a full-price theater ticket.  Playwrights Horizons is grateful to Goldman, Sachs & Co., lead sponsor of Arts Access at Playwrights Horizons.  This program is also supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the Elroy and Terry Krumholz Foundation.

Playwrights Horizons' 2008/2009 Season is generously supported by The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

Playwrights Horizons is supported in part by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate.  In addition, Playwrights Horizons receives major support from Carnegie Corporation of New York, Charina Endowment Fund, The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The Shubert Foundation and Time Warner Inc.

Playwrights Horizons, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tim Sanford and Managing Director Leslie Marcus, is a writer's theater dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers and lyricists, and to the production of their new work.  In its 38 years, Playwrights Horizons has presented the work of more than 375 writers and has received numerous awards and honors, most recently being honored with a special 2008 Drama Desk Award for "ongoing support to generations of theater artists and undiminished commitment to producing new work."  Notable productions include four Pulitzer Prize winners: Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife (2004 Tony Award, Best Play), Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles (1989 Tony Award, Best Play), Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George, as well as John Dempsey, Michael Friedman and Rinne Groff's Saved, Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone, Doug Wright, Scott Frankel and Michael Korie's Grey Gardens (2006 Outer Critics Circle Award, Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical), Bruce Norris's The Pain and the Itch, Lynn Nottage's Fabulation (2005 Obie Award for Playwriting), Craig Lucas's Small Tragedy (2004 Obie Award, Best American Play), Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero, Kirsten Childs's The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, Richard Nelson and Shaun Davey's James Joyce's The Dead, William Finn's March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, Christopher Durang's Betty's Summer Vacation and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, Richard Nelson's Goodnight Children Everywhere and Franny's Way, Jon Robin Baitz's The Substance of Fire, Scott McPherson's Marvin's Room, A.R. Gurney's Later Life, Adam Guettel and Tina Landau's Floyd Collins and Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley's Violet. 

For subscription and ticket information to all Playwrights Horizons productions,
call TICKET CENTRAL at (212) 279-4200, Noon to 8 pm daily,
or purchase online at the Playwrights Horizons website at
www.playwrightshorizons.org