Robert & Kristen Lopez's UP HERE, Phylicia Rashad-Helmed 'BLUEPRINTS' and More All-New Works Set for La Jolla Playhouse's 2015-16 Season

La Jolla Playhouse announces five shows for its 2015/2016 season, featuring all new works, including the world-premiere musical Come from Away, featuring book, music and lyrics by acclaimed Canadian husband-and-wife team Irene Sankoff and David Hein, directed by Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley; the world premiere of Indecent, co-created by director Rebecca Taichman (Playhouse's Sleeping Beauty Wakes, Milk Like Sugar), and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive), co-produced with Yale Repertory Theatre; and Blueprints to Freedom: An Ode to Bayard Rustin, by Michael Benjamin Washington (Memphis, The Wiz), directed by The Cosby Show's Phylicia Rashad, which had its first workshop during the Playhouse's 2014 DNA New Work Series.

The Playhouse also announces the centerpiece of its 2015 Without Walls (WoW) Festival: Healing Wars, conceived, directed and choreographed by internationally-renowned choreographer Liz Lerman. The show's run will culminate at the 2015 WoW Festival taking place October 9 - 11. Healing Wars marks the first WoW production to be part of the Playhouse's subscription series. Additional productions for the 2015 WoW Festival will be announced at a later date.

In addition, the Playhouse will mount the previously-announced world-premiere musical Up Here, featuring book, music and lyrics by the husband-and-wife composing team of Robert Lopez (The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q) and Kristen Anderson-Lopez(Disney World's Finding Nemo, The Musical), who recently took home the Academy Award® for Best Song with their mega-hit "Let It Go" from the Disney animated film Frozen. The musical will be directed by Tony Award nominee Alex Timbers (Peter and the Starcatcher, Rocky).

"This season embodies the Playhouse's adventurous spirit in so many ways. It is comprised entirely of new works that challenge our notions of what a play - and even a character - can be. We've assembled an astounding group of artists, many of whom have worked in unique partnerships to create their pieces." said Ashley. "It has also been a goal of mine to bring our innovative Without Walls program to a wider audience, and for the first time, a WoW show will be part of our subscription series. The inaugural WoW Festival in 2013 far exceeded my expectations, and since that time, we've been busy curating site-based works for this next Festival, to be anchored by Liz Lerman's astonishing dance-theatre piece."

About the Season:

Come from Away is an original, rock-infused world-premiere musical based on the true story of when the isolated town of Gander, Newfoundland played host to the world. What started as an average day in a small town turned in to an international sleep-over when 38 planes, carrying thousands of people from across the globe, were diverted to Gander on September 11, 2001. Undaunted by culture clashes and language barriers, the people of Gander cheered the stranded travelers with music, an open bar and the recognition that we're all part of a global family.

In Up Here, when introverted 30-something computer repairman Dan finds a potential spark with outgoing t-shirt designer Lindsay, his attempts at a relationship are thwarted by the Technicolor world in his head. This world-premiere musical goes where no musical has gone before, bringing to life the circus of judgmental, neurotic, ever-changing characters that rule an ordinary man's mind. Up Here is an ambitious, razor-sharp musical comedy about recognizing your place in the universe - and maybe even finding happiness.

In the sweltering political and racial heat of 1963, Bayard Rustin, a brilliant architect of the Civil Rights Movement and an openly gay man, is enlisted to orchestrate an unprecedented March on Washington by colleagues that recently exiled him. With the stakes growing ever higher, Rustin finds himself at a personal crossroads, just as the nation is at cultural and political one.Blueprints to Freedom: An Ode to Bayard Rustin presents a complex and dynamic portrait of a man at the turning point of professional and spiritual redemption.

Healing Wars is a multisensory experience that blends dance, storytelling and multimedia in an exploration of how soldiers and healers cope with the physical and psychological wounds of war. Incorporating narratives from the American Civil War as well a remarkable performance from a young Navy veteran, this powerful piece asks how we as a nation recover from what seems like endless battles. Healing Wars anchors the Playhouse's highly-anticipated second Without Walls Festival.

A world-premiere play with music, Indecent is inspired by the true events surrounding the controversial 1922 Broadway debut of Sholem Asch's God of Vengeance, a work considered by many to be a seminal work of Jewish culture - and by others, a work of traitorous libel. Alive with popular songs of the era, this deeply-moving piece charts the history of an incendiary work, the artists who risked their careers and lives to perform it, and the evolving identity of the culturally-rich community that inspired its creation.

In addition to these five subscription shows, the Playhouse will also mount the previously-announced 2015 productions of Border Crossing, a Without Walls presentation in partnership with the San Diego Museum of Man taking place in June, 2015, and the Performance Outreach Program (POP) Tour production of The Astronaut Farmworker, the Playhouse's annually commissioned play for young audiences, running at the Playhouse February 14 and 15, 2015 and touring elementary schools throughout San Diego County February 2 - April 3.

Tickets to the Playhouse's 2015/16 season are available only through subscription by calling Playhouse Patron Services at (858) 550-1010 or online at LaJollaPlayhouse.org. Run dates and the final production of the 2015/16 season will be announced shortly.

BIOGRAPHIES:

Christopher Ashley (Director: Come from Away) has served as La Jolla Playhouse's Artistic Director since October, 2007. During his tenure, he has helmed the Playhouse's productions of Chasing the Song, His Girl Friday, Glengarry Glen Ross, A Dram of Drummhicit, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Restoration and the acclaimed musicals Xanadu and Memphis, which won four 2010 Tony Awards including Best Musical and just opened in London's West End. He also spearheaded the Playhouse's Without Walls (WoW) series and the Resident Theatre program. Prior to joining the Playhouse, he directed the Broadway productions of Xanadu (Drama Desk nomination), All Shook Up and The Rocky Horror Show (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations), as well as the Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration productions of Sweeney Todd andMerrily We Roll Along. Other New York credits include: Blown Sideways Through Life, Jeffrey (Lucille Lortel and Obie Awards),The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Valhalla, Regrets Only, Wonder of the World, Communicating Doors, Bunny Bunny, The Night Hank Williams Died and Fires in the Mirror (Lucille Lortel Award), among others. Mr. Ashley also directed the feature filmsJeffrey and Lucky Stiff, as well as the American Playhouse production of Blown Sideways Through Life for PBS. Mr. Ashley is the recipient of the Princess Grace Award, the Drama League Director Fellowship and an NEA/TCG Director Fellowship.

Liz Lerman (Creator/Director/Choreographer, Healing Wars) is a choreographer, performer, writer, educator and speaker. She has spent the past four decades making her artistic research personal, funny, intellectually vivid, and up-to-the-minute. A key aspect of her artistry is opening her process to various publics from shipbuilders to physicists, construction workers to ballerinas, resulting in both research and outcomes that are participatory, relevant, urgent, and usable by others. She founded Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in 1976 and cultivated the company's unique multi-generational ensemble into a leading force in contemporary dance. Lerman is currently pursuing new projects, including a semester at Harvard University as an artist-in-residence; initiating the National Civil War Project, which pairs theatres and universities to create new work and new research related to our civil war, such as Healing Wars; the genre-twisting work Blood, Muscle, Bone with Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Urban Bush Women; as well as work in London with Sadler's Wells Theatre, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the National Theatre Studio and the London Sinfonietta. Hiking the Horizontal: Field Notes from a Choreographer, a collection of essays, was published in 2011 by Wesleyan University Press. She has been the recipient of numerous honors, including a 2002 MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship, a 2011 United States Artists Ford Fellowship in Dance, and the 2014 Dance/USA Honor Award.

Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (Book, Music, Lyrics: Up Here) are the Academy Award®-winning, married songwriting team behind the sensational Disney animated film, Frozen. Robert co-conceived and co-wrote the smash-hit musicals Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon, both of which earned him Tony Awards. Kristen's show, In Transit, opened off-Broadway in 2010 and earned recognition at the Drama Desk, Drama League and Lucille Lortel awards that year. The two have written for television, film and stage, including the stage version of Finding Nemo, songs for The Wonder Pets (two Emmy Award®wins) and the Winnie the Pooh animated film.

Phylicia Rashad (Director: Blueprints to Freedom) has directed Fences at Long Wharf Theatre, Joe Turner's Come and Goneat the Mark Taper Forum, Immediate Family at the Goodman Theatre, A Raisin in the Sun at Ebony Repertory Theatre, Kirk Douglas Theatre and Westport Country Playhouse, and Gem of the Ocean at Seattle Repertory Theatre. As a performer: Broadway: August: Osage County, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cymbeline, Gem of the Ocean (Tony nomination), A Raisin in the Sun(Tony and Drama Desk Awards), Into the Woods, Dreamgirls and The Wiz. Off-Broadway: The Story, Helen, Everybody's Ruby,Blue and Bernarda Alba. Regional theatre: Every Tongue Confess, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Medea. Films: Good Deeds, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Frankie and Alice, Just Wright, Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored, Loving Jezebel and The Visit. Films for TV: Steel Magnolias, A Raisin in the Sun (NAACP Image Award, Emmy® and SAG nominations), The Old Settler and Free of Eden. TV series: The Cosby Show (Emmy® nomination) and Cosby. Ms. Rashad holds a B.F.A. degree from the College of Fine Arts at Howard University and was the first recipient of the Denzel Washington Chair in Theatre at Fordham University.

Irene Sankoff and David Hein (Book/Music/Lyrics: Come from Away) are a Canadian husband-and-wife writing team. Their first show, My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding (based on David's mother's true story) was the hit of the Toronto Fringe Festival where it won "Best of Fringe," and the New York Musical Theatre Festival where it won "Outstanding New Musical" and "Best Book." It has now played and won awards across North America, with Sankoff and Hein performing in most productions, and it will be seen in St. Louis in 2015. Come from Away was developed at the Canadian Music Theatre Project and Goodspeed Musicals' Festival of New Artists. Their next musical, Mitzvah, was recently developed at the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival. Sankoff and Hein are the recipients of the Bryden "Ones-to-Watch" Award and last year, they celebrated the birth of their daughter, Molly.

Rebecca Taichman (Co-Creator/Director: Indecent) directed the La Jolla Playhouse productions of Sleeping Beauty Wakesand Milk Like Sugar. Her Off-Broadway credits include: The Oldest Boy by Sarah Ruhl (LCT); The Luck of the Irish (LCT3); Stage Kiss, Milk Like Sugar (Playwrights Horizons); Orlando (CSC); Orpheus (New York City Opera); Dark Sisters (Music Theater Group, Gotham Chamber Opera); Rappaccini's Daughter (Gotham Chamber Opera); Marie Antoinette (Soho Rep); The Scene(Second Stage, Humana); Menopausal Gentleman (Ohio Theatre). Regional credits: Familiar (Yale Rep; upcoming); Time and the Conways (The Old Globe); Marie Antoinette (A.R.T., Yale Rep); Evildoers (Yale Rep); She Loves Me (OSF); The Winter's Tale (McCarter, STC); Cymbeline, Twelfth Night, Taming of the Shrew (STC); Twelfth Night, Sleeping Beauty Wakes (McCarter); Dead Man's Cell Phone, The Clean House (Woolly Mammoth). She received her M.F.A. from Yale University.www.rebeccataichman.com

Alex Timbers (Director, Up Here) is a two-time Tony Award-nominated writer and director, and the recipient of Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards, as well as two OBIE Awards. His Broadway credits include: Rocky, Peter and the Starcatcher (co-director; OBIE Award, Best Director; Tony nomination, Best Director), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (also book writer; Drama Desk Award, Best Book; Lortel and OCC Awards, Best Musical; Tony nomination, Best Book) and The Pee-wee Herman Show (aired on HBO, nominated for Emmy® Award). His Off-Broadway credits include the current hit production of Here Lies Love (Drama Desk and OCC Award nominations, Best Director), A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant (OBIE Award; Garland Award, Best Director), Gutenberg! The Musical! (Drama Desk Award nomination, Best Director), Hell House (Drama Desk Award nomination, Unique Theatrical Experience). His recent work includes Love's Labour's Lost, which he co-wrote and directed at the Public Theatre's Shakespeare in the Park in 2013, and The Last Goodbye, which setsRomeo and Juliet to the music of Jeff Buckley. Timbers is the Artistic Director of downtown company Les Freres Corbusier.

Paula Vogel's (Co-Creator/Playwright: Indecent) play, How I Learned to Drive, received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Lortel Prize, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics Awards for Best Play, as well as winning her second Obie. Other plays include Don Juan Comes Home from Iraq, The Long Christmas Ride Home, The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot 'N' Throbbing, Desdemona, And Baby Makes Seven, The Oldest Profession and A Civil War Christmas. In 2004/5 she was the playwright-in-residence at New York's Signature Theatre, which produced three of her works. Most recently, her play Don Juan Comes Home from Iraq was produced by Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, with direction by Blanka Ziska. She is most honored to have two awards to emerging playwrights named after her: the Paula Vogel Award, created by the American College Theatre Festival in 2003, and the Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting is given annually by the Vineyard Theatre, since 2007. Ms. Vogel won the 2004 Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Obie for Best Play in 1992, the Rhode Island Pell Award in the Arts, the Hull-Warriner Award, The Laura Pels Award, the Pew Charitable Trust Senior Award, a Guggenheim, the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center Fellowship, several National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and the McKnight Fellowship, She has taught for 24 years at Brown University and for five years at the Yale School of Drama where she was the Eugene O'Neill Professor (adjunct) of Playwriting. She is honored by Philadelphia Young Playwrights and Quiara Hudes, who is curating the Paula Vogel Mentors Project for high school students.

Michael Benjamin Washington's (Playwright: Blueprints to Freedom) previous La Jolla Playhouse credits include: Bayard in the DNA New Work Series workshop production of his play Blueprints to Freedom: An Ode to Bayard Rustin, directed by Phylicia Rashad; the Tinman in The Wiz, directed by Des McAnuff; Memphis, directed by Christopher Ashley; Most Wanted (workshop), directed by Michael Greif; and a reading of his solo show Letters to Barack, directed by Christopher Ashley. His Broadway credits include Mamma Mia! (original company) and La Cage Aux Folles (2005 Tony-winning revival). Off-Broadway credits include Stephen Sondhiem's Saturday Night. Film and television appearances: Love and Other Drugs, directed by Ed Zwick; Gnome, directed by Jenny Bicks; 30 Rock; Glee; 100 Questions; Law & Order. A member of Broadway Inspirational Voices, Washington received his B.F.A. from New York University/Tisch School of the Arts and is a 1997 Presidential Scholar in the Arts.

Yale Repertory Theatre (Co-Producer: Indecent), the internationally celebrated professional theatre in residence at Yale School of Drama, has championed new work since 1966, producing well over 100 premieres-including two Pulitzer Prize winners and four other nominated finalists-by emerging and established playwrights. Twelve Yale Rep productions have advanced to Broadway, garnering more than 40 Tony Award nominations and eight Tony Awards. Yale Rep is also the recipient of the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Established in 2008, Yale's Binger Center for New Theatre has distinguished itself as one of the nation's most robust and innovative new play programs. To date, the Binger Center has supported the work of more than 40 commissioned artists and underwritten the world premieres and subsequent productions of 18 new American plays and musicals at Yale Rep and theatres across the country. Indecent, co-created by Rebecca Taichman and Paula Vogel, was commissioned by Yale Rep and American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. yalerep.org

The nationally-acclaimed, Tony Award-winning La Jolla Playhouse is known for its tradition of creating the most exciting and adventurous new work in regional theatre. The Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, and is considered one of the most well-respected not-for-profit theatres in the country. Numerous Playhouse productions have moved to Broadway, including the currently running, multiple Tony Award-winning hit Jersey Boys, as well as Big River, The Who's Tommy, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, A Walk in the Woods, Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays, the Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Farnsworth Invention, 33 Variations, Peter and the Starcatcher,Memphis, Bonnie & Clyde, Chaplin, Hands on a Hardbody and Side Show. Located on the UC San Diego campus, La Jolla Playhouse is made up of three primary performance spaces: the Mandell Weiss Theatre, the Mandell Weiss Forum Theatre and the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Center for La Jolla Playhouse, a state-of-the-art theatre complex which features the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre. La Jolla Playhouse is led by Artistic Director Christopher Ashley and Managing Director Michael S. Rosenberg.