TCG Books Releases John Patrick Shanley's STOREFRONT CHURCH

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) has announced the publication of John Patrick Shanley's Storefront Church, the third and final installment of his "Church and State" trilogy beginning with Doubt and Defiance. The play premiered at Atlantic Theater Company in New York, NY in June 2012 with a subsequent hit production at the San Francisco Playhouse in the fall of 2013.

"There's a deeper philosophical vein that the author mines, allowing his language to acquire the heft and timbre of a serious moral debate...We taste bitterness, but also much that is sweet." -David Cote, Time Out New York

Storefront Church tells the story of a Bronx Borough President who is forced by the mortgage crisis into a confrontation with a local minister. Blending earthy humor and philosophical reflection, this compassionate morality tale is an exploration of the often thorny relationship between spiritual experience and social action.

Shanley's "intense engagement with questions of religion and ethics...remains distinctive and invigorating." -Charles Isherwood, New York Times

John Patrick Shanley is the author of Doubt: A Parable (Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tony Award for Best Play), Outside Mullingar (Tony nomination for Best Play), Defiance, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea and Dirty Story, among many other plays. He wrote the teleplay for Live from Baghdad (Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing of a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special) and the screenplays for Congo, Alive, Five Corners, Joe Versus the Volcano, which he also directed; and Moonstruck, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He adapted Doubt into an Academy Award-winning film, which he also directed, starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

For over 50 years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, has existed to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. TCG's constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to nearly 700 Member Theatres and Affiliate organizations and more than 12,000 individuals nationwide. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research and communications; awards grants, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute, connecting its constituents to the global theatre community.

TCG is North America's largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 13 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation for, the theatre.