THE NANCE Begins Performances at Lyceum Theatre on Thursday

Performances begin this Thursday (March 21) at 8 pm at the Lyceum Theatre (149 West 45th Street) for Douglas Carter Beane's new play The Nance directed by Jack O'Brien. This production features Jenni Barber, Andréa Burns, Cady Huffman, Mylinda Hull, Nathan Lane, Geoffrey Allen Murphy, Jonny Orsini and Lewis J. Stadlen. Opening night is Monday, April 15.

A nance, according to Webster's Dictionary, is "an effeminate or homosexual man." In the world of 1930's burlesque, a nance was a wildly popular character, a stereotypically camp homosexual man, usually played by a straight performer. In The Nance, playwright Douglas Carter Beane tells the story of Chauncey Miles (Nathan Lane), a headline nance performer in New York burlesque, who also happens to be homosexual. Integrating burlesque sketches into his drama, Beane paints, the portrait of a homosexual man, living and working in the secretive and dangerous gay world of 1930's New York, whose outrageous antics on the burlesque stage stand in marked contrast to his messy offstage life.

THE NANCE has sets by John Lee Beatty, costumes by Ann Roth, lighting by Japhy Weideman, sound by Leon Rothenberg, original music and arrangements by Glen Kelly, orchestrations by Larry Blank, is conducted by David Gursky, and choreography by Joey Pizzi.

This spring, in addition to The Nance , Lincoln Center Theater will be producing the premiere of Nikolai and the Others, a new play by Richard Nelson, directed by David Cromer, beginning Thursday, April 4 in the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. In addition, LCT3, Lincoln Center Theater's programming initiative devoted to the work of new artists, will present the world premiere of A KID LIKE JAKE, a new play by Daniel Pearle, directed by Evan Cabnet, beginning performances Sunday, June 2 in the Claire Tow Theater.

The performance schedule for The Nance is Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8pm, with matinees Wednesday and Saturdays at 2pm and Sundays at 3pm. Opening night performance on Mon., April 15 will be at 6:45pm. Beginning April 23, all Tuesday evening performances will begin at 7pm. There is no matinee performance on Saturday, March. 23, and no performance on Tuesday, April 16.

Tickets to The Nance, priced from $37.00 to $132.00 are available at telecharge.com or by visiting www.lct.org. A limited number of tickets priced at $32.00 are available at every performance through LincTix, LCT's program for 21 to 35 year olds. For information and to enroll, visit www.LincTix.org.