Tony-Winner John Cullum to Join Rosemary Harris in The Other Side

Manhattan Theatre Club (Lynne Meadow, Artistic Director; Barry Grove, Executive Producer) is pleased to announce that two-time Tony Award winner John Cullum will star opposite Tony Award-winner Rosemary Harris in the theatre's American premiere production of The Other Side, written by Ariel Dorfman (Death and the Maiden), and directed by Blanka Zizka (Yellowman) at New York City Center – Stage I.

The Other Side will open December 6, 2005. Previews begin November 10, 2005.

Dorfman's moving, unexpectedly comic work is set in a war torn country where a man (Cullum) and a woman (Harris) wait. They pass their days identifying the casualties. When peace and a border guard arrive, their bleakly predictable world unravels. The Other Side had its world premiere at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Japan in April 2004 and will also open in London in 2006 with Sir Peter Hall directing.

The final cast member of the ensemble will be announced shortly.

John Cullum (Atom Roma). Broadway: two-time Tony winner for Shenandoah and On the Twentieth Century, also Urinetown (Tony nomination), Camelot, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Tony nomination), Boys in Autumn, Hamlet (with Richard Burton), 1776, All My Sons, Show Boat, Old Money, Candide (City Opera), Sin: A Cardinal Deposed, Rose's Dilemma, Mr. Peters' Connection (London). TV: Holling the Bartender on "Northern Exposure," Mark Greene's father on "ER," "Law & Order: SVU," "Touched By an Angel," "Inherit the Wind" (George C. Scott, Jack Lemmon). Film: The Secret Life of Algernon, 1776, Sweet Country, Hawaii.

Rosemary Harris (Levana Julak) most recently appeared in Edward Albee's All Over for the Roundabout in 2002. Broadway: A Delicate Balance, Waiting in the Wings, An Inspector Calls, Hay Fever, Pack of Lies, Heartbreak House, The Royal Family, A Streetcar Named Desire, Old Times, The Lion in the Winter (Tony Award). Six years with APA, two years with APA-Phoenix at the Lyceum. Royal National Theatre: Women of Troy, The Petition, Hamlet, Uncle Vanya. Films: Spiderman, Spiderman 2, Sunshine, Tom & Viv (Academy Award nomination). TV: "Notorious Woman" (Emmy), "Holocaust" (Golden Globe), "To the Lighthouse," "Death of a Salesman."

Ariel Dorfman (Playwright). A writer whose imagination has been engaged with the great moral and political issues of our time, Ariel Dorfman is a Chilean-American who holds the Walter Hines Page Chair of Literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University. Called "a literary grandmaster" by Time and "one of the greatest living latinamerican novelists" by Newsweek, he has received numerous international awards, including the Sudamericana Award for novel, the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Play (Death and the Maiden, which has been made in a feature film by Roman Polanski), and two awards for playwrighting from the Kennedy Center. His books, written both in Spanish and English, have been translated into more than 30 languages and his plays staged in over 100 countries. His novels include a re-issued edition of Widows, Konfidenz, The Nanny and the Iceberg, and Blake's Therapy. Among his non-fiction works are Exorcising Terror: The Incredible Unending Trial of General Augusto Pinoche; The Empire's Old Clothes; and his best selling memoir: Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey. He has written a bilingual book of poetry, In Case of Fire in a Foreign Land, and a novel with his son, Joaquin Dorfman, The Burning City. His latest works are a Lowell Thomas Award-winning travel book, Desert Memories: Journeys Through the Chilean North from National Geographic Directions; and a book of essays, Other Septembers, Many Americas: Selected Provocations, 1980-2004 from Seven Stories Press. Other new plays in the 2005-2006 season are Purgatorioat the Seattle Rep, directed by David Esbjornson; and Picasso's Closet at Theater J in Washington DC, directed by John Dillon. He contributes regularly to the major newspapers of the world and is a member of L'Académie Universelle des Cultures in Paris and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

BLANKA ZIZKA (Director) has been the co-Artistic Director of The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia since 1981. She has directed over 50 plays and musicals for the theater. Blanka recently directed the world premiere of Raw Boys by Dael Orlandersmith, Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train by Stephen Adly Guirgis, (Barrymore Winner, Best Overall Production and Best Director), the World Premiere of Embarrassments by Laurence Klavan and Polly Pen, the Philadelphia premieres of Lillian Groag's The Magic Fire and Chay Yew's Red. In 2002, she directed the world premiere of Dael Orlandersmith's Yellowman at the Manhattan Theatre Club, McCarter Theatre Center, Long Wharf Theatre, ACT in Seattle, and at The Wilma Theater. She was awarded the first Barrymore Award for Best Direction of a Play for Cartwright's Road. She directed Jiler and Leslee's Avenue X (Barrymore Winner, Best Overall Production of a Musical and Best Direction of a Musical), Wright's Quills (Barrymore Winner, Best Overall Production of a Play), and the East Coast premiere of The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard (Barrymore Winner, Best Overall Production of a Play and Best Direction of a Play). Her other favorite productions include Orwell's Animal Farm, O'Neill's The Hairy Ape, Ionesco's Macbett, Fugard's Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act and Playland, Dulack's Incommunicado, Sherman's When She Danced, Stoppard's Travesties, Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, Freed's The Psychic Life of Savages, Klavan and Pen's Bed and Sofa, Sherwood's Spin, Thompson's Perfect Pie, Carr's Portia Coughlan, and Sherman's Patience.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, MTC has become one of the country's most prominent and prestigious theatre companies. Renowned MTC productions include Doubt; Proof; The Tale of the Allergist's Wife; Yellowman; Kimberly Akimbo; Love! Valour! Compassion!; Sylvia; Four Dogs and a Bone; Putting It Together; Lips Together, Teeth Apart; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; Crimes of the Heart; and Ain't Misbehavin'. In 2003; MTC reopened Broadway's long neglected landmark Biltmore Theatre; following a two-year; $35 million capital campaign.

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