Wiest & Monk Lead STORIES ON 5 STORIES at Playwrights Horizons, 11/9

Acclaimed theater company Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) has announced nine initial performers who will participate in the return of its unique benefit evening STORIES ON 5 STORIES on Monday, November 9. Among those taking part in the special event will be two-time Academy Award winner and two-time Obie Award winner Diane Wiest (Memory House at Playwrights Horizons/PH, Hannah and Her Sisters, Bullets Over Broadway), Tony Award winner Debra Monk (Assassins at PH, Redwood Curtain, Curtains), Obie Award winner Jason Butler Harner (current Stage Manager in Our Town, Hedda Gabler, The Coast of Utopia), Clarence Derwent Award winner Zoe Kazan (100 Saints You Should Know at PH; Come Back, Little Sheba; Things We Want), Theatre World Award winner Cassie Beck (The Drunken City and Prayer for My Enemy at PH), Cristin Milioti (The Retributionists at PH, the upcoming The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter), Sue Jean Kim (The Drunken City and BFE at PH, 365 Days/365 Plays), Carmen M. Herlihy (The Thugs, Crooked) and Greg Keller (Broadway's Uncle Vanya, The Rainmaker). Additional performers will be announced in the coming weeks.

The event will feature new works by seven of the theater's alumni writers: Adam Bock (The Drunken City at PH; The Receptionist, The Thugs), composer Randy Courts (Jack's Holiday at PH; Magic Tree House: The Musical, The Gifts of the Magi), Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie Award winner Adam Rapp (Essential Self- Defense and Kindness at PH; Red Light Winter), Jonathan Reynolds (Geniuses at PH; Dinner with Demons, Stonewall Jackson's House), Evan Smith (The Savannah Disputation, Psych and The Uneasy Chair at PH; Serviceman), Kathleen Tolan (A Girl's Life; Kate's Diary, The Wax and Memory House all at PH) and Sarah Treem (A Feminine Ending at PH, "In Treatment"). The event will take place at Playwrights' home at 416 West 42nd Street, and will benefit the company's annual programs and productions.

 Debra Monk's Broadway credits include Curtains (Drama Desk Award,  Tony nomination), Chicago; Reckless; Thou Shalt Not; Ah,  Wilderness!; Steel Pier (Tony nomination); Company; Picnic (Tony  nomination); Redwood Curtain (Tony Award); Nick and Nora; Prelude  to a Kiss; Pump Boys and Dinettes (co-author, Tony nomination).  Off-Broadway: Show People, The Seagull, The Time of the Cuckoo  (Obie Award), Death-Defying Acts, Three Hotels (also Kennedy  Center, Helen Hayes Award), Assassins, Oil City Symphony (co-  author, Drama Desk Award). Film: The Great Buck Howard; The  Savages; The Producers; Palindromes; Milwaukee, Minnesota; Center  Stage; Devil's Advocate; In & Out; The Substance of Fire; Extreme  Measures; The Bridges of Madison County; Jeffrey; Fearless; Prelude  to a Kiss; Reckless; Mrs. Winterbourne; Bed of Roses and the  upcoming Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. TV: "Ghost  Whisperer," "The Closer," "Desperate Housewives," "Frasier," "The  Music Man," "Eloise," "Law & Order," "Redwood Curtain," Katie  Sipowicz on "NYPD Blue" (Emmy Award), George's mother on "Grey's  Anatomy," Ellen's mother on "Damages," and Will Schuester's mother on "Glee."

Diane Wiest has most recently been seen on the New York stage in Arthur Miller's All My Sons on Broadway. Other recent stage appearances include The Seagull at Classic Stage Company, Wendy Wasserstein's Third at Lincoln Center and Kathleen Tolan's Memory House at Playwrights Horizons. On Broadway, she's appeared in Salome, Solitaire, Othello, Beyond Therapy and In the Summer House. She won Obie Awards for her performances in The Art of Dining, Other Places and Serenading Louie. Film credits include The Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and her Sisters (Academy Award), Radio Days, September and Bullets Over Broadway (Academy Award), all by Woody Allen. She also appeared in Parenthood (Academy Award nomination), Edward Scissorhands and The Birdcage. She was last seen on screen in Charlie Kaufman's movie Synecdoche, New York and the HBO series "In Treatment" (Emmy Award). She will next appear on stage at Classic Stage Company in Kathleen Tolan's adaptation of Alexander Ostrovsky's The Forest.

This year's theme for STORIES ON 5 STORIES is The Elephant in the Room. Promotional materials state: "In an image hungry culture, we love the theater because it's about language. But so often it's not about what's said but also what's not said. For this year's STORIES ON 5 STORIES the writers will take on the theme Elephant in the Room; writing and staging short plays about this theme in unique, far-flung locations throughout our five-story building. Guests tour the building in groups to see all of the works and then gather together for a concluding reception."

Patrons Co-Chairs are Carolyn and Stephen McCandless. Generation PH Event Chair is Dana Seshens. Generation PH is a new group of young supporters aged 40 and under.

"STORIES ON 5 STORIES has been a favorite event of the Staff and Board of Playwrights Horizons ever since its inception six years ago," said Artistic Director Tim Sanford in an initial statement announcing this year's event. "The event inspires creativity and builds community, and the evening always delights, whether we're sitting in the costume shop listening to a song or fitting 25 people into our conference room for a play. I'm pleased to welcome back these remarkable writers, some who have spent a great deal of time in our beautiful six year-old building and others who were around long before the building was a twinkle in our eye, all of whom will write pieces celebrating this space, this theater and this not-to-be-missed evening."

The schedule for STORIES ON 5 STORIES on November 9 will be as follows:

6:00 PM - Pre-show dinner (optional) at Chez Josephine (414 West 42 Street), attended by Playwrights Horizons staff and Board members, as well as some of the evening's playwrights.

8:00 PM - Event and performances begin.

9:00 PM - Post-show dessert reception with participating artists.

Tickets are priced at $150 ("Talk is Cheap" ticket - a single ticket to the shows and post-show dessert reception) and $325 ("Too Big to be Ignored" ticket - a single ticket for the pre-event dinner, shows and post-show reception) and are now on sale. Tickets can be reserved by visiting the Playwrights Horizons website www.playwrightshorizons.org or by calling Michelle Kiefel at (212) 564-1235, extension 3143.

The event is strictly limited to 200 people. All net proceeds from the event will benefit the theater's 2009-2010 programs and productions.

Playwrights Horizons gratefully acknowledges Amish Market, Brooklyn Brewery, Cabana Cachaca and Ruby et Violette and for making generous product donations to this event.

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 39 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 Annie Baker's current Circle Mirror Transformation, Doug Wright, Scott Frankel and Michael Korie's Grey Gardens (three 2007 Tony Awards), Craig Lucas's Prayer For My Enemy and Small Tragedy (2004 Obie Award, Best American Play), Adam Rapp's Kindness, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's Assassins, Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone, Bruce Norris's The Pain and the Itch, Lynn Nottage's Fabulation (2005 Obie Award for Playwriting), Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero, David Greenspan's She Stoops to Comedy (2003 Obie Award), Kirsten Childs's The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (2000 Obie Award), 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, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's Once on This Island, 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 subscriptions online at Playwrights Horizons' website at www.playwrightshorizons.org.

Adam Bock's plays include The Drunken City (Playwrights Horizons), The Receptionist (Manhattan Theater Club), The Thugs (Soho Repertory, Obie Award), Swimming in the Shallows(Second Stage), The Shaker Chair (Humana Festival), and Five Flights (Rattlestick). The Typographer's Dream will be at The Vineyard this season. Bock also helped Jack Cummings III develop The Audience. He is the resident playwright at Encore Theater, a Shotgun Players Artistic Associate, and a member of New Dramatists. Adam's plays are published by Dramatists Play Service, Playscripts Inc. and are featured in The Best Plays of 2005.

Randy Courts most recently collaborated with Will Osborne on Magic Tree House: The Musical, (currently on national tour; CD on PS Classics). Other works include The Gifts of the Magi (ten consecutive seasons at the Lambs Theater; over three hundred productions world wide) with Mark St. Germain; Johnny Pye and the Foolkiller (Lambs Theater; AT&T New Plays Award) Joseph and Mary, Jack's Holiday (Playwrights Horizons; nominated for three Outer Critics Circle Awards, including best musical); The Gingerbread House, The Book of the Dun Dun Cow (Prospect Theater Company) and Doctor Doolittle (Theatreworks USA). With novelist/librettist Walter Wangerin Jr., Randy wrote the Christmas oratorio Angels and All Children, and the opera Elisabeth and the Water Troll.

Adam Rapp's plays at Playwrights Horizons include Kindness in 2008 and Essential Self-Defense in 2007 (Drama Desk Nomination for Best Original Music). Other plays include Red Light Winter (Pulitzer Prize finalist, Obie Award), Bingo with the Indians, American Sligo, Blackbird (two Drama Desk nominations), Stone Cold Dead Serious, Nocturne, Ghosts in the Cottonwoods, Animals and Plants, Finer Noble Gases, Faster, Trueblinka, Dreams of the Salthorse and Gompers. His plays have been collected in Stone Cold Dead Serious and Other Plays and he has published eight novels, most recently Punkzilla (Candlewick Press) and the graphic novel, Ball-peen Hammer (First Second Books). Film: Winter Passing starring Ed Harris, Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel. Select Honors: 2006 Princess Grace Statue; a 2007 Lucille Lortel Playwriting Fellowship; and the 2008 Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Jonathan Reynolds. All nine of Jonathan Reynolds's plays have been produced in New York, most recently Dinner With Demons, an autobiographical one-man show. Other plays include Stonewall Jackson's House; Geniuses (Playwrights Horizons and a commercial run off-Broadway); and the first plays he wrote, Yanks 3 Detroit O Top of the 7th and Rubbers. Although five of his screenplays have also been produced, most notably Micki and Maude and My Stepmother is an Alien, his most memorable experiences in filmmaking have been with Apocalypse Now and Leonard Part 6, both of which could have gone either way. He is the recipient of Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundation grants as well as The Dramatists Guild Flora Roberts Award for Sustained Achievement. For five years, he was Treasurer of The Dramatists Guild of America, and for six years wrote a bi-weekly food column for The New York Times Sunday Magazine. His memoir, Wrestling With Gravy: A Life, With Food, was recently published by Random House, and his next play 3 Abortions will be produced at The Flea Theatre in January 2010.

Evan Smith's most recent play, The Savannah Disputation, premiered at the Writers' Theatre and subsequently premiered in New York at Playwrights Horizons. Other plays include Servicemen (New Group, New York Stage and Film), The Uneasy Chair and Psych (Playwrights Horizons) and Daughters of Genius (1812 Productions). His TV pilot Debs was produced onstage in Los Angeles by NAKED TV, a joint venture of Fox TV and Naked Angels. His plays have been published by the Grove Press, the Dramatists Play Service, Smith & Kraus, Dell Books, TCG, and Playscripts.com. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award and was resident at the William Inge Center.

Kathleen Tolan's plays include A Weekend Near Madison; Kate's Diary (The Public Theatre and Playwrights Horizons); Approximating Mother; A Girl's Life; and The Wax (Playwrights Horizons). Memory House was produced by Humana Festival at Actors' Theatre of Louisville and Playwrights Horizons in spring '05. It has been produced by many other theatres, including Victory Gardens in Chicago, the Seattle Rep and at Trinity Repertory Theatre where it was originally commissioned. Tolan teaches playwriting in the Conservatory of Theatre Arts and Film at Purchase College where she is Chair of the Dramatic Writing Program. She received an MFA from Brooklyn College, studying with Mac Wellman. Tolan has received numerous commissions and awards including the Thornton Wilder Fellowship (2002); the McKnight National Residency and Commission (2005) given to one nationally recognized playwright each year by the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis; a NYFA Fellowship; several MacDowell residencies; and the Sundance Playwrights Winter Residency (2006).

Sarah Treem's plays include Empty Sky, Against the Wall, Mirror, Mirror; A Feminine Ending (Playwrights Horizons), Human Voices and Vienna's Amazing. Treem's plays have been produced at Playwrights Horizons, South Coast Repertory, and Portland Center Stage. She has been in residence at The Sundance Institute and The Ojai Playwrighting Conference. Treem is a current Fellow at the Lark Playwrights' Workshop, a writer/producer on the HBO series "In Treatment" and the upcoming HBO series "How To Make It in America."

Cassie Beck recently made her Broadway debut in The Norman Conquests. Off-Broadway: The Drunken City (Theatre World Award 2008), Prayer For My Enemy (Playwrights Horizons), Oohrah! (Atlantic Theatre), Playlist 2009 (Ars Nova). Regional: Three Sisters (Williamstown Theatre Festival); 43 Plays for 43 Presidents (Actors Theatre of Louisville); All My Sons, Living Out and Be Aggressive (Theatre Works Palo Alto);The Haunting of Winchester (San Jose Rep); 3F 4F (Magic Theatre); Ms. Beck is the former Artistic Director of Crowded Fire Theatre Company in San Francisco were she appeared in several productions including Trojan Woman, Top Girls, A-A-America, One Big Lie, Slow Falling Bird, We Are Not These Hands, and Anna Bella Eema.

Jason Butler Harner is currently appearing as the Stage Manager in Our Town at the Barrow Street Theatre. Broadway: The Coast of Utopia. Off-Broadway: Hedda Gabler (Obie), The Paris Letter (Drama Desk nomination), Five Flights, Orange Flower Water, Observe the Sons of Ulster, The Gingerbread House, and others. Many regional productions including The Glass Menagerie, The Invention of Love, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Hamlet. Television: "John Adams," "The Good Wife," "Fringe," "Closer," others. Film: Changeling, Taking of Pelham, Good Shepherd, The Irishman, The Extra Man, others.

Carmen M. Herlihy's New York credits include Buffalo Gal (Primary Stages), Crooked (Women's Project; Lortel nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress), The Piano Teacher (Vineyard Theatre), The Thugs (Soho Rep), columbinus (NYTW, Drama League Nomination for Ensemble), The House of Bernarda Alba (NAATCO), Misterioso 119 (Act French/Lark), Romeo and Juliet (RTW) and HamletMachine, Ahraishak, (Theater Mitu). London: Hamlet, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Vagina Monologues. TV:"The Unusuals" (ABC), "Cold Case" (CBS), "Six Degrees" (ABC). Film: Two Lovers, Burn After Reading, Trouble with Cali, Tiny Dancer. Upcoming: Morning Glory, The Baster, Please Give, The Rebound. Training: BFA, NYU Tisch; ETW, Amsterdam; The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.

Zoe Kazan made her Broadway debut in the revival of Come Back, Little Sheba (MTC). Off-Broadway: Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Things We Want (The New Group); 100 Saints You Should Know (Playwrights Horizons; Lortel, Drama Desk nominations). Zoe received the Clarence Derwent Award for her three stage performances in 2007. Film: Revolutionary Road, Me and Orson Welles, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, I Hate Valentine's Day, The Exploding Girl and the upcoming It's Complicated, HappyThankYouMorePlease and Meek's Cutoff.

Greg Keller has appeared on Broadway in Uncle Vanya and The Rainmaker. Off-Broadway: The Seagull (CSC), That Pretty Pretty; Or, The Rape Play (Rattlestick), Steve & Idi (Rattlestick), Telethon (Clubbed Thumb), Reborning (The Public/SPF), Dying City (Lincoln Center), You Never Can Tell (Roundabout), The Bigger Man (Partial Comfort), Craft (The Flea), Ponies (NY Fringe). Regional credits include the world premiere of 33 Variations at Arena Stage.

Sue Jean Kim previously appeared at Playwrights Horizons in BFE and The Drunken City. Other New York Theatre includes 365 Days/Plays (The Public), The Imaginary Invalid (The Pearl), The Intelligent Design of Jenny Cho (Portland Center Stage, San Jose Rep) and The House of Bernarda Alba (NAATCo). Film/TV: Sidney Lumet's "Strip Search" (HBO), "Gossip Girl," "The Jury." Her voice can be heard on several popular video games, including Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Cristin Milioti recently appeared at Playwrights Horizons in The Retributionists and is currently in rehearsal for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter at New York Theater Workshop. Broadway: Coram Boy, The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Off-Broadway: Stunning (LCT 3), Some Americans Abroad (Second Stage), crooked (Women's Project), The Devil's Disciple (Irish Rep). Other New York Theater: History Of Tears. Film/TV: Year of the Carnivore (due out later this year), "The Sopranos," "The Unusuals," "3 LBS."

For more information, visit Playwrights Horizons' website at www.playwrightshorizons.org.

 

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