Works by Matthew Lopez, John Pollono & Noah Haidle Set for MCC Theater's 2015-16 Season

MCC THEATER has announced three of its four-show 2015-16 Main Stage Season, which runs August 2015 through June 2016. Three exciting New York premieres are on the slate including: The Legend of Georgia McBride by Matthew Lopez, which premiered last summer at Denver Theater Center; Lost Girls, John Pollono's follow-up to hit MCC production Small Engine Repair which debuted at LA's Rogue Machine Theatre; and Smokefall by Noah Haidle, which received a hit run at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago last fall. All productions will be staged at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street). A fourth production will be announced at a later date.

MCC is currently in the midst of its acclaimed 2014-15 Season, with Jennifer Haley's prize-winning The Nether having its New York premiere, directed by Anne Kauffman and starring Emmy winner Merritt Wever, Tony winner Frank Wood, and Tony nominee Peter Friedman plus stunning newcomers Ben Rosenfield and Sophia Anne Caruso. For more information on MCC Theater, please visit www.mcctheater.org.

The MCC Theater 2015-16 Main Stage Season includes:

New York Premiere
THE LEGEND OF GEORGIA McBRIDE
by Matthew Lopez
directed by Mike Donahue

First Preview: August 20, 2015
Opening: September 9, 2015
Closing: September 27, 2015

How can an Elvis impersonator become a winning drag queen in the Florida Panhandle? With an empty bank account and a pregnant wife, Casey's going to have to answer that question fast in this music-filled comedy about finding your true voice.

Playwright Matthew Lopez (The Whipping Man) and director Mike Donahue (The Wolfe Twins) make their MCC Theater debuts with The Legend of Georgia McBride in a production not too be missed.

New York Premiere
LOST GIRLS
by John Pollono
directed by Jo Bonney

First Preview: October 22, 2015
Opening: November 9, 2015
Closing: Nov 29, 2015

When their seventeen-year-old daughter goes missing during a winter storm, Maggie and Lou -- former high school sweethearts, now divorced -- are forced to confront the legacy of their past decisions. Lost Girls is a hard-hitting drama about a blue-collar family struggling to rise above their limited prospects to prevent history from repeating itself.

Lost Girls reunites playwright John Pollono and director Jo Bonney at MCC Theater following their collaboration on 2013's hit thriller, Small Engine Repair.

New York Premiere
SMOKEFALL
by Noah Haidle
directed by Anne Kauffman

First Preview: Feb. 3, 2016
Opening: February 22, 2016
Closing: March 13, 2016

Magical realism collides with manic vaudeville in a family drama unlike any you've ever seen. The Twins swap philosophy while awaiting their birth, Beauty eats dirt and doesn't speak, Father is about to drive away and never return, and a man named Footnote acts as our guide. Whipping from astonishing tenderness to profound humor and back again, this wholly original play uncovers the extraordinary family connections we all stretch and warp across the years but can never quite break.

Smokefall marks the MCC Theater debut for playwright Noah Haidle (Mr. Marmalade) and the return of director Anne Kauffman (The Nether).

Matthew Lopez (The Legend of Georgia McBride) is the author of The Whipping Man, one of the most widely-produced American plays of the last several years. The play premiered at Luna Stage Company and was produced in New York by Manhattan Theatre Club. Lopez was the recipient of the John Gassner New Play Award from the New York Outer Critics Circle for this production. Lopez's play Somewhere premiered at the Old Globe and was subsequently presented at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, CA and at Hartford Stage Company, where he recently served as their AETNA New Voices Fellow. His play Reverberation will receive its world premiere at Hartford Stage this month, running Feb. 19 through March 15. The Legend of Georgia McBride was initially developed and then premiered at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Matthew's 9/11-themed play The Sentinels premiered in London at Headlong Theatre Company as part of their "Decade" project. Lopez is currently serving as the Denver Center Theatre's inaugural Playwriting Fellow. Lopez has written for the HBO series "The Newsroom" and is currently adapting Javier Marias' Your Face Tomorrow trilogy for the screen for Brad Pitt's Plan B film company. Lopez holds new play commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Rep, and Hartford Stage

John Pollono (Lost Girls), an actor and playwright from New England, wrote and co-stared in the hit thriller Small Engine Repair during the 2014/2014 Season at MCC Theater. He won the LA Ovation and Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC) Awards for Best Play the 2011 LA production of Small Engine Repair, for which he also received the LADCC Award for Best Writing. As an actor, Pollono has appeared in "Grey's Anatomy," "How I Met Your Mother," "Major Crimes" and Showtime's upcoming "Masters of Sex." Last winter, he appeared in the series "Mob City," written and directed by Frank Darabont. He is a founding member of Rogue Machine Theatre in Los Angeles, which produced Lost Girls and Small Engine Repair as well as his plays Lost and Found and Razorback.

Noah Haidle's (Smokefall) plays have premiered at the Goodman, Lincoln Center Theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, the Huntington Theatre Company, Long Wharf Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, South Coast Repertory, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Summer Play Festival in New York City, HERE Arts Center, as well as many others around the United States and abroad. He is a graduate of Princeton University and The Juilliard School, where he was a Lila Acheson Wallace playwright-in-residence. He is the recipient of three Lincoln Center Lecompte Du Nouy awards, the 2005 Helen Merrill Award for emerging playwrights, the 2007 Claire Tow Award and an NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Grant. He is published by Methuen in London, Suhrkamp in Berlin, and through Dramatists Play Service in New York City. His original screenplay Stand Up Guys, starring Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin, produced by Lionsgate and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, opened in February 2013. He is currently working on commissions from Lincoln Center Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, South Coast Repertory, and is set to direct his screenplay The Rodeo Clown, produced by Olive Productions and Mosaic. Haidle is a proud resident of Detroit.