Tony Award-Winning Alliance Theatre to Present TIGER STYLE!

The Alliance Theatre has announced its world premiere production of Tiger Style! From Mike Lew, the award-winning playwright of Bike America, comes a hilarious new play about family influence and finding personal success without an academic framework. The Alliance's production, directed by Tony Award nominee Moritz von Stuelpnagel, runs on the Alliance Stage from September 30 - October 18, 2015. This production marks the first time that a past winner of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition has returned for a world premiere on the main stage.

In Tiger Style!, star students and squabbling siblings Albert and Jennifer Chen were once the pinnacle of adolescent achievement. But when it comes to adulthood, they're epic failures. Albert's just been passed up for promotion and Jennifer's been dumped by her loser boyfriend. So they do what any reasonable egghead brother and sister would do and go on an Asian Freedom Tour! Travelling from California to China, Tiger Style! embraces the inner slacker and the outer tiger parent in all of us.

"Tiger Style! is a comedy that gauges three generations of U.S. acculturation within a Chinese-American family," says playwright Mike Lew. "It's a deeply personal play about "Asian tiger parenting" from someone who's actually been there. It's a play about race relations and cultural values that tries to push past old tropes about race to arrive at something more honest, urgent, and multifaceted."

"What's great about Mike's writing is that his whip-smart ideas are couched in a genuinely hilarious and rambunctious adventure story," said Director Moritz von Stuelpnagel. "The experience of it is to be exhilarated by unapologetic mischief. But underneath, it's clear the characters are struggling to situate themselves in a world where fitting in is a clumsy, sometimes unjust endeavor."

Lew and von Stuelpnagel are partnering again to produce this work following their successful collaboration at the Alliance Theatre on Lew's award-winning play Bike America in 2013.

"In creating Tiger Style!, a play so intimately tied to the notions of home and family, I'm overwhelmed that Atlanta has become such a welcoming home to my work and that the staff of the Alliance has become my artistic family," said Lew. "To see the world premiere of Tiger Style! on the Alliance's mainstage is unprecedented for a brand-new, untested play. After winning the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Award for Bike America and working on its world premiere on the Hertz stage three seasons ago, I am beyond thrilled to be back at the Alliance alongside my director Moritz von Stuelpnagel."

"The Alliance is wonderfully supportive, not just of a single project, but in having a larger conversation with artists through intimate and substantive relationships over time" said von Stuelpnagel. "To be back now is to build on the trust we formed in our last collaboration. It's a theater deeply connected to their community, both in the audience they engage and the artists they champion."

Leading the cast as Albert and Jennifer Chen are Jon Norman Schneider (Awake and Sing!) and Ruibo Qian (Regional: Water by the Spoonful). The cast also includes Obie Award winner Francis Jue (The World of Extreme Happiness) as Dad, stage and television actress Emily Kuroda (TV: The Gilmore Girls, Theater: Straight as a Line) as Mom, and Bobby Labartino (Alliance: In Love and Warcraft) as Russ the Bus.

Members of the Tiger Style! creative team include Scenic Designer Wilson Chin (Next Fall); Costume Designer Amy Clark (A Night with Janis Joplin); Sound Designer Palmer Hefferan (The Call); Projection Designer Alex Koch (Irena's Vow), and Lighting Designer Ken Yunker (Alliance: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).

Regular performances of Tiger Style! are Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8:00 p.m., Saturdays at 2:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., September 30 - October 18, 2015. There will be no 2:30 p.m. performance on Saturday, October 3. Opening Night is Wednesday, October 7 at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets start at $15 and are available at the Woodruff Arts Center Box Office in person or by calling 404.733.5000. Tickets are also available online at www.alliancetheatre.org/tigerstyle. Discounted rates for groups of 10 or more are available by calling 404.733.4690. Discounted rates are also available for members of the military, seniors, and students. A special morning performance is also available for school field trips on Thursday, October 15. Learn more by calling 404.733.4661.

The Alliance Theatre is located at the Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree Street, NE, Atlanta, GA 30309, at the corner of Peachtree and 15th Street.

Tiger Style! is part of the Coca-Cola Series on the Alliance Stage. Tiger Style! is also supported by The Home Depot Foundation.

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