ARABIAN NIGHTS, BLUE DOOR et al., Included in 2012-2013 Central Square Theatre Season

Central Square Theater and its resident companies, The Nora Theatre Company and Underground Railway Theater, have announced their 2012-2013, and 5th anniversary, season.

CAR TALK: THE MUSICAL

Book & Lyrics and directed by Wesley Savick
Original music by Michael Wartofsky
June 14 - August 12, 2012
World Premiere
Presented by Underground Railway Theater and Suffolk University

A new musical comedy inspired by the legendary NPR Radio show, performed only blocks from where Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, opened their Good News Garage in Central Square, Cambridge, MA. Rusty Fenders, a hapless middle-aged owner of a terminally ill ‘93 Kia, falls in love with Miata C. LaChassis, who guides him to the Emerald Garage, home of the Wizard of Cahs. Exploring the romantic obsession with the automobile, ultimately, the world of CAR TALK: THE MUSICAL is just like the radio show: More than auto repair, it’s about life, love, laughter, and the American Dream.

“We are thrilled about the audience response anticipating Car Talk: The Musical!!! It is only fitting that we will be premiering this wonderful celebration of an NPR Treasure and Click and Clack, from the imaginations of Wesley Savick and Michael Wartofsky in Our Fair City!” commented Underground Railway Theater Artistic Director, Debra Wise.

Originally scheduled to be the final production of the 2011-2012 Season, CAR TALK: THE MUSICAL has been extended due to popular demand with some performances already sold out. Performances from June 18 through August 12 will be exclusively available to 2012-2013 Season Subscribers before single tickets go on sale to the general public. 2012-2013 Season Subscribers may reserve tickets to any performance from July 1 through the end of the run.

Wesley Savick (Book, Lyrics, and Director; CAR TALK: THE MUSICAL) served as Artistic Director of the internationally acclaimed experimental company, Theatre X in Milwaukee, and was Interim Artistic Director of the Drama League of New York’s Directors Project. Mr. Savick has directed or acted in over 80 professional productions, almost all new works, including world premieres by Christopher Durang, Shel Silverstein, Derek Walcott, Howard Zinn and Robert Brustein. He has also written, co-written or adapted 20 produced plays, including Yesterday Happened: Remembering H.M.; part of Central Square Theater’s 2011-2012 Season. Mr. Savick is a tenured Professor at Suffolk University.

Michael Wartofsky (Original Music, Car Talk: The Musical!!!) Music/lyrics, The Man In My Head (New York Musical Theater Festival 2006 starring Darius de Haas) and Running Back, co-written with Marcus Gardley (2010 NAMT showcase; New Dramatist Benefit 2011). Composer, Boston 2012 premiere Cupcake at Boston’s Club Café featuring Karen MacDonald (lyrics: David Reiffel; book: Bradley Seeman). For North Shore Music Theater, Michael composed The Navigator and Friendship of the Sea (book/lyrics: Kathleen Cahill). The Broadway Boys regularly perform "Possibilities" and many have performed Michael’s songs at Birdland, the Triad, Joe’s Pub, and Berklee College. Professor, Berklee College; adjunct faculty/alumnus, NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.

THE HOW AND THE WHY
By Sarah Treem
Directed by Daniel Gidron
September 27 – October 21, 2012
New England Premiere
Presented by The Nora Theatre Company

On the eve of a prestigious conference Zelda (Underground Railway Theater Artistic Director, Debra Wise), an acclaimed evolutionary biologist, is visited by Rachel, an ambitious graduate student. The two women share a zeal for science, a bold and contrarian approach to the male-dominated field, and much more. During the course of the visit, the young scholar challenges the older woman’s “grandmother hypothesis” with a radical theory of her own that she believes will change the way people regard sex. Emotion and evolution collide with humor and passion in Sarah Treem’s (HBO’s In Treatment) new play about the competitiveness and sacrifices needed to succeed as a woman in science.

“THE HOW AND THE WHY gives us an opportunity to continue the conversation started with Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51 about the experience women have when pursuing a profession in science. I am excited about that and that The Nora will be introducing Boston audiences to the work of Sarah Treem whose work I have admired on HBO’s In Treatment,” commented The Nora Theatre Company’s Artistic Director, Mary C. Huntington.

Sarah Treem (Playwright, The How and the Why) won a Writer’s Guild of America award and was nominated for a Humanitas award for her work on the acclaimed HBO series In Treatment. She is also a writer/producer for the Mark Wahlberg/Stephen Levinson produced HBO series How to Make it in America and is currently adapting Samantha Peale’s novel The American Painter Emma Dial for HBO with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Emily Ziff. Her full-length plays include The How and the Why; Empty Sky; Against the Wall; Mirror, Mirror; A Feminine Ending; and Human Voices.

Daniel Gidron (Associate Director of The Nora Theatre Company and Director, The How and the Why, Arabian Nights) most recently directed The Nora’s Photograph 51. He is the recipient of the 2012 IRNE Award for Best Director for The Nora and Underground Railway Theater’s production of Arabian Nights. Additionally, he has directed the World Premiere of Silver Spoon by Amy Merrill and Si Kahn, Hysteria, The Caretaker, The Lady With All The Answers, The Cherry Orchard in a World Premiere translation by George Malko, and We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! for The Nora at Central Square Theater. He has directed 20 productions for The Nora, including The Unexpected Man, How I Got That Story, Richard McElvain’s World Premiere adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone, Smelling a Rat, The Countess, Full Gallop, and Mere Mortals, among others. He has also directed for many other companies such as The Lyric Stage Company of Boston, Shakespeare & Company, Tremont Theatre, Opera Boston, and La Mama ETC. In Israel, where he was born, he has directed at Habimah National Theater, Haifa Municipal Theatre, Arab Theatre, Beit Lessin, Dror Theatre and Beersheva Municipal Theatre. He has taught at Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Brandeis University. He currently teaches at UMass Boston.

ARABIAN NIGHTS
Adapted by Dominic Cooke
Directed by Daniel Gidron
November 23 – December 30, 2012
Presented by The Nora Theatre Company and Underground Railway Theater

Enter ancient Persia, and be transformed by the power of storytelling. The Nora Theatre Company and Underground Railway Theater revive their award-winning production (2012 Independent Reviewers of New England Awards for Best Ensemble, Best Puppetry, Best Costumes, and Best Director) of Dominic Cooke’s ARABIAN NIGHTS. Based on One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of folk tales from the Middle East and Asia, ARABIAN NIGHTS has stories irresistible for all ages.

Dominic Cooke (Adaptor, Arabian Nights) adapted and directed ARABIAN NIGHTS for the Young Vic in 1998, which was followed by both national and international tours. Mr. Cooke was Associate Director of the Royal Court 1999-2002 and Associate Director of the RSC 2002-2006, and is currently the Artistic Director of the Royal Court. Awards include Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Director and Best Revival 2006 for The Crucible; TMA (Theatrical Management Association) Award 2000 for Best Theatre for Children and Young People for Arabian Nights; Fringe First Award 1991 for Autogeddon; Manchester Evening News Award 1990 for The Marriage of Figaro.

BLUE DOOR
By Tanya Barfield
January 10 - February 3, 2013
Presented by Underground Railway Theater

Lewis, a successful mathematics professor at a prestigious university, is left by his wife of 25 years for reasons she can’t quite explain – except that she wishes he would attend the Million Man March… and do the dishes. During the sleepless night that follows, he is visited by three generations of ancestors. From slavery through Black Power, with original song, their stories captivate and challenge him, carrying him through to the morning light and beyond. An inspiring exploration of family legacy and the African-American male experience, Tanya Barfield’s Pulitzer-nominated BLUE DOOR is presented in celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

“Blue Door is a tremendous vehicle for two virtuoso actors. We look forward to Cambridge and Boston theatre audiences experiencing this wonderful play to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of The Emancipation Proclamation. Throughout the run of the play, the audience experience will be enriched with post-show conversations led by historians and community leaders,” commented Underground Railway Theater Artistic Director Debra Wise.

Tanya Barfield (playwright, Blue Door) plays include Of Equal Measure (Center Theatre Group), Blue Door (Playwrights Horizons, South Coast Repertory; Seattle Repertory, Berkeley Repertory and additional theaters), Dent, The Quick, The Houdini Act and 121º West. She wrote the book for the Theatreworks USA children’s musical, Civil War: The First Black Regiment. Blue Door is published by Dramatists Play Service. Tanya was a recipient of a 2003 Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, 2005 Honorable Mention for the Kesselring Prize for Drama, and a 2006 Lark Play Development/NYSCA grant. She has twice been a Finalist for the Princess Grace Award. She has been commissioned by Playwrights Horizons, Center Theatre Group, South Coast Repertory, Primary Stages and Geva Theatre Center. She is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and serves on the Dramatist Guild Council.

OPERATION EPSILON
By Alan Brody
Directed by Andy Sandberg
March 7 – April 28, 2013
World Premiere
Presented by The Nora Theatre Company

It’s the close of World War II – the dawn of the atomic age. The Allies have captured Germany’s top ten nuclear scientists and sequestered them at Farm Hall– a lavish estate in England – keeping them under surveillance to learn what they know about the American nuclear program and to gauge how close the Nazis are to making an atomic bomb. Nine of these men, including Nobel Prize winners Otto Hahn and Werner Heisenberg, are known as Hitler’s “Uranium Club.” Based on actual transcripts of secretly recorded conversations, playwright Alan Brody illuminates the ethical complexity of pursuing scientific discovery at the risk of wreaking catastrophic consequences.

“The Nora Theatre Company is honored to be presenting the World Premiere of our friend, Alan Brody’s Operation Epsilon which enjoyed a staged reading presented by Catalyst Collaborative@MIT, here in 2008. The complex ethical questions about innovation in the pursuit of science but at the expense of our humanity are questions which are as relevant today as when the German scientists were secretly recorded at the end of World War II,” commented The Nora’s Artistic Director, Mary C. Huntington.

Alan Brody (playwright, Operation Epsilon) is Professor of Theater Arts at MIT, where he served as Associate Provost for the Arts for ten years. His plays have won numerous awards and had productions at such theaters as The Aspen Playwrights Conference, Missouri Repertory Theatre, The Live Oak Theater in Austin, Texas, The Berkshire Theater Festival, and The Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. His works include The Housewives of Mannheim (59E59 Theatres in NYC; NJ Repertory Theatre), Five Scenes from Life, Greytop in Love, One-on-One, and Reckoning Time: A Song of Walt Whitman. His play, Invention for Fathers and Sons, was awarded the first annuAl Rosenthal Award at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park in 1989. He also received the 1990 Eisner Award from the Streisand Center for Jewish Culture in Los Angeles for Company of Angels, which had its world premiere at New Repertory Theater in 1993. Mr. Brody is co-director of Catalyst Collaborative@MIT, a science-theater collaboration between Underground Railway Theater and MIT.

Andy Sandberg (Director, Operation Epsilon) directed the world premiere of The Last Smoker in America, by Tony Award nominee Bill Russell (Side Show) and Drama Desk nominee Peter Melnick (Adrift in Macao); New York premiere in 2012. He has been represented on Broadway and London’s West End as a producer of HAIR: (2009 Tony Award) and the current revival of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man. As a director, other recent credits include R.R.R.E.D. and Bernice Bobs Her Mullet (NYMF), as well as A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum and Into the Woods (Blue Hill Troupe). Upcoming directing projects include Beyond the Music (also librettist), an original musical co-authored with composers Cliff Downs and Katie Kahanovitz; Shida, a one-woman musical written and performed by Jeannette Bayardelle; Straight, a new play co-authored by Scott Elmegreen and Drew Fornarola; and Summer Schlock, a new musical comedy by Kevin Carter with additional material by Sandberg. As producer: Paradise Found (Menier Chocolate Factory, London, dir. Hal Prince and Susan Stroman); A Perfect Future, by David Hay (Cherry Lane Theatre; dir. Wilson Milam); and Vigil (DR2 Theatre). In 2007, Mr. Sandberg worked with Hal Prince on the Broadway production of LoveMusik (SDCF Observership). B.A. Yale University. Member of the SDC and AEA.

DISTRACTED
By Lisa Loomer
Directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian
May 9 - June 2, 2013
Presented by Catalyst Collaborative@MIT, a science-theater collaboration between Underground Railway Theater and MIT

Mama is meditating. Her cell phone rings, waking Jesse up. He can’t sit still, swears like a truck driver and is in trouble at school. His teacher says Attention Deficit Disorder. His doctor blames environmental toxins. Dad says, "He's just a boy!" Experts are consulted. Ritalin is prescribed. Can a pill solve all his problems? Is Jesse just a normal kid in an ADD world? Lisa Loomer's look at a modern family asks: Who's really distracted?

“Lisa Loomer’s Distracted poses questions about culture of medicating children, our relationship with technology, and how it impacts our family relationships. Scientists, humanists, parents and teachers will engage audiences in in pre and post performance conversations about how we define health in our media saturated society,” commented Underground Railway Theater and Co-Director of Catalyst Collaborative@MIT Debra Wise.

Lisa Loomer (playwright, Distracted) Her play Living Out had its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum and was produced at Second Stage in New York in 2003. She is perhaps best known for The Waiting Room which went from the Williamstown Theater Festival to the Mark Taper Forum to highly successful productions at Arena Stage and Trinity Repertory Company and then on to the Vineyard Theatre in New York. Other works include Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria!; Accelerando; Looking for Angels; Cuts and Chain of Life. Expecting Isabel had its world premiere at Arena Stage and its West Coast premiere at the Taper. For the Cornerstone Theatre Company, she wrote Broken Hearts, produced at the Los Angeles Theater Center. Awards include the Jane Chambers Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award, a Garland Award and the American Theatre Critics Association Award
(twice). She also received an Imagen Award for positive portrayals of Latinos in all media. Ms. Loomer is also a screenwriter. Film credits include Girl, Interrupted and Nappily Ever After for Halle Berry, in development.

Megan Sandberg-Zakian (Associate Artistic Director of Underground Railway Theater and Director, Distracted) helmed URT’s productions of Harriet Jacobs and Ti-Jean & His Brothers. In Providence she directed Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Perishable Theatre (Motif Awards: Best Production, Best Set Design). This past season, Ms. Sandberg-Zakian directed The Brother Sister Plays (2012 IRNE Award for Best Production) and 1001 for Company One. She is the recipient of a Theatre Communications Group New Generations Fellowship for her position at Underground Railway Theater. Previously, she was the Associate Artistic Director of both The Providence Black Rep and The 52nd Street Project.

SUBSCRIPTIONS ON SALE NOW
Central Square Theater's 2012-2013 subscriptions are on sale now. Six-Play Center Stage Subscriptions and Five-Play Follow Spot Subscriptions are available. Early Bird Prices run through June 30 with savings up to Subscribers save up to 38 percent on full-price tickets to individual shows.

Subscriptions may be renewed or purchased by calling Central Square Theater 617.576.9278 or by visiting CentralSquareTheater.org.

Individual tickets for all shows except for CAR TALK: THE MUSICAL will go on sale in August.

ABOUT CENTRAL SQUARE THEATER
Central Square Theater (CST) is a 4-year-old nonprofit organization, created through a groundbreaking partnership between The Nora Theatre Company (The Nora) and Underground Railway Theater (URT). This collaboration has been called a model for the arts community (The Boston Foundation, Culture is our Commonwealth and The National Collaboration Prize), as it has paired two like-minded performing arts organizations in a strategic alliance with the City of Cambridge and MIT, resulting in the development of a state-of-the-art performing arts center in the heart of Central Square. CST has a mission to support its two theaters-in-residence while maintaining a shared vision of artists and audiences creating theater vital to their communities. The Nora and URT have a combined 52-year track record of producing award-winning theater. Located in Central Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and steeped in its multiracial, intergenerational, ethnically and economically diverse neighborhoods, the CST theater experience exudes a democratic energy where classes, races and age groups come together to be inspired, entertained and energized.

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