Huntington Completes Season with Captors and Private Lives

Huntington Theatre Company completes its 30th Anniversary Season with the world premiere of Captors by Evan M. Wiener (Monogamy) and directed by Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois, and Noël Coward's stylish, savvy comedy Private Lives, directed by Tony Award nominee Maria Aitken (Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps).

Captors will play November 11 - December 11, 2011 at the Boston University Theatre prior to an anticipated New York run. It will be produced in association with Michael Weinberger, Jeff Mandel, and Tom Heller.

A true story, Captors is inspired by the memoir Eichmann in My Hands by Peter Z. Malkin and Harry Stein. It's 1960 Buenos Aires. Covert Israeli agents have just nabbed Adolf Eichmann, the world's most wanted war criminal. The agents, many personally scarred by the war's carnage, hold "the architect of the Holocaust" in a safe house, but bringing him to justice means getting his signature first. Malkin (one of his captors) and Eichmann, the infamous mastermind, compete in a thrilling battle of wills.

"I couldn't be more thrilled that Peter DuBois and the Huntington Theatre Company will be bringing my play to life," says Wiener. "For all of Eichmann's infamy, I've found that few have gotten a good close look at the remarkable details of his captivity in Argentina, and it's an event that only grows in relevance and resonance with each passing day." This year marks the 50th anniversary of Eichmann's conviction by the Jerusalem District Court.

Evan M. Wiener co-wrote the film Monogamy (released nationally by Oscilloscope Pictures in Spring 2011), for which he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. He has three other screenplays currently in development: Savage Innocent (with director Larry Clark); The Womb (with Dana Adam Shapiro, for director Gregg Araki and Why Not Productions); and Big Sky (for Big LEO Productions). He has also written for Sony Pictures, First Look Films, and Lee Daniels Entertainment, among others. He is a graduate of Columbia University, where he received the Seymour Brick Memorial Prize for Drama.

Peter DuBois is the Artistic Director of the Huntington Theatre Company, where he has directed the world premieres of Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet, Bob Glaudini's Vengeance is the Lord's, and David Grimm's The Miracle at Naples, as well as Craig Lucas' Prelude to a Kiss, and Gina Gionfriddo's Becky Shaw. He will direct Zach Braff's All Good People at Second Stage Theatre this June, as well as Sons of the Prophet at the Roundabout Theatre Company and Gina Gionfriddo's Rapture, Blister, Burn at Playwrights Horizons next season. Recent other credits include Paul Weitz's Trust (Second Stage Theatre) and Becky Shaw (U.K. premiere at London's Almeida Theatre, Second Stage Theatre, world premiere at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville). Prior to arriving at the Huntington, he served for five years as associate producer and resident director at The Public Theater, preceded by five years as artistic director of the Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska.

The Huntington will conclude its season with Private Lives directed by acclaimed British director Maria Aitken, playing May 25 - June 24, 2012. In Private Lives, divorcés Amanda and Elyot meet again by accident on their second honeymoons with brand-new spouses in tow. Fireworks fly as they discover how quickly romance - and rivalry - can be rekindled in Noël Coward's stylish, savvy comedy about the people we can't live with...or without. Private Lives replaces the previously announced Tartuffe.

Director Maria Aitken's credits include the Olivier and Tony Award-winning production of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps which made its American premiere at the Huntington in 2007. She most recently directed Educating Rita at the Huntington. Other credits include As You Like It (Shakespeare Theatre Company); Quartermaine's Terms (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Japes (Bay Street Theatre), Rattigan's Man and Boy (Duchess Theatre), Noël Coward's Easy Virtue (Chichester Festival Theatre), Vita and Virginia (Sphinx Theatre Company), Lady Bracknell's Confinement (Vineyard Theatre), School for Scandal (Clwyd Theatr Cymru), As You Like It (Regent's Park), and many others. As a leading actress in London at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and in the West End, her credits include Blithe Spirit, Bedroom Farce, Travesties, Waste, Private Lives, and The Vortex, among others. Her film credits include A Fish Called Wanda and others. Ms. Aitken is a visiting teacher at The British American Drama Academy, The Juilliard School, Yale School of Drama, New York University, The Actors Center in New York, and The Academy for Classical Acting. She is the author of two books, A Girdle Round The Earth and Style: Acting in High Comedy.

Captors and Private Lives join an ambitious and dynamic line-up that will celebrate the Huntington's 30th Anniversary Season. Events include the completion of August Wilson's Century Cycle, two locally-set world premieres by Huntington Playwriting Fellows, a musical re-imagined by one of America's greatest directors, and a Broadway smash hit.

THE 2011-2012 SEASON LINEUP
· Candide, the beloved musical comedy with music by Leonard Bernstein; lyrics by Richard Wilbur with additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, John Latouche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, and Leonard Bernstein; directed and newly adapted by MacArthur Genius and Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman (Metamorphoses). Playing at the Huntington's main stage, the Boston University Theatre, September 10 - October 16, 2011;

· Before I Leave You, the world premiere of a love story for grownups set in Harvard Square, written by Huntington Playwriting Fellow Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro and directed by Mark Brokaw. Playing at the Wimberly Theatre, the Huntington's second home in the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, October 14 - November 13, 2011;

· Captors, the world premiere of the thrilling true story of a battle of wills by Evan M. Weiner and directed by Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois, November 11 - December 11, 2011 at the B.U. Theatre;

· God of Carnage, the scathing Tony and Olivier Award-winning New York smash hit by Yasmina Reza (Art) and directed by Daniel Goldstein, January 6 - February 5, 2012 at the B.U. Theatre;

· Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, August Wilson's powerful and moving drama and the last of his ten-play Century Cycle to be staged by the Huntington, one of Wilson's long-time artistic homes. Directed by Liesl Tommy (Ruined), March 9 - April 8, 2012 at the B.U. Theatre;

· The Luck of the Irish, the world premiere of a compelling Boston story by Huntington Playwriting Fellow Kirsten Greenidge, directed by Melia Bensussen (Circle Mirror Transformation), March 30 - April 29, 2012 at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA; and

· Private Lives, Noël Coward's stylish comedy about romance and rivalry, directed by Tony Award nominee Maria Aitken (Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps, Educating Rita), May 25 - June 24, 2012 at the B.U. Theatre.

Special events celebrating the Huntington's 30th Anniversary will be announced at a later date. Repertoire, artists, and dates subject to change.

SUBSCRIPTIONS ON SALE NOW
The Huntington's 2011-2012 subscriptions are on sale now. Seated subscriptions are available in 4-, 5-, 6-, and 7-play packages, and FlexPass subscriptions start with a minimum of 4 tickets that can be used for any show and never expire. Subscribers save up to 53 percent on full-price tickets to individual shows.

Subscriptions may be renewed or purchased by calling the Huntington Box Office at 617 266-0800 or by visiting huntingtontheatre.org/subscribe. Groups of 10 or more can place orders at 617 273-1665. Individual tickets for all shows will go on sale in August.

ABOUT THE HUNTINGTON
Since its founding in 1982, the Huntington Theatre Company has developed into Boston's leading theatre company. Bringing together superb local and national talent, the Huntington produces a mix of groundbreaking new works and classics made current. Led by Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso, the Huntington creates award-winning productions, runs nationally renowned programs in education and new play development, and serves the local theatre community through its operation of the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. The Huntington is in residence at Boston University. For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org.

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