Huntington Theatre Company To Present Reading Of THE LUCK OF THE IRISH 2/3

The new play THE LUCK OF THE IRISH by Huntington Playwriting Fellow Kirsten Greenidge Bossa Nova will be read Thursday, February 3 at 7pm as part of the Huntington Theatre Company's Breaking Ground reading series. Obie Award winner Melia Bensussen Circle Mirror Transformation directs. The reading, located at the Huntington Rehearsal Hall, is free and open to the public, though reservations are required as seating is limited.

Lucy and Rex Taylor wish to buy a house in an all-white neighborhood of 1950s Boston. Upwardly mobile and African American, they pay a struggling Irish family, the Donovans, to act as their front. Fifty years later, the elderly Donovans visit Lucy and Rex's grandchildren to ask for "their" house back. As the play moves across the two eras, THE LUCK OF THE IRISH explores the legacies of integration and the conflict of calling any place your home. The practice of ghost-buying explored in the play was an actual strategy employed by families in racially segregated Boston in the mid-20th century. THE LUCK OF THE IRISH was originally commissioned by South Coast Repertory. Further development of the play was supported by the Huntington Theatre Company and the Stanford Calderwood Fund for New American Plays.

Kirsten Greenidge is a Huntington Playwriting Fellow and the author of the plays Bossa Nova, Milk Like Sugar, Rust, The Curious Walk of the Salamander, Sans-Culottes in the Promised Land, 103 Within the Veil, and The Gibson Girl. She has developed her work at Sundance Utah and Ucross, Magic Theatre, National New Play Network, Cardinal Stage, South Coast Repertory, Madison Rep, Page 73, Hourglass, Bay Area Playwrights, Playwrights Horizons, New Dramatists, The Mark Taper Forum, A.S.K., the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center, Guthrie Theater, Mixed Blood, McCarter Theatre Center, Humana Festival of New American Plays, Moxie, and New Georges. She is the recipient of an NEA/TCG residency at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Sundance's Time Warner Award for Bossa Nova, and was recently playwright-in-residence at Company One. Ms. Greenidge attended Wesleyan University and the Playwright's Workshop/University of Iowa, and is a member of New Dramatists and Rhombus. She is currently working on a commission from Yale Repertory Theatre.

Melia Bensussen Director recently directed the critically acclaimed production of Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation for the Huntington. She is the recipient of an Obie Award for Outstanding Direction and has directed extensively around the country, including at La Jolla Playhouse, Baltimore Centerstage, Hartford Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, New York Shakespeare Festival, MCC Theater, Primary Stages, Long Wharf Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and People's Light and Theatre Company where she received a Barrymore Award nomination for Best Direction. She has worked on classics and collaborated with many of America's leading playwrights. She was twice given directing awards by the Princess Grace Foundation, USA, including their top honor, the Statuette Award for Sustained Excellence in Directing. Her edition of the Langston Hughes translation of Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding is in its eighth printing by Theatre Communications Group. She is featured in Women Stage Directors Speak, by Rebecca Daniels published by McFarland and Company, and also in Nancy Taylor's Women Direct Shakespeare published in 2005 by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Ms. Bensussen is chair of the Performing Arts Department at Emerson College in Boston.

Casting information will be announced at a later date.

Breaking Ground is the Huntington Theatre Company's reading series, a vital part of its new play development program. The series brings attention to the work of local playwrights and engages national writers in partnership with the Huntington. The Huntington's commitment to the development of new plays is supported by the Stanford Calderwood Fund for New American Plays and the Harry Kondoleon Fund, which underwrites the commissioning of emerging and established writers.

Past Breaking Ground plays, including The Atheist by Ronan Noone, Voyeurs de Venus by Lydia R. Diamond, Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck, The Ice Breaker by David Rambo, and Sonia Flew by Melinda Lopez, have appeared at the Huntington and other local theatres, at theatres across the country, and internationally.

"The Huntington has a long established commitment to nurturing playwrights and to developing plays for production," says Director of New Work Lisa Timmel. "The Breaking Ground series is designed to be responsive to the process of the individual creators; we provide workspace, dramaturgical feedback, and public hearing of playwrights' work when they need it most."

"Kirsten has written a courageous and compelling play that directly engages Boston's lingering history of segregation," says artistic director Peter DuBois. "The story she tells is both intellectually provocative and emotionally powerful. We are excited to continue our relationship with Kirsten, a playwright who has been close to the Huntington for many years."

The reading of THE LUCK OF THE IRISH is free and open to the public, though seating is limited. RSVP at huntingtontheatre.org/breakingground.

Learn more about the Huntington's new work initiatives at huntingtontheatre.org/newwork.

The Huntington Theatre Company, in residence at Boston University, is Boston's largest professional theatre company. Under the direction of Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso, the Huntington creates seven new productions each season featuring world-class theatre artists from Boston and Broadway and the most promising new talent. The Huntington has transferred over a dozen of these productions to Broadway, including recent favorites Noël Coward's Present Laughter and Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. The Huntington also runs nationally renowned programs in education and new play development, and serves the local theatre community through its operation of the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, which the Huntington built in 2004. The Huntington was founded in 1982 by Boston University and separately incorporated as an independent non-profit in 1986. Its two prior artistic leaders were Peter Altman, 1982-2000 and Nicholas Martin 2000-2008. For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org.

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