New Rep Announces AFTERLIFE: A GHOST STORY, Opens 1/16

New Repertory Theatre, in residence at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, is excited to be a part of the National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere of afterlife: a ghost story. Steve Yockey's poetic play follows a young couple in the process of grieving, who tumble into an alternate reality, are forced to confront the ghosts that haunt them, and ultimately must decide what their afterlife will be. Directed by Kate Warner, afterlife: a ghost story will open on Monday, January 16, 2011 and run through Sunday, February 6, 2011 in the Charles Mosesian Theater.

afterlife: a ghost story is part of National New Play Network's (NNPN) Continued Life Project, and is produced in conjunction with productions at Southern Repertory Theatre (New Orleans, LA) and Edgemar Theatre Group (Santa Monica, CA), making it a "rolling world premiere." New Rep represents Boston in NNPN, which champions the development, production and continued life of new plays in American theater.

Kate Warner, New Rep's Artistic Director and the director of afterlife: a ghost story, states, "We are proud of our affiliation with NNPN. It fits perfectly with our mission to bring extraordinary writing and innovative works to the discerning Boston audience. afterlife: a ghost story is a moving work, and I am thrilled New Rep is able to be an integral part in introducing Yockey's innovative and inimitable work to audiences."

Steve Yockey, the playwright comments, "I am thrilled that afterlife: a ghost story is a NNPN Rolling World Premiere. As a playwright, it is invaluable to have the opportunity for your work to be shown in three distinctive markets within one year. It greatly assists with the development of the play and the exposure that my work receives helps to build momentum for it."

Yockey adds, "I am also excited for New Rep's production of afterlife: a ghost story and to be working with Kate again. Without question, Kate has been a zealous champion of my work. She commissioned and directed my first three professional short plays and first two full-length plays (Sleepy and Skin) at Dad's Garage in Atlanta, GA and then directed the East & West Coast premieres of my play
Octopus at Actor's Express and The Magic respectively.
Steve Yockey will visit Boston twice in January. Yockey's first visit will be from the January 2nd to January 6, 2011. During this visit, he will be attending rehearsals for New Rep's production of afterlife: a ghost story. Yockey will return to Boston in order to attend the previews on Sunday, January 16, 2011 and the Press Opening on Monday, January 17, 2011 of afterlife: a ghost story.

New Rep has been an integral part in the development of this play. Last year, afterlife: a ghost story was a part of New Voices @ New Rep, a series of free staged readings dedicated to introducing our audiences to emerging playwrights and bringing their attention to new works by established writers. The feedback Yockey received from New Rep's live audience was instrumental in the development of this work.

afterlife: a ghost story has a remarkable cast of New Rep favorites: Karl Baker Olson (The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Misanthrope), Marianna Bassham (Picasso at the Lapin Agile, A Streetcar Named Desire, Silence, Tartuffe, and Quills), Georgia Lyman (White People), Thomas Piper (Mister Roberts), and Paula Plum (The Clean House). We are also thrilled to introduce to New Rep's stage Dale Place.

An approaching storm forces a young married couple to come home to their empty beach house and batten down the hatches. When a giant wave comes crashing over them, they tumble into an alternative reality where both must confront the ghosts that haunt them and decide what their afterlife will be. This poetic and beautiful Rolling World Premiere by Steve Yockey is sure to captivate you.

New Repertory Theatre presents provocative and intelligent works of both established and emerging playwrights in an intimate setting that involves and engages the audience. New Rep has earned a reputation for Dynamic Productions that honor the writers and feature talented professional actors from the New England Theatre community as well as guest artists from around the U.S. New Rep has received Elliot Norton and IRNE Awards for outstanding acting, scenic design, directions, and production. Programming for New Repertory Theatre is supported in part by a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

THE ARTISTS

Marianna Bassham (Danielle) is delighted to return to New Rep, where she has appeared in A Streetcar Named Desire, Silence, Tartuffe, Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Quills. A resident Acting Company member with Actors' Shakespeare Project, she has appeared in The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Love's Labo's Lost, and The Merchant of Venice Around Boston: Othello (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company); Miss Witherspoon and Talley's Folly (The Lyric); Antigone and Not Enough Air (The Nora); Gaslight (Stoneham); Blackbird (Elliot Norton Award), In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), and Reckless (SpeakEasy Stage) and Little Black Dress by Ronan Noone (Boston Playwrights' Theatre). She received a 2009 IRNE Award for her work in Reckless, Little Black Dress, and Blackbird. Regional credits: Gloucester Stage, Wellfleet Harbor Actors' Theater, The Majestic Theater, Great Lakes Theater Festival, Oldcastle Theatre, New Century Theatre, and St. Michael's Playhouse.

Thomas Piper (Conner) is thrilled to be back in Boston working with Kate Warner and the rest of the New Rep family after shipping off as Mr. Roberts in... well, Mister Roberts. New York:: Richard in Andrei Serban's Richard 3 (La MAMA ETC), C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce (Magis Theatre Co.), Her Name is Vincent (Magis Theatre Co.), As I Lay Dying (Ohio Theatre), We Killed Curt Cobain (Ensemble Studio Theatre), The Trojan Women (American Studio Theatre) and Hamlet (Hamlet), Macbeth (Macbeth), Othello (Iago), Taming of the Shrew (Petruchio), and Much Ado About Nothing (Benedick and Dogberry), with Piper Theatre Productions (oddly enough, no relation). Regional: The ALLIANCE THEATRE, American Repertory Theater, New Repertory Theatre, Dad's Garage Theatre, Florida Studio Theatre, Aurora Theatre, Theatre in the Square, Theatrical Outfit, Stonington Opera House. TV: Law and Order: SVU, As the Word Turns, Dennis Leary's "Merry F#%$in' Christmas", the ‘reality' pilot, "You're Not Getting A Dime", and "Life Lines." Film: Vodka Rocks, Zeitgeist, The Con Artist, Doomer Chicks, Open Book, and the HBO Film You Don't Know Jack with Al Pacino. Thomas is a graduate of Duke University and holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia School of the Arts. He is a founding member of Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant, and Magis Theatre Company in New York.

Paula Plum (The Proprietress) recently returned from Paris on a Fox Actor Fellowship in partnership with SpeakEasy Theatre and is currently writing a play on the life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. She was last seen at the New Rep in Clean House. Paula is the recipient of four IRNE Awards, the 1995 and 2007 Eliot Norton "Best Actress" Awards, the 2004 Eliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence, and the 2003 Distinguished Alumna Award from Boston University. As a Founding Member of the Actors' Shakespeare Project, she has played Lady Macbeth and Beatrice In Much Ado About Nothing, and will play Cleopatra in the first professional production of the newly-renovated Modern Theatre in the Spring of 2011. She has appeared with Lyric West in Wit (Vivian Bearing), the Gloucester Stage Company in Faith Healer (Grace), Molly Sweeney (Molly), Happy Days (Winnie) and Not I (Mouth); at The American Repertory Theatre in No Exit ( Inez ), Ivanov (Babakina), Mother Courage (Yvette), Lysistrata (Belphragia), The Marriage of Bette and Boo (Soot), and Picasso at the Lapin Agile (Germaine), the Lyric Stage Company in The Goat (Stevie), Private Lives (Amanda) , Entertaining Mr. Sloane (Kath), Sideman (Terry), and The Heiress (title role) and Mercy Seat (Abby) and the title role in Miss Witherspoon. As an actor in residence at SpeakEasy Theatre, she has acted in five of their productions: New Century, History Boys, Reckless, Savannah Disputation, and Body Awareness. Film credits include: Mermaids, Malice, and Next Stop Wonderland. Television: Science Court (three seasons ABC) and co-creator and star of The Dick & Paula Celebrity Special for FX. In January 2005, she premiered her new work Wigged OUT! with Leslie Dillen's Dressed UP! directed by Karen MacDonald for which she received the IRNE for Best Solo Performance 2005. Ms Plum is a Cum Laude graduate of Boston University. She is married to actor Richard Snee.

Steve Yockey (playwright) is a roaming member of Out of Hand Theater. His projects with the company include HELP! and Cartoon. In 2008, Actor's Express Theatre in Atlanta, GA presented the world premiere of Octopus followed by an extended run in San Francisco, co-produced by Encore Theatre Company and Magic Theatre. He has been a regular fixture at Dad's Garage Theatre Company including the short play cycle Sleepy and the adults-only Skin, both commissioned & directed by Kate Warner. Skin was subsequently produced in the Bay Area by Encore in collaboration with Climate Theatre. Dad's Garage and Berkeley's Impact Theatre produced the co-world premier of Large Animal Games in late 2009 and this season Impact rolls out the dark comedy Disassembly directed by Desdemona Chiang. Large Animal Games, Octopus, Cartoon, and subculture (collected short plays) are published & available from Samuel French. Steve is currently developing The Thrush & The Woodpecker with South Coast Rep and his play afterlife: a ghost story will receive a National New Play Network Continued Life Rolling World Premiere in 2010-2011 season at Southern Rep (New Orleans), New Rep (Boston) and Edgemar (Los Angeles). Next season, Marin Theatre Company will produce the world premiere of Bellwether directed by Jason Minadakis. Other plays include: Wonder, Heavier than... and Phaedra. Steve is a Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of Georgia and holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts (2008). He is a recent recipient of a Coca-Cola Artist Residency to teach dramatic structure at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. After completing a yearlong NNPN playwriting residency at Marin Theatre Company, Steve now lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Kate Warner (director, artistic director) is in the second year of her tenure with this 27 year old company. Kate is continuing New Rep's mission of producing plays that speak powerfully to the essential ideas of our time, fostering new work, expanding our commitment to education and outreach and promoting New Rep as a major voice in the national dialogue defining the role of theater in our culture. Prior to coming to New Rep, Kate was Artistic Director of Dad's Garage Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, where she developed innovations in season planning, business models, education programs and audience development. Kate has amassed an impressive history as both a director and producer as the previous Managing Director/Artistic Associate with Atlanta's Theatrical Outfit, which in December of 2004 moved into its new $5.4 million home, a renovated downtown Atlanta landmark, thus completing an award-winning strategic plan. Her body of directorial work includes, for Dad's Garage: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Skin, and Mojo; for Actor's Express: The Last Five Years, Pulp, and Octopus; for Theatrical Outfit: Waiting for Godot and The Island; for American Stage: Proof; and for Magic Theatre: Octopus. She has championed new work from playwrights such as Lisa Kron, Alice Tuan, Peter Nachtrieb, Chris Craddock, Kyle Jarrow, Suzan-Lori Parks, Megan Gogerty, David J (Bauhaus), Caridad Svich, Lauren Gunderson, Roberto Aguirre Sacasa, Ross Maxwell, Rolin Jones, David Holstein, John Pierson, Steve Yockey, Heather Woodbury, Chay Yew, and Greg Kotis. Kate serves as a board member of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization for non-profit theatres and will chair the 2011 National Conference in Los Angeles. She is also a member and facilitator of the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors' Lab in New York, a member and panelist of the Directors Lab West in Los Angeles, and a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. In summer 2004, Kate completed the Executive Program for Non-Profit Leaders in the Arts at Stanford Graduate School of Business and the New Artistic Leadership Institute with TCG/Dance USA at the McCarter Theatre. Recognition for Kate's directing work includes a Suzi Bass Award Nomination for Best Musical 2008, Sunday Paper Top 10 Director 2007, Suzi Bass Award for Best Director and Best Play 2006, and Best Director Readers' Pick in Creative Loafing's Best of Atlanta 2007 and 2006. She is a graduate of Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, MI with degrees in Theatre and Anthropology.

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