THE ROOMMATE Opens At The Lyric Stage

Sharon, a sheltered divorcee from Iowa takes in a roommate: Robyn, a free-spirited, mysterious, lesbian slam poet from the Bronx who is looking to completely change her life. As Sharon begins to uncover Robyn's secrets, while sharing music, books, and an occasional toke, she discovers a deep-seated desire to transform her own life. The Roommate is a subversive, absorbing comedy about what it takes to re-route

The Lyric Stage, 140 Clarendon Street, Copley Square, Boston, MA 02116. Tickets Start at $25, Seniors - $10 off regular price, Student rush - $10. Group rates available. Box Office: 617-585-5678. website: lyricstage.com

Spiro Veloudos (Director, Producing Artistic Director), now celebrating his 21st season as Producing Artistic Director of the Lyric Stage, directed Souvenir and Road Show last season. Company, Camelot, Sondheim by Sondheim, Peter and the Starcatcher, Sweeney Todd, City of Angels, Into the Woods (Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Awards for Best Director, Best Musical, and Best Ensemble), One Man, Two Guvnors, Death of a Salesman (IRNE Award for Best Play),The Mikado, 33 Variations, On the Town, Avenue Q (Elliot Norton Awards for Outstanding Musical and Outstanding Ensemble, five IRNE Awards including Best Musical and Best Director), The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (Elliot Norton Award for Best Production and Best Director, five IRNE Awards including Best Director), Big River, Superior Donuts, Animal Crackers, Blithe Spirit, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, and Kiss Me, Kate. Spiro received the Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award from Salem State College. He was the recipient of the 2006 Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence. During his tenure, the Lyric Stage has earned numerous awards and honors including Elliot Norton Awards for Outstanding Production (Nicholas Nickleby, Speech & Debate, Miss Witherspoon, The Old Settler), and Outstanding Musical Production (Sunday in the Park with George); IRNE Awards for Outstanding Production (Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Settler, Glengarry Glen Ross), and Outstanding Musical Production (Grey Gardens, Urinetown: The Musical, A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George). His numerous directing credits at the Lyric Stage include A Little Night Music (IRNE Award for Direction), Glengarry Glen Ross (IRNE Award), Sunday in the Park with George (Best of the Year in Boston's Globe, Herald, and Phoenix; Elliot Norton and IRNE Award for direction), Assassins (Best Production of 1998: The Boston Globe), Lost in Yonkers, Never the Sinner: The Leopold and Loeb Story (Elliot Norton Award, along with Assassins), and Speed-the-Plow (Elliot Norton for Outstanding Production). Mr. Veloudos received StageSource's Theatre Hero Award (2003) and was named Best Artistic Director by Boston Magazine in 1999. He serves as the president for the Producers' Association of New England Area Theatres, and is adjunct faculty in Performing Arts at Emerson College.

Jen Silverman (author) is a New York-based writer, born in the U.S., and raised across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Her theatre work includes The Moors (Yale Repertory Theatre premiere, off-Broadway with The Playwrights Realm, Susan Smith Blackburn finalist); The Roommate (Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana world premiere, multiple regional productions including South Coast Rep, SF Playhouse and Williamstown Theatre Festival, upcoming at Steppenwolf); Phoebe In Winter (off-off Broadway with Clubbed Thumb); Collective Rage: A Play In 5 Betties (Woolly Mammoth premiere); and All The Roads Home, a play with songs (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park premiere). Jen is a member of New Dramatists, a Core Writer at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, an affiliated artist with SPACE on Ryder Farm, and has developed work with the O'Neill, New York Theatre Workshop, Playpenn, Portland Center Stage, The Ground Floor Residency at Berkeley Rep, and the Royal Court in London among other places. She's a two-time MacDowell fellow, recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, the Helen Merrill Award, an LMCC Fellowship, and the Yale Drama Series Award. She was the 2016-2017 Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellow at the Lark. Jen has a two-book deal with Random House for a collection of stories (The Island Dwellers, pub date May 1, 2018) and a novel. Education: Brown, Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Juilliard. jensilverman.com

Adrianne Krstansky* (Robyn) appeared at the Lyric Stage in Barbecue and November. Her Boston area credits include Doll's House, Come Back Little Sheba (Elliot Norton, IRNE Awards, Huntington Theatre), Paradise Lost, Britannicus, Ubu Rock (American Repertory Theater), Blackberry Winter, Imagining Madoff, On the Verge, Holiday Memories, Three Viewings, 2.5 Minute Ride (New Rep) and Every Brilliant Thing, Tribes, Snakebit (SpeakEasy Stage). She has also appeared at Gloucester Stage Company, Boston Playwrights, Israeli Stage and regionally at the Steppenwolf Theater and La Jolla Playhouse. Film credits: Burning Woman, Olive Kitteridge (HBO), and The Company Men.

Paula Plum* (Sharon) first appeared at the Lyric Stage in 1975 in Dial M for Murder, and has since appeared here in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Elliot Norton Award), 33 Variations, The Goat or Who is Sylvia?, Private Lives, Death of a Salesman (IRNE Award, Best Actress), Three Tall Women, Entertaining Mr. Sloane, Blithe Spirit, Sideman, The Heiress, Mercy Seat, and Miss Witherspoon (Elliot Norton Award). She is the recipient of five IRNE awards, the 2007 & 2017 Elliot Norton Award for Best Actress, the 2004 Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence, and the 2003 Distinguished Alumni Award from Boston University. In 2009 she was one of five actors nation-wide to receive the Fox Actor Fellowship in association with SpeakEasy Stage. As a founding member of Actors' Shakespeare Project, she has played Cleopatra, Beatrice, Lady Macbeth, and Phèdre. She has appeared regionally at the Gloucester Stage Company, The American Repertory Theatre, the New Repertory Theatre, the Huntington Theatre, and Elm Shakespeare. Film credits include: Mermaids, Malice, Next Stop Wonderland, and Irrational Man directed by Woody Allen. Television: Science Court (three seasons, ABC) and co-creator and star of "The Dick & Paula Celebrity Special" for FX. Ms. Plum is a cum laude graduate of Boston University and has studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, the Dell'Arte Institute, and École Phillipe Gaulier, Paris. She has been published in American Theatre magazine and is married to actor Richard Snee.

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