Young Jean Lee Set Releases Her First Album Today

Young Jean Lee, whom The New York Times recently called "hands down, the most adventurous downtown playwright of her generation," will release her band Future Wife's first album, entitled We're Gonna Die and produced by Shannon Fields (Stars Like Fleas, Leverage Models), today, August 6.

The album, like the immensely acclaimed live show on which it's based, is a life-affirming work, comprising a cycle of songs and personal stories, about the one thing we all have in common. But whereas the live show features Lee performing all of the monologues-she has, for the album, invited some of her musician friends to tell the stories: David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, Kathleen Hanna, Adam Horovitz (aka Ad-Rock), Drew Daniel and Martin Schmidt (Matmos), Sarah Neufeld (Arcade Fire) and Colin Stetson-some of whom also contribute to the music.

Coinciding with the album release, the live show, which had a sold-out run last year, will return to LCT3's Claire Tow Theater at Lincoln Center, August 5-17. Tickets go on sale in July; visit LCT3.org for more information.

Over the course of her vastly diverse body of work for the stage, Young Jean Lee has each time set out to create the show she feels least comfortable creating. She has always taken up exceptionally challenging subject matter-black identity, riffed-on by a Korean-American playwright, in The Shipment; gender, performed by an all-nude cast, in Untitled Feminist Show;her father's terminal illness in LEAR, etc. While her other projects have found her writing for and directing accomplished, larger-than-life actors, for We're Gonna Die, Lee (a non-performer) decided to take the stage herself for the first time. Compounding the challenge, she wrote a show full of songs, having never written music, and filled the show a series of anecdotes, by turns poignant and hilarious, about human failure, sickness, aging and death.

The result is an exceptionally successful work in an exceptionally successful career. The world premiere, at Joe's Pub, garnered her an OBIE Award, the prestigious Off-Broadway citation. The New York Times called the show "sly, weird and thoroughly winning," adding, "Its forthright acknowledgement that life can be a rough business is bracing, funny and, yes, consoling." Time Out NY called We're Gonna Die "enormously touching," and wrote, "Lee purchases our hearts with her bravery's own coin." The show moved uptown to Lincoln Center Theater and sold out in half an hour. It returns there in August due to overwhelming popular demand.

Future Wife is Mike Hanf (guitar), Andrew Hoepfner (bass), Nick Jenkins (drums), Ben Kupstas (guitar, keyboards) and Booker Stardrum (drums).

The live show is directed by Paul Lazar and choreographed by Faye Driscoll. Morgan Gould is Associate Director, Roxana Ramseur is the Costume Designer, Tyler Micoleau is the Lighting Designer, Jamie McElhinney is the Sound Designer, Mike Farry is the Dramaturg, Sunny Stapleton is the

Production Supervisor, and Aaron Rosenblum is the Producer for Young Jean Lee's Theater Company.

13P produced the world premiere. The work was developed in part through a residency at the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Swing Space program (space at 14 Wall Street is donated by Capstone Equities), and is presented with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

We're Gonna Die Track Listing

Uncle John (Adam Horovitz, monologue)
Emily and Jenny (Kathleen Hanna, monologue)
Lullaby for the Miserable (feat. Sarah Neufeld, song)
Family Reunion (Sarah Neufeld, monologue)
I Still Have You (song)
Henry (Martin Schmidt, monologue)
No Comfort for the Lonely (feat. Colin Stetson, song)
White Hair (Drew Daniel, monologue)
When You Get Old (song)
Father (David Byrne, monologue)
Beth (Laurie Anderson, monologue)
Horrible Things (song)
Conclusion (Colin Stetson, monologue)
I'm Gonna Die (song)

About Young Jean Lee

Young Jean Lee,an OBIE award-winning playwright and director, has been called "the most adventurous downtown playwright of her generation" by The New York Times and "one of the best experimental playwrights in America" by Time Out New York. She has written and directed nine shows in New York with Young Jean Lee's Theater Company and toured her work to over twenty cities around the world. Her plays have been published by Theatre Communications Group (Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven and Other Plays, The Shipment and Lear) and by Samuel French (Three Plays by Young Jean Lee). She is currently under commission from Plan B/Paramount Pictures, Lincoln Center Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She is a member of New Dramatists and 13P and has an MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College. She has received grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Creative Capital, NYFA, NEA, NYSCA, the Jerome Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, and the Rockefeller MAP Foundation. She is also the recipient of two OBIE awards, the Festival Prize of the Zuercher Theater Spektakel, a 2010 Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2012 Doris Duke Artist Award.For more information, visit www.youngjeanlee.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.