Piven Theatre Workshop Closes Its Season With LATE: A COWBOY SONG, 7/24-8/29

Piven Theatre Workshop closes its 2009-10 season with the Chicago premiere of Late: A Cowboy Song, written by Sarah Ruhl, directed by Jessica Thebus and featuring Polly Noonan. The production will run July 24 - August 29, 2010 at Piven Theatre Workshop, 927 Noyes Street. Press opening is Monday, July 26, 2010 at 7:30PM.

Late: A Cowboy Song reunites the remarkable team of director Jessica Thebus, actor Polly Noonan, and Piven Theatre alumna, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and MacArthur Fellowship recipient Sarah Ruhl. Late: A Cowboy Song is the story of one woman's education and her search to find true love after she meets a female cowboy just outside of Pittsburgh.

Jessica Thebus, Sarah Ruhl and Polly Noonan most recently collaborated at Piven Theatre in 2002 with the Chicago premiere of Ruhl's Melancholy Play. In 2003 Piven Theatre commissioned and produced Ruhl's adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, in which Noonan played Queen Elizabeth. In 2004 Artistic Director Emeritus Joyce Piven directed the Chicago premiere of Sarah's Ruhl's Eurydice, with Noonan in the title role. The relationship between Piven, Thebus, Ruhl and Noonan began when all three women were part of Piven's Young People's Company.

"The opportunity to do this play at the Workshop with this group of artists is extremely special," says Director Jessica Thebus. "So rarely do we get the chance to reunite with our favorite collaborators to share a language we all know in the very rooms in which we learned to speak. All that, and the opportunity to work on something NEW as well! This play is important, unusual and exciting, and the team we have put together makes it one of the very rare experiences that we all wait for."

Late: A Cowboy Song features Polly Noonan (Mary), Kelli Simkins (Red) and Larry Grimm (Crick). The creative team includes John Kearns (production stage manager), John Dalton (scenic design), JR Lederle (lighting design), Andre Pluess (sound design) Stephen Mazurek (projections) and Janice Pytel (costume design). Jodi Gottberg is the production manager.

Sarah Ruhl (playwright) Ruhl's plays include In The Next Room or the Vibrator Play (Glickman Prize, finalist for Pulitzer Prize, 2010), The Clean House (Susan Smith Blackburn award, 2004, finalist for Pulitzer Prize, 2005), Dead Man's Cell Phone (Helen Hayes award for best new play), Demeter in the City (nominated for 9 NAACP awards), Eurydice, Melancholy Play, Orlando, a new version of Chekhov's Three Sisters, and Passion Play (Kennedy Center Fourth Forum Freedom Award). Her plays have premiered at the Lyceum Theater on Broadway, produced by Lincoln Center Theater; off-Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater, Playwrights' Horizons, and Second Stage; and regionally at Berkeley Repertory Theater, Yale Repertory Theater, the Goodman Theater, Cornerstone Theater, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth, Cincinnati Playhouse, and the Piven Theater Workshop in Chicago, as well being produced at many other theaters across the country. Her plays have also been performed in England, Poland, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, and Australia, and have been translated into Spanish, Polish, Russian, Korean and Arabic. Sarah received her M.F.A. from Brown University where she studied with Paula Vogel, and is originally from Chicago. In 2003, she was the recipient of a Helen Merrill award and a Whiting Writers' award, a PEN/Laura Pels award, and in 2006 was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Her work is published by TCG and Sam French, and she is a member of New Dramatists and 13P. She lives in New York City with her family.

Jessica Thebus (director) is an Associate Artist with Steppenwolf Theatre Company. At Steppenwolf, she has directed Intimate Apparel, sex with strangers, Dead Man's Cell Phone, No Place Like Home, When the Messenger is Hot (also at 59 E. 59th in NYC) and Sonia Flew. Other credits include Our Town with Anna D. Shapiro and They All Fall Down (Lookingglass); The Clean House (Goodman Theatre); Jekyll and Hyde, Inherit the Wind and Red Herring (Northlight Theatre); Eurydice (Victory Gardens) and The Turn of the Screw (Writers' Theater). Last season, Jessica directed the world premiere of Welcome Home Jenny Sutter (The Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Kennedy Center). Favorite projects include Pulp at About Face Theatre (Jeff nomination- Best Director, After Dark Award-Best Production); Winesburg, Ohio also at About Face (Jeff nomination-Best Director, After Dark Award-Best Director); Chicago, an outdoor spectacle at the Field Museum; Seven Moves (About Face); Salao: The Worst Kind of Unlucky (Redmoon Theater, where she is a long time collaborator); Melancholy Play and Abingdon Square (Piven Theater, where she is a long time member of the teaching staff). For Steppenwolf For Young Adults, she wrote Haymarket Eight (with Derek Goldman) and directed Whispering City and David Mamet's The Water Engine (which moved to Theater on The Lake) and, most recently, A Tale of Two Cities. Jessica has also directed at Remy Bumppo, Center Theater, Lifeline Theater, Collaboraction Theater and Caravan Productions, as well as touring internationally with the Bread and Puppet Theater. She holds a doctorate in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and has designed courses and taught at The University of Chicago, DePaul University, Columbia College and Roosevelt University. She is currently a faculty member in the Directing Program at Northwestern and an artistic associate at The Corn Exchange in Dublin, Ireland.

*Polly Noonan (Mary) has worked on the plays of Sarah Ruhl for the past ten years, including Dead Man's Cell Phone (world premiere, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Helen Hayes Award nomination; Steppenwolf Theatre Company; Mosaic Theatre), Passion Play (world premiere, Arena Stage, Helen Hayes Award nomination; Goodman Theatre, Joseph Jefferson Award nomination; Yale Rep Theatre, Epic Theatre Ensemble), Eurydice (world premiere, Madison Repertory Theatre; Piven Theatre Workshop), Melancholy Play (world premiere, Piven; Echo Theater Company), and Orlando (world premiere, Piven; The Actors' Gang). Her other credits include Brilliant Traces, American Voices (Piven); Methusalem, Accidental Death of an Anarchist (New Criminals); and new works at Sundance, GeVa Theatre Center, New Dramatists, Soho Rep, REDCAT, and Playwrights Horizons. She attended Vassar College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has had residencies at Ragdale, Vermont Studio Center, and Ucross. Film credits include Novocaine, High Fidelity, Arizona Dream, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Polly is featured on the cover of the Lemonhead's album It's a Shame About Ray and can be heard on track 11 of Lovey.

*Larry Grimm (Crick) is a founding Ensemble Member of A Red Orchid Theatre where he has been seen on stage in Pumpgirl, The Meek, In the Solitude of Cotton Fields, Mr. Kolpert and more. He was also recently on stage at Piven Theatre in Two By Pinter and at Lookingglass Theatre in The Brothers Karamozov. Larry is the Director of Education at AROT and teaches acting at Chi Arts, Chicago's new high school for the arts.

*Kelli Simpkins (Red) recent Chicago credits include Fair Use and One Arm at Steppenwolf, Celebrity Row at American Theater Company, and Execution of Justice at About Face Theatre. Simkins is a member of NYC's Tectonic Theatre Project and is one of the original creators and performers of The Laramie Project (Denver Center, Berkeley Rep., LaJolla, Off-B'way at Union Sq. Theatre-dir. Moises Kaufman). Kellie is an original creator/performer of The People's Temple, a verbatim theatre piece about the survivors of Jonestown (Berkeley Rep., Perseverance, The Guthrie). She is currently working as dramaturg/performer on director Leigh Fondakowski's CAsa Cushman, a piece about Victorian actress Charlotte Cushman, in assocation with Tectonic and About Face. Film & TV: A League of Their Own, Chasing Amy, Law & Order: C.I., and HBO's The Laramie Project (Emmy nomination: Ensemble Writing).

*Denotes a member of the Actors' Equity Association

Previews are July 24 & 25, 2010. The opening press performance is on Monday, July 26, 2010, at 7:30 p.m. Curtain times are 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; and 2:30 p.m. on Sundays.

Ticket prices are $15 for preview performances and $25 for regular run performances. Tickets are available at the Box Office, 927 Noyes Street, Evanston; (847) 866-8049 or online at www.piventheatre.org. Student and group rates are available by calling the box office at 847-866-8049 or visiting the website at www.piventheatre.org.

About The Piven Theatre
For over 35 years, the Piven Theatre Workshop has remained a nationally respected acting school and professional Equity theatre. Within recent history, Piven Theatre has received a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Sound Design, and an After Dark Award for Outstanding Ensemble. The theatre has also received several Joseph Jefferson Recommendations, a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Adaptation, and Jeff nominations for Best Original Score, and Best Ensemble. Co-Founders Byrne & Joyce Piven have trained countless theatre artists such as John and Joan Cusack, Kate Walsh, Aidan Quinn, Lili Taylor and Jeremy Piven, to name only a few.

Stagebill honored the Pivens with the designation "Chicago's first family of acting." The Pivens have been awarded the Evanston Mayors Award for the Arts, Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Chicago Improv Festival, and the University of Chicago's Glorious Gargoyle Award for lifetime contribution to the theatre. They were named 1996 Artists of the Year by the Chicago Tribune and were recipients of the Chicago Drama League's 1998 Crystal Award. In 2000, they were awarded a Joseph Jefferson Lifetime Achievement Award. For more information, please visit www.piventheatre.org.

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