Fiasco's MEASURE FOR MEASURE and SHINING CITY Round Out Long Wharf's 2015-16 Season

Long Wharf Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein and Managing Director Joshua Borenstein, announces the final two titles of its 2015-16 season.

In December, Long Wharf Theatre will host the Fiasco Theater's production of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. The season will conclude with Shining City by Conor McPherson, directed by Edelstein.

Subscriptions are currently on sale, and can be purchased by calling 203-787-4282. Single tickets will go on sale August 1, 2015.

The season will begin in October with the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar, directed by Edelstein. "One of the most significant themes of the past 20 years in Western culture is the confrontation of Judeo-Christianity with Islam," Edelstein said. "This is a play that deals face to face with the cost of assimilation - what do you lose when you are part of a minority culture and your goal is to assimilate fully into the dominant culture."

A co-production with Hartford Stage, and based on actual interviews, Having Our Say, by Emily Mann, is the story of two sisters who grew up in the Jim Crow South and lived through the Harlem Renaissance. History at its most immediate, and poignant. Having Our Say received three Tony nominations in 1995 and has since been produced internationally to critical acclaim.

The Lion, Benjamin Scheuer's award-winning musical, comes to Long Wharf in January. A smash hit in New York, The Lion chronicles through song one young man's journey through adulthood, coming to grips with his difficult past and overcoming tremendous obstacles to a bright and shining future. "I love this play. It's a thrilling, spirited journey through one young man's life. You cannot walk away without tears in your eyes. It is a completely unique and original evening in the theatre," Edelstein said.

Long Wharf will conclude its Stage II offerings in April 2016 with the world premiere of Lewiston, by the 2014 MacArthur "Genius Grant" winner Samuel D. Hunter, directed by Eric Ting. Edelstein believes that Hunter is one of the most exciting and humane writers working in the theatre today. "He writes about people who don't normally get written about," Edelstein said. "He most reminds me of William Inge and Tennessee Williams in his delicate empathy for all the people in his stories."

The 2015-16 season is characterized by deep humanity, a search for connection and understanding, and an effort to push past one's pain to claim a better place in the world. A couple comes to grips with the sentiments lurking just below the surface of their relationship. An innovative group of artists offer a fresh take on the greatest playwright of all time. Sisters tell the story of their long and eventful lives. A young man uses music to triumph over his difficulties. A grandmother and her granddaughter work out their family legacy. Lost souls search for connection, love, and understanding. It's a season that offers the best of what Long Wharf Theatre has to offer -- opportunities for insight, entertainment, and reflection about the world around us.

For more information, visit www.longwharf.org or call 203-787-4282.

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2015-16 SEASON:

Disgraced
By Ayad Akhtar
Directed by Gordon Edelstein
Mainstage
October 14 through November 8, 2015
Amir and his beautiful wife Emily enjoy their charmed life in New York -- he's poised to make partner at a white- shoe law firm while her painting is being considered for a prestigious gallery exhibit. When Amir's teenaged nephew asks for help in defending an imam accused of funding terrorists, a series of emotionally shattering events upends their perfect world, and forces them to confront the compromises they endured to stake out their own piece of the American dream. Winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize, Disgraced is a compelling and provocative tale about the consequences of denying one's own identity.

Fiasco Theater's production of
Measure For Measure
by William Shakespeare
Directed by
Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld
The Claire Tow Stage in the C. Newton Schenck Theatre
November 25 through December 20, 2015
New York's Fiasco Theater sheds new light on one of Shakespeare's darkest comedies with live music and moxie. When the Duke of Vienna disguises himself as a friar among his people, he finds the city unraveling in an ethical free fall. Before he reclaims his dukedom, can he help the chaste Isabella save her brother from the condemnation of the villain Angelo? Fiasco's creative and collaborative ensemble colors complex characters and illuminates perplexing plots to tell this singular tale of morality and manipulation in Measure for Measure.

The Lion
Written and performed by Benjamin Scheuer
Directed by Sean Daniels
Stage II
January 6 through February 7, 2016
Benjamin Scheuer uses his guitar -- actually, six guitars -- in The Lion, a wholly original musical experience of one man's gripping coming-of-age story. The award-winning songwriter inspires and disarms with his raw wit and emotional depth as he leads you on his heartfelt journey to manhood, through pain and healing, to discover redemption through the power of music. His surprising story is about courage. His songs are how he finds it. Much like its hero, The Lion mixes power and beauty in a one of a kind experience.

Having Our Say
By Emily Mann
Adapted from the book by Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth Mainstage
February 17 through March 18, 2016
Come listen to an amazing story.

103-year-old Sadie Delany and 101-year-old Bessie Delany have welcomed us into their Mount Vernon, New York, home. Making dinner to celebrate their long deceased father's birthday, they tell us about their lives, how they fought injustices big and small, overcoming the racial strife of the 20th century with their charm, warmth, and dignity intact. They tell a personal, family tale of people who yearned to do the right thing, and strove towards it with every ounce of their beings. Come have dinner with the Delanys, and hear the story of our nation.

Lewiston
A World Premiere
By Samuel D. Hunter
Directed by Eric Ting
Stage II
April 6 through May 1, 2016

Friends Alice and Connor sit by their roadside stand in Lewiston, Idaho, selling cheap fireworks, while developers swallow the land around them. Promised a condo by a pool in the new development, they feel their future is secure. Enter Marnie, Alice's long lost granddaughter -- a young woman who unexpectedly arrives, proposing to buy the land to save a piece of her family legacy. Deeply held secrets, uncertain pasts and hopeful futures are all at stake when Marnie and Alice get to know each other. Hunter, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, imbues his most recent work with deep human affection, poignancy, and a profound sense of empathy. Lewiston explores the emotional frontiers of a family struggling to make a home in the vastness of the American landscape.

Shining City
By Conor McPherson
Directed by Gordon Edelstein
Mainstage
May 4 through 29, 2016

A guilt-ridden man reaches out to a therapist after seeing the ghost of his recently deceased wife. What begins as just an unusual encounter becomes a desperate struggle to find true connection, a search which will shape and define both men for the rest of their lives. In a transcendent drama by the celebrated author of The Seafarer, The Night Alive and The Weir, this is a humane and feeling tale of people dealing with secrets -- the unspoken, the hidden, and how it impacts the world around them.

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Long Wharf Theatre began in the unlikeliest of places in the unlikeliest of ways. Located in a food terminal facing the New Haven Harbor, the theatre's original founders, Jon Jory and Harlan Kleiman, shared the dream of starting a resident professional theatre company in New Haven.

Assisted by an avid group of community leaders and patrons of the arts, they made that dream a reality in 1965 when Arthur Miller's The Crucible opened for a two-week engagement.

Named for the Long Wharf port along New Haven Harbor, the theatre was built in a vacant warehouse space in a busy food terminal, with its Mainstage originally stocked with seats borrowed from a retired movie house. The first year's budget was $294,000, and the theatre played to more than 30,000 patrons.

Entering its 51st season, Long Wharf Theatre is an organization of international renown producing an annual season of six plays on its two stages, along with children's programming, new play workshops and a variety of special events for an annual audience exceeding 80,000.

Under the watch of Arvin Brown and Edgar Rosenblum for over 30 years, Long Wharf Theatre established itself as an important force in the regional theatre movement. Under the current leadership of Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein and Managing Director Joshua Borenstein, Long Wharf Theatre continues to be a leader in American theatre, revitalizing classic and modern plays for a contemporary audience, discovering new resonance in neglected works and premiering new plays by new voices that both investigate and celebrate the unique circumstances of our time.

Throughout its history, Long Wharf Theatre has created a unique home in New Haven for theatre artists from around the world, resulting in the transfer of more than 30 Long Wharf productions to Broadway or Off-Broadway, some of which include The Glass Menagerie, My Name is Asher Lev, Satchmo at the Waldorf, Wit (Pulitzer Prize), The Shadow Box (Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award/Best Play), Hughie, American Buffalo, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Quartermaine's Terms (Obie Award/Best Play), The Gin Game (Pulitzer Prize), The Changing Room, The Contractor and Streamers.

Long Wharf Theatre has received New York Drama Critics Awards, Obie Awards, the Margo Jefferson Award for Production of New Works, a Special Citation from the Outer Critics Circle and the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 1978.

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