Long Wharf Theatre Opens CLYBOURNE PARK, Starring Alice Ripley, 5/8

Long Wharf Theatre concludes its 2012-13 season with Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Clybourne Park, by Bruce Norris, and directed by Associate Artistic Director Eric Ting.

The play will take place on The Claire Tow Stage in the C. Newton Schenck III Mainstage from May 8, 2013 through June 2, 2013. Tickets are $40-$70.

The press opening is May 15, 2013 at 7:30 pm.

The cast is comprised of Jimmy Davis (Jim/Tom/Kenneth), Daniel Jenkins (Russ/Dan), LeRoy McClain (Albert/Kevin), Alex Moggridge (Karl/Steve), Lucy Owen (Betsy/Lindsey), Melle Powers (Francine/Lena), and Alice Ripley (Bev/Kathy). The creative team is comprised of Frank Alberino (sets), Linda Cho (costumes), Tyler Micoleau (lighting design), and Elizabeth Rhodes (sound). Charles M. Turner III is the stage manager.

Race and real estate collide in this outrageously funny and provocative Tony- and Pulitzer Prize winning play. The action begins in 1959, with a nervous group of neighbors trying to talk their friends out of selling their home in a Chicago neighborhood to a black family. Fast forward to the same house fifty years later when a white family attempts to move into the now predominantly African-American neighborhood. Described as "an ingenious, audacious lightning rod of a play" by Entertainment Weekly, this provocative and funny Pulitzer Prize-winning play delves into America's complicated relationship with race with sharp humor and deep perception.

"This is one of the most provocative plays about race written in the past decade. It is a masterpiece," said Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein. "It juxtaposes attitudes in the 1950s and in the 21st century, and in making that comparison, points out our folly.

"Clybourne Park is inspired by A Raisin in the Sun, bookending the events of Lorraine Hansberry's seminal work. "It owes everything to A Raisin in the Sun ... I think this play is most effective in the manner in which it puts onstage in the mouths of its characters things people have always thought, but haven't said in the presence of people from other cultures," Ting said.

Edelstein said that it is not in Long Wharf Theatre's general makeup to do "last year's Broadway hit." "However, every once in a while a play calls itself out, because of its importance, to be done. This is play is one of those," Edelstein said.

The play's subject matter - race, class, and real estate - is mirrored acutely in the history of New Haven, Edelstein believes. "We hope it will incite conversations that are provocative and enlightening," he said.

Long Wharf Theatre is also using this production to partner with the New Haven Free Public Library on a series of community conversations about race and real estate in New Haven, moderated by local historians and geared towards discussion the city's evolution and history. The conversations will take place at every city library branch throughout May.

For more information about Long Wharf Theatre, or to purchase tickets, call 203-787-4282 or visit www.longwharf.org.

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