Julia Cho's The Language Archive, the story of a brilliant linguist who finds himself at a loss for words when he learns his wife is leaving him, will fill the final slot in South Coast Repertory's
2009-10 season.
The world premiere, which runs March 26 through April 25, 2010, on the Segerstrom Stage, was commissioned by New York's
Roundabout Theatre Company and is being produced by special arrangement with the company.
Mark Brokaw, a Roundabout Associate Artist, will direct.
"I think Mark is one of the leading directors in American theatre today," said SCR Producing Artistic Director
David Emmes. "And we have a long relationship with
Julia Cho. It's been really exciting to see her deepening her talent."
Emmes said he knew he wanted to produce The Language Archive at SCR immediately after its reading at the Pacific Playwrights Festival last spring: "The play possesses a wonderful charm and displays a tremendous theatrical imagination."
The Language Archive tells the story of George, a man consumed with preserving and documenting the dying languages of far-flung cultures. Closer to home, though, language is failing him. He doesn't know what to say to his wife, Mary, to keep her from leaving him, and he doesn't recognize the deep feelings that his lab assistant, Emma, has for him.
This is Cho's second SCR production; her first was the 2007 world premiere of The Piano Teacher. Born in Los Angeles to Korean immigrants, Cho grew up in Arizona. A high-school trip to New York to see a production of Six Degrees of Separation affected her profoundly. She wrote her first play at Amherst College before going on to earn master's degrees in English and playwriting from Berkeley and NYU, respectively, and complete a playwriting program at Juilliard. She has received a New York Foundation for The Arts grant, residencies at Seattle Rep/Hedgebrook's Women Playwrights Festival and The MacDowell Colony, and she was a finalist for a
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her play BFE won the 2004 Weissberger Award.
Brokaw directed After Miss Julie, starring
Sienna Miller, which is currently on Broadway. Other Roundabout productions include Distracted, starring
Cynthia Nixon, Suddenly Last Summer, starring
Blythe Danner and
Carla Gugino, and the Tony-nominated revival of The Constant Wife, starring
Kate Burton and
Lynn Redgrave. He also directed Broadway's Cry-Baby the Musical. Other recent New York revivals include Reckless (
Manhattan Theatre Club and Second Stage at the Biltmore) and Baltimore Waltz (
Signature Theatre Company). New York premieres include
Paula Vogel's The Long Christmas Ride Home and How I Learned to Drive (
Vineyard Theatre),
Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero (
Playwrights Horizons and its UK premiere at London's
Donmar Warehouse and West End), This Is Our Youth (New Group and Second Stage) and
Craig Lucas' The Dying Gaul and Stranger (
Vineyard Theatre), among many others.
TICKETS: Range in price from $20 to $62 and are available online at
www.scr.org, in person at the box office, or by calling 714-708-5555.
LOCATION:
South Coast Repertory is located at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, at the Bristol Street/Avenue of the Arts exit off the San Diego (405) Freeway in the Folino Theater Center, part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Parking is available off Anton Blvd. on Park Center Drive.
COMING UP: A Christmas Carol (Nov. 28-Dec. 26), Ordinary Days (Jan. 3- 24, 2010) and Fences (Jan. 22-Feb. 21, 2010).
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