Bay Street Theater Announces THE PROMPTER For The 2019 Mainstage Season

Bay Street Theater is pleased to announce the first show of the 2019 Mainstage Season will be the World Premiere of THE PROMPTER (May 28- June 16) a new comedy by Wade Dooley; directed by Scott Schwartz, Bay Street Theater's Artistic Director. The other two previously announced shows will be the World Premiere of SAFE SPACE, which will now run from June 25 - July 21. This new play is by Alan Fox and will be directed by three-time Tony Award Winner Jack O'Brien (All My Sons, Hairspray, The Coast of Utopia). The third show will be a bold new re-envisioning of Irving Berlin's classic musical ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, (July 30 - August 25) with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, book by Herbert & Dorothy Fields. This production will be directed by Sarna Lapine (Sunday in the Park with George, Bay Street's Frost/Nixon). The casts and creative teams will be announced soon. Subscriptions are available by calling the Box Office at 631-725-9500 or online at www.baystreet.org.

"THE PROMPTER was a big hit at Bay Street's Title Wave: 2018 New Works Festival, and we are thrilled to now offer our audience the world premiere production of this delightful new comedy about the making of a Broadway show," says Scott Schwartz. "We are also proud to be producing a second world premiere this season, a searing new drama directed by one of America's leading theater artists. And we will close our season with a visionary revival of a classic musical directed by a rising star, continuing Bay Street's new commitment to bringing vibrant, intimate new life to beloved musicals. I am sure Bay Street's 2019 Mainstage season will be the talk of the East End all summer long!"

THE PROMPTER is a new comedy about veteran actress Irene Young, who, after a forty-year absence, is returning to the Broadway stage. But now, she can't do it alone; so, the production hires a young actor to be her prompter. But, this isn't her story, it's his. Based on real events, THE PROMPTER is a funny, heartfelt, untold, behind-the-scenes look at Broadway through the eyes of a young dreamer.

Wade Dooley (Playwright) is a writer/actor living in Jackson Heights, Queens. Some favorite writing credits include Broadway Bares: Rock Hard, On Demand, and Strip U with co-writer Hunter Bell, Stars in the Alley with host Tituss Burgess, The Diary of a Dancer (Best Solo Show 2010 DC Fringe Fest). Wade is an alumnus of Running Deer Theatre Lab, Goodspeed's Johnny Mercer Writers Colony, Finger Lake's Musical Theatre Festival's The PiTCH. As an actor, some favorite credits include Film: The Last Five Years. Theatre: NEWSical The Musical, The Awesome 80s Prom, La Cage Aux Folles, The Roar of the Greasepaint-The Smell of the Crowd. Tour: Jersey Boys, The Trip to Bountiful, The Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Wade is represented by Ben Izzo at Abrams Artists Agency. He is a graduate of Bradley University.

Scott Schwartz (Director) is the Artistic Director of Bay Street Theater. Most recently, he directed the world premiere of the new musical The Prince of Egypt at both TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in California and at Fredericia Teater in Denmark. As a director, he has worked on and off-Broadway, in major regional theaters across the country, and in the UK and Japan. On Broadway, he directed Golda's Balcony and Jane Eyre (co-directed with John Caird). Off-Broadway, he directed Murder for Two, Bat Boy: The Musical (Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Awards, Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical; Drama Desk Award nomination, Outstanding Director of a Musical), tick, tick...BOOM! (OCC, Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical; Drama Desk nomination, Outstanding Director of a Musical), Gigantic (Vineyard), The Foreigner (Roundabout), Rooms: A Rock Romance, Kafka's The Castle (OCC nomination, Outstanding Director of a Play), and No Way to Treat a Lady. At New York City Opera he directed Séance on a Wet Afternoon. The regional theaters he has worked at include ACT, Alley, Alliance Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Dallas Theatre Center, Denver Center, The Geffen, Goodspeed Opera House, La Jolla Playhouse, Old Globe, Pasadena Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Signature, Theatre Under the Stars, and Westport Country Playhouse among others. He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and a graduate of Harvard University.

SAFE SPACE is set at an elite university and explores political correctness and the reaction to triggers on campus in America today. When a star African-American professor faces accusations of racism from a student, the head of the college must intervene, setting off an explosive chain of events where each of them must navigate an ever-changing minefield of identity politics, ethics, and core beliefs.

Alan Fox (Playwright) burst onto the scene with his play SAFE SPACE, which caught the attention of Amy Pascal, who is now producing Alan's feature adaptation of the play, as well as his untitled movie about Charlie Chaplin. On the TV side, Alan is adapting his novel A Mannequin Life as a TV series with ABC Signature and Kerry Washington's Simpson Street producing.

Jack O'Brien (Director) is a three-time Tony & Drama Desk Award winning director, member of the Theatre Hall of Fame, and author of Jack Be Nimble, a memoir published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2013. Jack won the Tony for Best Direction of a Musical and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical for his 2003 Broadway production of Hairspray. He received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play for Henry IV and The Coast of Utopia I, II, & III. Additional Broadway credits include Porgy & Bess (Tony & Drama Desk Nom.), Damn Yankees, Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, The Full Monty (Tony Nom. & Drama Desk Winner), Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love (Drama Desk Winner), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Tony Nom.), Catch Me If You Can, Dead Accounts, Macbeth, It's Only a Play, The Front Page, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. His production of The Good Doctor and Broadway revival of Most Happy Fella were produced for PBS, and Jack's Street Scene was televised on "Live from Lincoln Center." Most recently, Jack directed the Spring 2018 Broadway revival of Rogers & Hammerstein's Carousel and the Fall 2018 production of Tom Stoppard's new play The Hard Problem at Lincoln Center.

Irving Berlin's ANNIE GET YOUR GUN is one of the most beloved musicals of Broadway's Golden Age. It tells the story of sharpshooter Annie Oakley, who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and her tempestuous romance with fellow sharpshooter Frank Butler. Acclaimed director Sarna Lapine will bring a fresh, modern approach to the story, incorporating elements from Dorothy Fields' original book to create the strongest and most revolutionary Annie Oakley audiences have ever seen. This musical includes such beloved songs as There's No Business Like Show Business, Anything You Can Do, and I Got Sun in the Morning which will be performed by a country western, bluegrass band.

Irving Berlin, the composer of the music and lyrist for ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, was born in Tyumen, Russia, on May 11, 1888, and immigrated to New York as a child. He would become one of the most popular songwriters in the United States, with hits like Alexander's Ragtime Band, What'll I Do, God Bless America, and White Christmas. His music forms a great part of the Great American Songbook.

Herbert & Dorothy Fields are the brother and sister team who wrote the book for ANNIE GET YOUR GUN. Dorothy started writing songs for Tin Pan Alley and Broadway in the 1920s. >From the 1930s on, Dorothy also worked for Hollywood with her partner, composer Jimmy McHugh. She won an Oscar for the song The Way You Look Tonight from Swing Time (1936), which she had written with Jerome Kern. Herbert was a writer and actor, known for Hit the Deck (1955), 50 Million Frenchmen (1931) and Joy of Living (1938). Dorothy and Herbert won two Tony Awards in 1959 for Redhead including Best Musical and shared the award for Best Book/Libretto with Sidney Sheldon and David Shaw.

ANNIE GET YOUR GUN director Sarna Lapine is a New York-based director and developer of new work. Upcoming: The Rape of Lucretia (Boston Lyric Opera), Kate Hamill's adaptation of Little Women (Primary Stages) and Radioactive, a new musical by Eric Price and Will Reynolds (Manhattan School of Music). Recent: Into the Woods (Juilliard), Noises Off (Two River Theater) Frost/Nixon (Bay Street Theater), You Are Here, a new musical (Goodspeed Musicals); Photograph 51, Japan premiere (Umeda Arts Theater); Sondheim on Sondheim with the Boston Pops and the L.A. Phil; and the critically-acclaimed Broadway revival of Sunday in the Park with George, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford. Sarna directed the second national tour of Lincoln Center Theater's South Pacific and was Associate Director of The National Theatre's War Horse (North American Tour and Japan production). She started out at Lincoln Center Theater as Bartlett Sher's assistant director on The Light in the Piazza and worked with him on the Tony-award winning revival of South Pacific, as well as the new musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!. She holds an MFA from Columbia University.

The 2019 Mainstage Season is sponsored in part by New York State through the generosity of Assemblyman Fred Thiele and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle; the New York State Council on The Arts, a State Agency; Town of Southampton; The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust; The Shubert Foundation; and fully or partially funded by the Suffolk County Department of Economic Development & Planning. Support for new work comes from The New Directions Fund, Joseph Stein New Musical Fund, Yave Tequila, and AgeFocus. Previews are sponsored by Peconic Landing. "Pay What You Can" performances are sponsored by Sotheby's International Realty. ANNIE GET YOUR GUN sponsored in part by Baron's Cove.

For more information or to purchase a 2019 Mainstage Season subscription, log on to www.baystreet.org or call the Box Office at 631-725-9500 Tues.-Sat. 11 am-5 pm.


Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts is a year-round, not-for-profit professional theater and community cultural center which endeavors to innovate, educate, and entertain a diverse community through the practice of the performing arts. We serve as a social and cultural gathering place, an educational resource, and a home for a community of artists.