Road Theatre Company & Center Theatre Group to Premiere BIRDER

Two exceptional plays, one extraordinary playwright, THE ROAD THEATRE COMPANY and Taylor Gilbert, Founder/Artistic Director together with Sam Anderson, Artistic Director, in association with CENTER THEATRE GROUP announce the fourth show of its 2015-2016 - 25th Anniversary Season, the World Premiere of BIRDER, written by Julie Marie Myatt and directed by Dan Bonnell. BIRDER will run in repertory withJOHN IS A FATHER, also by Julie Marie Myatt. BIRDER will begin previews on Monday, April 25 at 8pm; will open on Friday, April 29 at 8pm and run through Sunday, June 19 at the Road on Lankershim, 5108 Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood.

BIRDER follows middle-aged accountant Roger, who, upon discovering a house finch nesting outside his home in Los Feliz, finds himself forced to question his most basic assumptions about what it means to be a father, husband, and breadwinner. But do his avian explorations represent a deep search for meaning, or just a city-dweller's mid-life crisis? This funny, moving world premiere by Jerome Fellow and award-winning playwright Julie Marie Myatt explores the human need for silence, as Roger finds both terror and solace in Los Angeles' unique urban ecology. BIRDER was Commissioned and Developed by Center Theatre Group.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM AND CAST

JULIE MARIE MYATT (Playwright) Her play The Happy Ones premiered at South Coast Repertory, and won the LA Drama Critic Circle's Ted Schmitt Award for Outstanding New Play. Her play Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter premiered at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the Kennedy Center as part of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays. Her play Someday, premiered as part of Cornerstone Theater's Justice Cycle. Her play My Wandering Boypremiered at South Coast Repertory in the 2007, was part of Pacific Playwrights Festival, and was also produced in New York as part of the 2007 Summer Play Festival. Boats On A River premiered at the Guthrie Theater, was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and was recorded for the LA Theatre works radio play series, "The Play's The Thing". Her ten-minute play, Mr. and Mrs. premiered at the 2007 Humana Festival. Her play The Sex Habits of American Women was produced by the Guthrie Theater, among others, and premiered at the Magic Theatre. Her work has been developed or seen at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Seattle Rep, Cherry Lane, A.S.K. Theatre Projects, LAByrinth Theater Company, Denver Center Theatre Company, ACT Seattle, among others. She received a Walt Disney Studios Screenwriting Fellowship, a Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights' Center, a McKnight Advancement Grant, Mark Taper Forum Fadiman Award, and a Master Playwright Residency - Michener Center for Writers and Department of Theatre and Dance, UT/Austin. She is currently working on commissions for Yale Repertory, and Cornerstone Theatre Company. She is an Alumni of New Dramatists, was the Mellon Playwright in Residence at South Coast Repertory 2013-2016, and teaches playwriting at Northwestern University.

DAN BONNELL (Director) has a long history of developing and directing new plays and musicals. He's been nominated for the Theatre Communications Group- Alan Schneider Directing Award, and the LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award-- and he is the proud recipient of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Directing Award, the LA Weekly Directing Award, the NAACP Directing Award, and the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Theater in LA. His work has been presented at more than twenty-five theatre companies in LA, including the Met, PRT, the Colony, Arcade and EST-LA, where he also served as Artistic Director. Prior to Los Angeles, Mr. Bonnell was a Resident Director at Circle Repertory Company in NYC- and he worked regularly at the Actors Studio and Ensemble Studio Theater. He has staged productions and workshops for major regional companies including the Taper, Lookingglass, Long Wharf, the Asolo, Alliance Theater and Pioneer Theater Company. Internationally, Mr. Bonnell's work has been seen at the Bronfman Center in Montreal, Theatre Les Dechargeurs in Paris, and The National Youth Theater in Hanoi, Vietnam. As an educator, Dan has taught and/or directed at UCLA, UC Riverside, USC and CalArts.

The cast of BIRDER features: Chet Grissom, Webster Williams, Laurie Okin, Monique Gelineau and Crash Buist.

The Design Team for BIRDER is as follows: Set Design by Tom Buderwitz; Lighting and Projection Design by Tom Ontiveros; Sound Design by David Marling; Costume Design by Michele Young; The Stage Manager is Maurie Gonzalez. BIRDER is produced by Donna Simone Johnson and Ann Hearn.

SCHEDULE AND PRICING

BIRDER will preview on Monday, April 25; Wednesday, April 27; Thursday, April 28 at 8pm; will open on Friday, April 29 at 8pm and run through Sunday, June 19 at the Road on Lankershim, 5108 Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood.

Performances are Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm. Ticket prices are $34; Students and Seniors are $17.50; Previews are $15.00. Special group rates available for parties of 8 or more. For tickets, please call 818-761-8838 or visit www.RoadTheatre.org to purchase tickets online or to view complete schedule.

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