Nashville Rep to Stage Reading of Christopher Durang's BEYOND THERAPY

Nashville Rep presents a staged reading of the quirky comedy Beyond Therapy by Christopher Durang at a REPaloud in partnership with OZ Arts Nashville on Saturday, January 14, 2017. A revealing talkback with Tony award-winning playwright Durang, the cast, director, and audience immediately follows the reading.

This REPaloud is a highly anticipated event, combining the popular play reading program with Nashville Rep's Ingram New Works Project. It provides Nashville with an opportunity to hear and enjoy Beyond Therapy, a witty and quirky comedy written by Durang, Nashville Rep's 2016-17 Ingram New Works Fellow. Beyond Therapy premiered on Broadway in 1982 and paved the way for a new genre of smart, wildly unique modern comedies.

"Having Christopher Durang in attendance at our REPaloud reading of his crazy and brilliant script, Beyond Therapy, is a huge treat for the cast, myself, and the audience," says Rep Producing Artistic Director René D. Copeland. "I am giddy with fan-girl excitement and so thrilled to get to share this with Nashville! This event uses our popular REPaloud program, which gives folks a chance to hear a great play read by great actors, to highlight the exciting aspect of our Ingram New Works Project which brings a nationally known playwright to town. What fun for everyone to get to rub elbows with someone as impactful to American theatre as Chris has been, and get to chat with him about his play. And as if the event wasn't hip enough as is, we get to perform at OZ Arts Nashville - a crazy cool venue that we just love."

The REPaloud staged reading of Beyond Therapy will be held at OZ Arts Nashville - 6172 Cockrill Bend Circle, Nashville, TN 37209.

"OZ Arts is passionate about supporting colleague arts institutions in Nashville," says OZ Arts Artistic Director Lauren Snelling, "and is proud to partner again this year with Nashville Rep for their Ingram New Works Project REPaloud reading. We welcome Christopher Durang and thank Nashville Rep for continuing this fantastic program."

REPaloud tickets are free for current Nashville Rep Season Subscribers and OZ Arts Season Subscribers. Tickets are $10 each for the general public. Reservations are recommended, as space is limited. Attendees can make reservations through Nashville Rep's website: nashvillerep.org. The event begins at 7pm.

It is the 1980's and Prudence answers a personal ad placed by Bruce. They meet in a restaurant, and the worst date in history begins. Throw into the mix that they are both in therapy with therapists who have their own issues, as well as an unlikely second date and a spurned lover, and the search for true love gets hilariously complicated.

Beyond Therapy is directed by Nashville Rep Producing Artistic Director René D. Copeland. The cast includes Rachel Agee, David Alford, Megan Murphy Chambers, Matt Garner, Matthew Rosenbaum, and Bobby Wyckoff.

Christopher Durang's plays include A History of the American Film (Tony nomination, Best Book of a Musical), The Actor's Nightmare, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You (Obie Award, off-Broadway run 1981-83), Beyond Therapy (on Broadway in 1982), Baby With the Bathwater (Playwrights Horizons, 1983), The Marriage of Bette and Boo (Public Theater, 1985; Obie Award, Dramatists Guild Hull Warriner Award), Laughing Wild (Playwrights Horizons, 1987), and Durang Durang (an evening of six plays at Manhattan Theatre Club, 1994, including the Tennessee Williams parody For Whom The Southern Belle Tolls).

He has an MFA from the Yale School of Drama, and has won a Guggenheim, a Rockefeller, the CBS Playwriting Fellowship, the Lecompte du Nouy Foundation grant, and the Kenyon Festival Theatre Playwriting Prize. In 1995 he won the prestigious three-year Lila Wallace Readers Digest Award; as part of his grant, he ran a writing workshop for adult children of alcoholics.

Durang served as co-chair with Marsha Norman of the Playwriting Program at the Juilliard School in Manhattan until 2016. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild Council, artistic associate at Goodman Theatre in Chicago, and is an associate professor of playwriting and screenwriting at Northwestern University as part of its MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage program.

Nashville Rep's Ingram New Works Project was created with the support of co-founder Martha R. Ingram to provide an opportunity for theatre artists to develop new theatre works while in residency at Nashville Rep.

The Ingram New Works Project is a locally valued and nationally recognized new play development program that cultivates and amplifies new voices for the stage and expands the creative capacity of Nashville by connecting artists and audiences across extraordinary new works.

The Ingram New Works Project culminates in the Ingram New Works Festival, a celebration of new plays developed in the program that season. The plays are performed as staged readings with professional Nashville actors and are an opportunity for Nashville audiences to be a part of this exciting process. This season's festival is slated to run May 10-20, 2017.

Ingram New Works Lab Playwrights Nate Eppler, Stacy Osei-Kuffour, Gabrielle Reisman, and Andrew Rosendorf will be in attendance at the January 14th REPaloud. Complete bios for the lab playwrights can be found at nashvillerep.org /ingram-new-works-playwrights.

Since opening in 2014, OZ Arts Nashville, a 501(c)(3) contemporary arts center, has changed the cultural landscape of the city. Housed in the former C.A.O. cigar warehouse owned by Nashville's Ozgener family, OZ Arts brings world-class performances and art installations to the city, and gives ambitious local artists opportunities to work on a grand scale. The flexible 10,000 square-foot, column-free venue, nestled amidst five acres of artfully landscaped grounds, is continually reconfigured to serve artists' imaginations, and to challenge and inspire a diverse range of curious audiences.

OZ Arts, under the artistic leadership of Lauren Snelling, has presented luminaries such as Philip Glass and Tim Fain, Tim Robbins' The Actors' Gang, Kyle Abraham and Abraham.In.Motion, Peter Brook's Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, the Trisha Brown Company, Vijay Iyer and Laurie Anderson. OZ Arts serves as a catalyst for local creativity through its TNT (Thursday Night Things) program, which fosters collaborations between Nashville-based artists from varying creative disciplines; and its newest series the Artists' Lounge, which gives artists opportunities to develop work before a live audience, including fellow artists, in the venue's intimate lounge space.

For more information, visit ozartsnashville.org.

Nashville Rep is a non-profit theatre bringing classic and Contemporary Theatre to Nashville that inspires empathy and prods intellectual and emotional engagement in audiences. Upcoming shows in Nashville Rep's 2016-17 season include Posterity by Doug Wright and A Raisin in the Sun featuring former Tennessee Titan Eddie George. The season concludes with the Ingram New Works Festival in May, a showcase of new works created in Nashville for the American Theatre.

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