The Hub Theatre presents a Marriage of Firsts: THE LATE WEDDING by Christopher Chen

The Hub Theatre will present THE LATE WEDDING by Christopher Chen. The production is a marriage of firsts! Hub's production marks the play's DC area premiere and the company's first collaboration with Helen Hayes Awards-Nominated Director Kate Bryer (Associate Artistic Director, Imagination Stage).

THE LATE WEDDING is a mind bending ensemble piece which cues from the sly writings of Italian Fabulist writer Italo Calvino (1923-1985), author of Invisible Cities and if on a winters night a traveller. The play features a winking, second-person narrative that makes an anthropological tour through some off-the-wall marriage customs, becomes a spy thriller, a sci-fi love story and more. The play was commissioned by, and world premiered at Crowded Fire Theater and was directed by Marissa Wolf.

Christopher Chen is an international award-winning playwright whose full-length works have been produced and developed across the United States and abroad, at companies such as the American Conservatory Theater, Arcola Theatre (London), Asian American Theater Company, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Beijing Fringe, Berkeley Rep/Ground Floor, Central Works, Crowded Fire, Cutting Ball Theater, Edinburgh Fringe, Fluid Motion, hotINK Festival, Impact Theatre, InterAct Theatre, Just Theatre, Lark Play Development Center, Magic Theatre, Playwrights Foundation, San Francisco Playhouse, Silk Road Rising, Sundance Theatre Lab, Theatre Mu, U.C. Berkeley/Zellerbach Playhouse and The Vineyard. His honors include: the 2017 Lanford Wilson Award; the 2015-2016 Sundance Institute/Time Warner Foundation Fellowship for theater; the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, through which he was the 2013-2014 playwright-in-residence at The Vineyard Theatre in New York; the Barrymore Award; PHINDIE Critics Award; the Glickman Award; the Rella Lossy Playwriting Award; shortlist for the James Tait Black Award; nomination for the Steinberg Award; 2nd Place in the Belarus Free Theater International Competition of Modern Dramaturgy; a MAP Fund Grant; a Ford Foundation Emerging Writer of Color Grant; finalist for the PONY and Jerome Fellowships. Current commissions include American Conservatory Theater, S.F. Playhouse, Crowded Fire and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Publications include American Theatre Magazine, Theatre Bay Area and Theater Magazine (Yale). Chen's plays examine the hidden patterns beneath complex systems: socio-political systems, psychological systems, systems of power. He combines naturalism with the absurd within maximalist kaleidoscopic structures. A Bay Area native, Chris is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from S.F. State.

Kathryn Chase Bryer is the Associate Artistic Director for Imagination Stage where she has directed over 40 productions in the last 20 years and has helped to develop and commission over a dozen scripts, many of which have been published by Dramatic Publishing. Most notably,she has worked closely with playwright/lyricist/composer Joan Cushing and the playwright and composer team of Karen Zacarias and Deborah Wicks LaPuma. Many of the scripts she has directed and dramaturged are being done around the country in other youth theaters. Recently, she directed THE BFG which won the 2014 Helen Hayes for Best Scenic Design and Best Production, Theatre for Young Audiences, and WILEY AND THE HAIRY MAN which won the 2015 Best Production, Theatre for Young Audiences. In addition to her work at Imagination Stage, she has directed for Constellation Theatre Company in DC (SCAPIN, PETER AND THE STARCATCHER). She co-teaches a course in Theatre for Young Audience in the graduate program at Catholic University and directed MAGE KNIGHTS OF THE ETERNAL LIGHT for Catholic Univ. MFA program. She currently serves on the Board of Governors for the Helen Hayes Committee.

The Ensemble for THE LATE WEDDING includes Hub alum Carolyn Kashner (Failure: A Love Story -Helen Hayes Nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress, and Leto Legend), Matthew Pauli(Hub's Act A Lady, Happenstance Theater - Company Member and Helen Hayes Award, Outstanding Ensemble for Impossible, Faction of Fools - Helen Hayes Award Nomination, Outstanding Actor for Our Town) and Hub newcomers Tamieka Chavis (recently seen at Mosaic Theatre in Charm), Nick Depinto(Washington Stage Guild, Annapolis Shakespeare Theatre, and The Welders), Gwen Grastorf(Constellation Theatre, Taffety Punk and Happenstance Theater - Company Member and Helen Hayes Award, Outstanding Ensemble for Impossible), and Jacob Yeh (Studio Theatre, 1st Stage, Imagination Stage, Adventure Theatre, Theater J, and Folger Theatre).

Where: The Hub Theatre, in residence at The John Swayze Theatre. Theatre Address: New School of Northern Virginia, 9431 Silver King Court, Fairfax, Virginia 22031. Performance Dates: April 14 - May 7, 2017. Curtain Times: Fridays: 8:00 pm; Saturdays: 2:00 & 8:00 pm; Sundays: 2:00 & 7:00 pm. Ticket Prices: $22 - $32. Tickets Available: www.thehubtheatre.org

The Hub Theatre is a professional, 501c3 nonprofit theatre organization, member of Theatre Washington, and is generously supported by the Arts Council of Fairfax, Microsoft, The Kennedy Center's Keenan Fellowship, Fairfax City Commission on the Arts, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Integrity Applications, and Silverwood Associates.

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