Amy Herzog's BELLEVILLE Begins Tonight at New York Theatre Workshop

New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director William Russo have announced that performances begin tonight for the New York premiere of Belleville, written by Amy Herzog and directed by Anne Kauffman, at NYTW, 79 East 4 Street, between Bowery and Second Avenue. Opening night is set for Sunday, March 3 at 7pm. Belleville is scheduled to run through Sunday, March 31.

Abby and Zack-young, American and married - have shirked the stability of a comfortable post-graduate life in the States for Belleville, a bustling, bohemian, multicultural neighborhood in Paris. In an attempt to build a life together away from their family and friends, their passive-aggressive and aggressively passionate relationship is put to the test after an awkward afternoon discovery, a landlord's ultimatum and a cracked toenail.

Heralded by The New York Times as "thrillingly good," Belleville, the newest drama from award-winning playwright Amy Herzog (The Great God Pan, 4000 Miles, After the Revolution) and director Anne Kauffman (Detroit, This Wide Night), looks at the limits of trust, truth, deception, and dependency in a world where both love and loss can be pathological and cathartic. After premiering at Yale Repertory Theater in 2011, Herzog's Belleville, "confirms her reputation as one of the brightest new talents in the theater," says Times's critic Charles Isherwood. Ms. Herzog's critically-acclaimed play, The Great God Pan, is currently enjoying an extended, sold-out, off-Broadway run.

The cast of Belleville is Pascale Armand, Phillip James Brannon, Maria Dizzia, and Greg Keller.

Amy Herzog's off-Broadway credits include After the Revolution (Playwrights Horizons, Lilly Award), 4000 Miles (Lincoln Center, Obie Award for Best New American Play), The Great God Pan (Playwrights Horizons). Regional: Belleville (Yale Rep). Awards: The New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award, Joan and Joseph F. Cullman Award, Whiting Writers Award, Helen Merrill Award. MFA, Yale School of Drama.

Anne Kauffman's off-Broadway's credits include Detroit, Maple & Vine (Playwrights Horizons); Stunning, Slowgirl (LCT3); God's Ear (The Vineyard, New Georges); The Thugs, Sixty Miles to Silver Lake (Soho Rep); The Ladies (Cherry Lane, Dixon Place, Civilians). Regional: Becky Shaw, Body Awareness (Wilma Theater), We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Yale Rep).

Pascale Armand has appeared off Broadway in Four at Manhattan Theatre Club and Breath, Boom at Playwrights Horizons. Her regional credits include Eclipsed at McCarter Theatre and Yale Repertory Theatre; Belleville and dance of the holy ghosts at Yale Repertory Theatre; Ruined at La Jolla Playhouse, the Huntington Theatre Company and Berkeley Repertory Theatre; Let There Be Love at Baltimore's Centerstage; Gee's Bend at Kansas City Repertory Theatre; Doubt at Vermont Stage Company; Gem of the Ocean at Arena Stage; As You Like It at the Hangar Theatre and Hamlet, Jitney and Blues for an Alabama Sky at Syracuse Stage. Internationally, Ms. Armand appeared in the European tour of Peter Sellars' An End to the Judgment of God. Her film and television credits include The Good Wife; Law & Order: Trial by Jury; Law & Order: Criminal Intent; Kinsey and Strangers with Candy.

Phillip James Brannon'sChicago credits: Goodman Theatre: Joan Dark (Linz, Austria, in conjunction with the Linz '09 Festival),The Ballad of Emmett Till, The Cook, Oedipus Complex, A Christmas Carol; Steppenwolf Theatre Company: the world premiere of The March, The Brother/Sister Plays; Chicago Shakespeare Theater: Touchstone in As you Like It, Amadeus, Macbeth, Richard III; Court Theatre: Aaron the Moor in Titus Andronicus; Congo Square Theatre Company: Elmina's Kitchen; Remy Bumppo Theatre Company: An Immigrant Class; InFusion Theatre Company: The Last Supper. Regional credits: the world premiere of Robert O'Hara's BootyCandy at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington D.C., Phillip will reprise his role in BootyCandy in 2013 at The Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia; Kansas City Repertory Theatre: Harriet Jacobs; Firebelly Productions: Of Mice and Men, Waiting for Godot (Washington D.C., in conjunction with The Int'l School in Prague). Film: Contagion.

Maria Dizzia appeared at Yale Rep in the title role in Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice and Iphigeneia at Aulis. Her New York credits include Cradle and All opposite Greg Keller, Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) (2010 Tony Award nomination, Best Performance by a Featured Actress), The Hallway Trilogy, The Drunken City, Eurydice, The Wooden Breeks, Pullman Car Hiawatha, Apparition, Alice the Magnet, Cause for Alarm, and Gone Missing. Regional credits include Not Waving (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven (Young Jean Lee's Theater Company); Trouble in Mind (CENTERSTAGE); Blur (Dallas Theater Center); Fêtes de la Nuit (Berkeley Repertory Theatre); Unusual Acts of Devotion, Sheridan (La Jolla Playhouse); Proof (Geva Theatre); Romeo and Juliet (Alabama Shakespeare Festival); and A Midsummer's Night Dream (Shakespeare Santa Cruz). Film and television Lola Versus, The Happy Sad, Keep the Lights On, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Margin Call, Rachel Getting Married, Down the Shore, The Other Woman, A New York Thing, Kiddie Ride, Louie, Fringe, Smith, Law & Order, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Maria received her MFA from the University of California, San Diego and is an Associate Artist with The Civilians.

Greg Keller's credits include Wit on Broadway, Cradle and All opposite Maria Dizzia (Manhattan Theatre Club), 33 Variations with Jane Fonda (Ahmanson Theatre), The Seagull with Dianne Wiest and Alan Cumming (Classic Stage Company), Smudge (Women's Project), and That Pretty Pretty (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater). His regional credits include productions at Denver Center, Arena Stage, Florida Stage, and eight plays at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. Greg holds an MFA in acting from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and was a Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellow at The Juilliard School, where he was a two-time Lecomte du Nouy Prize winner. His plays have been produced at the Cherry Lane Theatre, LAByrinth Theater Company, and Berkshire Theatre Festival. Born and raised in Manhattan, Greg is a member of LAByrinth Theater Company and Partial Comfort Productions.

The scenic design for Belleville is by Julia C. Lee; costume design is by Mark Nagle; lighting design is by Ben Stanton; original composition and sound design are by Robert Kaplowitz. The production stage manager is Terri Kohler.

Belleville was commissioned by Yale Repertory Theatre and received its world premiere in October 2011. The NYTW production is supported by Yale's Binger Center for New Theatre.

New York Theatre Workshop, now celebrating its 30th season, is a leading voice in the world of Off-Broadway and within the theatre community in New York and around the world. NYTW has emerged as a premiere incubator of important new theatre, honoring its mission to explore perspectives on our collective history and respond to the events and institutions that shape our lives. In addition, NYTW is known for its innovative adaptations of classic repertory. Each season, from its home in New York's East Village neighborhood, NYTW presents three to five new productions, over 80 readings, and numerous workshop productions, for over 45,000 audience members. Over the past 28 years, NYTW has developed and produced over 100 new, fully staged works, including Jonathan Larson's Rent, Tony Kushner's Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul, Doug Wright's Quills, Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde, Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla, Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, Far Away, and A Number, Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's Aftermath, and Rick Elice's Peter and the Starcatcher. The 2002 remounting of Martha Clarke's seminal work, Vienna: Lusthaus and subsequent American tour was one of the longest-running productions in NYTW's history. NYTW's acclaimed productions of Once and Peter and the Starcatcher are currently enjoying Broadway runs, and Rent, which premiered at NYTW, is currently playing an off-Broadway revival. NYTW supports artists in all stages of their careers by maintaining a series of workshop programs including work-in-progress readings, summer residencies, and minority artist fellowships. In 1991, NYTW received an OBIE Award for Sustained Achievement and in 2000 was designated to be part of the Leading National Theatres Program by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The NYTW 2012-2013 season is dedicated to the memory of Joan Stein.

Belleville plays at New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East 4th Street, between second Avenue and Bowery. The regular performance schedule is Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:00pm; Thursday and Friday at 8:00pm; Saturday at 3pm and 8pm; Sunday at 2pm and 7pm. Belleville runs through March 31. Tickets are $70 and may be purchased online at www.ticketcentral.com, 24 hours a day, seven days a week or by phoning Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200. For exact dates and times of performance, visit www.nytw.org.

AfterWords post-performance audience discussions will follow the performances on Post show discussion dates February 20 and 26, and March 17 and 19.

NYTW is pleased to make theatre accessible to everyone with its $20 CheapTix Sundays program. A dedicated number of tickets for Sunday evening performances at 7:00pm can be purchased in person at the NYTW Box Office for only $20. Tickets may be purchased in advance, payable in cash only and are available to all audience members.

NYTW also has $25 student tickets available for all performances. Student tickets may be purchased in advance from the NYTW Box Office with valid student identification.

In addition, NYTW offers discount ticket prices for adult and student groups of 10 or more. Please contact group sales at stephaniew@nytw.org.

The NYTW Box office is open 1:00pm to 6:00pm, Tuesday through Saturday.

Pictured: Amy Herzog, Greg Keller, Maria Dizzia, Pascale Armand, Philip James Brannon, Anne Kauffman. Photo Credit: Jennifer Broski.

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