Atlantic Theater Company Announces 'Body Awareness'

 Atlantic Theater Company (Neil Pepe, Artistic Director; Andrew D. Hamingson, Managing Director) is proud to announce the world premiere production of Annie Baker's play BODY AWARENESS, directed by Karen Kohlhaas and featuring Jonathan Clem, Peter Friedman, Mary McCann and JoBeth Williams.
 
BODY AWARENESS will begin previews Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 for an official opening on Wednesday, June 4th,  and play a limited engagement through Sunday, June 22nd Off-Broadway at Atlantic Stage 2 (330 West 16th Street).
 
BODY AWARENESS marks the final production of the 2007-2008 Atlantic Stage 2 season at the company's second stage theater, where two new plays are staged each year. The hit world premiere production of Academy Award® winning film maker Ethan Coen's Almost an Evening played a sold out run earlier this season before transferring to The Theaters at 45 Bleecker Street where it plays a limited engagement through June 1st.
 
In the world premiere of Annie Baker's new comedy, it is "Body Awareness Week" at bucolic Shirley State College in Vermont, and all must go according to plan. But when photographer Frank Bonitatibus shows up with his passel of photographs of naked women, things start to go awry.
 
Playwright Annie Baker makes her Off-Broadway at Atlantic with the world premiere of Body Awareness. Her plays have been developed at Atlantic, SoHo Rep, Playwrights Horizons and the Sundance Playwrights Retreat. Atlantic founding member Karen Kohlhaas most recently directed comedian Judy Gold's Drama Desk Award nominated one woman play 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother Off-Broadway following a national tour. She has also staged Harold Pinter's The Hothouse and Keith Reddin's Frame 312 at Atlantic, as well as David Mamet's Boston Marriage at The Public Theater.
 
BODY AWARENESS marks Jonathan Clem's Off-Broadway and professional debut following graduating from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts this year, where he studied at the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School. Tony Award® nominee Peter Friedman (Ragtime) will make his Atlantic debut.  He most recently appeared in the hit Off-Broadway musical The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island and on Broadway in the acclaimed revival of Twelve Angry Men. Atlantic founding member Mary McCann comes direct from the world premiere production of Ethan Coen's Almost an Evening, which played at Atlantic Stage 2 prior to its Off-Broadway transfer. She also appeared in the world premiere of Spring Awakening, The Cherry Orchard and The Night Heron at Atlantic. Academy Award®, Golden Globe® and Emmy Award® nominated actress and director JoBeth Williams is best known for her starring roles in the landmark films Poltergeist, The Big Chill and Kramer vs. Kramer. On the New York stage, she has appeared Off-Broadway in Marsha Norman's Last Dance, John Guare's Gardenia and The Vagina Monologues. Most recently, she starred in Jane Anderson's The Quality of Life at The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, for which she received a Back Stage West Garland Award.
 
The design team for BODY AWARENESS will feature scenic design by Walt Spangler, costume design by Bobby Frederick Tilley III and sound design by Anthony Gabriele.
 
Atlantic's New York premiere production of Conor McPherson's (The Seafarer) play Port Authority, directed by Henry Wishcamper, is now in previews for a limited engagement through June 22nd, 2008 at Atlantic Theater Company at the Linda Gross Theatre (336 West 20th Street).
 
BIOGRAPHIES
 
ANNIE BAKER's (Playwright) plays have been developed and performed at the Soho Rep, Atlantic Theater Company, Playwrights Horizons, EST, the Ontological-Hysteric, Ars Nova, the Wilma, the Magic Theatre (New Voices West), the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and the Sundance Playwrights Retreat in UCross, Wyoming. She graduated from the Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and was a member of the 2006-2007 SoHo Rep Writer/Director Lab, EST's Youngblood, and the Ars Nova Play Group.  She is currently working on a new play commission for the Soho Rep.
 
KAREN KOHLHAAS (Director) is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company. She directed actress /comedienne Judy Gold in the Drama Desk Award nominated one woman show 25 Questions For a Jewish Mother by Kate Moira Ryan (with Ms. Gold), at the Montreal Comedy Festival, Ars Nova, Off-Broadway at the St. Luke's Theatre, and national tour. Other Off-Broadway and regional productions include Harold Pinter's The Hothouse (Atlantic), Keith Reddin's Synergy (Alley Theatre, world premiere) and Frame 312 (Atlantic, New York premiere); David Mamet's Boston Marriage (Public Theater, New York premiere) and The Water Engine (Atlantic); three productions of An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein in New York and Sydney, Kate Moira Ryan's OTMA (U.S. premiere), short plays by Jerome Hairston (Naked Angels), Hilary Bell (Atlantic), Joe Penhall (Atlantic), and Wendy MacLeod (Ensemble Studio Theatre marathon). Her short film The Palace of the End with writer/performer Taylor Mac was a featured selection at the Silverlake and Galway film festivals, and their next film If You See Something Say Something will premiere in June 2008 at the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center's Drag Show Video Vérité. Karen is a senior teacher at the Atlantic Acting School, and the writer/director of The Monologue Audition Video (DVD) author of The Monologue Audition: A Practical Guide for Actors (foreword by David Mamet), and of The Monologue Audition Teacher's Manual, all available at www.monologueaudition.com.
 
JONATHAN CLEM is making his Off-Broadway debut in Body Awareness after having graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in May, 2008, where he studied at the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School. New York: Bastard Farm (Galapagos Art Space); Wounds to the Face (Chashama). NYU: Philadelphia, Here I Come!; Too Clever by Half; Pericles.
 
Peter Friedman originated the role of "Tateh" in the musical Ragtime in its world premiere in Toronto, as well as on Broadway, receiving an Outer Critics Circle Award and Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations. He most recently appeared in the Ben Katchor/Mark Mulcahy musical The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island. He was in the original New York productions of The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein and Simon Gray's The Common Pursuit (earning Drama Desk nominations for both), A Soldier's Play by Charles Fuller, C.P.Taylor's …and a Nightingale Sang, and Execution of Justice by Emily Mann. He also appeared in New York in The Tenth Man by Paddy Chayefsky, Donald Margulies' The Loman Family Picnic, Israel Horovitz' My Old Lady and the recent Broadway revival of Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men. He participated in the 2005 New York Musical Theatre Festival in The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World. His films include The Savages, Freedomland,  Safe, The Seventh Sign, Single White Female, Blink, Paycheck, and the soon-to-be-released Synecdoche, New York;  Spinning Into Butter; and Unconscious. On television he was a performer on The Muppet Show, and a regular on the series Brooklyn Bridge.
 
Mary McCann is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company.  She most recently appeared in Atlantic's world premiere of Ethan Coen's comedy Almost an Evening, both at Atlantic Stage 2 and the transfer to The Theatres at 45 Bleecker Street. Recent film roles include "MaryAnn" in Little Children starring Kate Winslet and the upcoming films Choke starring Angelica Huston and Sam Rockwell, Sordid Things, upcoming television Cashmere Mafia and David's Mom in The Naked Brothers Band on Nickelodeon.  Mary has appeared in many Atlantic Theater Company  productions, including the hit musical Spring Awakening,  The Cherry Orchard, The Night Heron, The Hiding Place, This Thing of Darkness, The Beginning of August, Wolf Lullaby, The Water Engine, Edmond, Dangerous Corner and Shaker Heights.  Broadway Credits:  The Old Neighborhood, Our Town with Spaulding Grey and Search and Destroy.  Other Off-Broadway Credits include:  Oleanna (Orpheum Theater); Uncommon Women and Others (Second Stage); Boys' Life (Lincoln Center); and Hot Keys (Naked Angels). American Repertory Theater:  Oleanna  and Boston Marriage.  Film & TV Credits include:  The role of Ruthie Cheales in The Unit, Law & Order, Law and Order Special Victims Unit, Law and Order Criminal Intent, Sex and the City, Sports Night, ER, Spin City, It Must Be Love, Door to Door, The Con, The Spanish Prisoner and Things Change. Producing Credits include the films: Edmond starring William H. Mary and Colin Fitz.
 
JoBeth Williams is probably best known for her starring roles in the films Poltergeist (1 & 2), The Big Chill, Teachers, Switch, Fever Pitch, Stir Crazy and Kramer vs. Kramer, among many others. She has been nominated for three Emmy Awards® (for the television movies "Baby M" and "Adam", and for "Frasier"), and starred in two series - John Grisham's "The Client" and CBS's "Payne" opposite John Larroquette.  This season she was seen in a recurring role on Showtime's "Dexter."  Her New York theater credits include Last Dance by Marsha Norman, Moonchildren, Ladyhouse Blues, A Couple of White Chicks, John Guare's Gardenia and The Vagina Monologues.  In regional theatre she has starred in Antony and Cleopatra at the Old Globe, Idiot's Delight opposite Stacy Keach at the Kennedy Center, Threepenny Opera in Williamstown, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the McCarter theatre, Uncle Vanya, Tartuffe and School for Wives among others.  She has also performed at the Arena Stage, and two seasons at Trinity Repertory Company.  She most recently appeared on stage last fall at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles in Jane Anderson's The Quality of Life, for which she received a Back Stage West Garland Award.   She has been nominated for two Golden Globes® and an Academy Award® for directing the short film On Hope. Her other directing credits include the Showtime film Frankie and Hazel with Joan Plowright and Mischa Barton, and episodic television. She is a graduate of Brown University, and married to director John Pasquin.
 
ATLANTIC THEATER COMPANY (Neil Pepe, Artistic Director; Andrew D. Hamingson, Managing Director) is the award winning Off-Broadway theater dedicated to producing great plays simply and truthfully utilizing an artistic ensemble. Atlantic believes that the story of the play and the intent of the playwright are at the core of the creative process. Atlantic's acclaimed world premiere production of its first musical Spring Awakening, with music by Duncan Sheik, book and lyrics by Steven Sater and direction by Michael Mayer, won 8 Tony Awards®, including Best Musical. In 2006, Atlantic was awarded the Lucille Lortel Prize for Outstanding Body of Work and its lauded production of Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant Of Inishmore, directed by Wilson Milam, transferred to the Lyceum Theatre, where it was nominated for five 2006 Tony Awards® including Best Play.
 
Atlantic has produced four world premiere productions this season, Academy Award® winning film maker Ethan Coen's comedy Almost an Evening, directed by Neil Pepe and featuring Academy Award® winner F. Murray Abraham and Mark Linn-Baker; Peter Parnell's Trumpery, directed by David Esbjornson and featuring Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award® winner Michael Cristofer and Tony Award® nominee Manoel Felciano; Lucy Thurber's Scarcity, directed by Jackson Gay and featuring Emmy Award® winner Kristen Johnston, Jesse Eisenberg and Michael T. Weiss and Jez Butterworth's Parlour Song, directed by Neil Pepe and featuring Chris Bauer, Jonathan Cake and Emily Mortimer.   Last season, founder David Mamet's smash hit adaptation of The Voysey Inheritance, directed by David Warren and starring Michael Stuhlbarg and Fritz Weaver, was extended an unprecedented three times, the first time in Atlantic's history. The world premiere production of Atlantic's second musical 10 Million Miles, featuring music and lyrics by Grammy Award® nominated singer/songwriter Patty Griffin, a book by Keith Bunin and direction by Tony Award® winner Michael Mayer also played an extended limited engagement.
 
Since it's inception in 1985, Atlantic has produced more than 100 plays including the Tony Award® winning production of The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, the world premieres of Woody Allen's A Second Hand Memory and Writer's Block, the acclaimed world premiere of David Mamet's Romance, Jez Butterworth's Mojo, Tom Donaghy's Minutes From The Blue Route, Edwin Sanchez' Trafficking in Broken Hearts and the American premieres of Blue/Orange, Dublin Carol and The Night Heron, the New York premieres of The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow and The Cider House Rules, the revivals of American Buffalo, Edmond, The Hothouse and Hobson's Choice.  Atlantic maintains an ensemble of acclaimed actors, writers and directors including David Mamet (playwright and director) and William H. Macy (Academy Award® nominee for Fargo), who founded Atlantic over twenty years ago in 1985.  
 
BODY AWARENESS will play Tuesday through Saturday at 8:00pm, Saturday matinees at 2:00pm and Sundays at 3:00pm.  All tickets are $45.00 and available by calling Ticket Central at 212-279-4200 (www.ticketcentral.com).
 
ATLANTIC STAGE 2 is located at 330 West 16th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenues).  For membership information, wheelchair seating, and/or group sales call Ticketcentral at 212-279-4200 or visit www.ticketcentral.com.
 
www.atlantictheater.org