Charles Mee to Be Honored By Cherry Lane Theatre And New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, 6/11

Legendary playwright, Charles Mee, is turning 80 years and will be celebrated by Cherry Lane Theatre at a benefit performance of FIRST LOVE followed by a blowout bash at Casa La Femme (140 Charles Street). Additionally New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson will recognize Charles Mee with an official New York City Proclamation for his extraordinary and enduring contributions to the American theatre, on Monday, June 11, 2018 at The Cherry Lane Theatre beginning at 7pm.

The event will benefit Cherry Lane Theatre and support their ongoing programs that develop and embrace bold and courageous voices, including our Mentor Project, whose emerging writers have been fortunate to benefit from Charles Mee's unique mentorship. Tickets for the benefit performance are $75-$300 and are available at www.cherrylanetheatre.org or by calling Ovation Tix at 1.866.811.4111.

"Cherry Lane is thrilled to honor a playwright whose career and artistic values express so perfectly our own mission and work. Charles Mee has dedicated his entire theatrical career to creating daring and relevant theater and has served generously for years as a mentor to the next generation of American Playwrights who will do the same." Cherry Lane Theatre Board Member, David Youse

A couple in their sixties meet and fall in love for the first time in their lives. Through the eyes of celebrated playwright Charles Mee, First Love embraces Edith and Harold as they work their way toward one another through the accumulated baggage of their lives, wondering if they can avoid sabotaging the last chance for love they'll ever have.

FIRST LOVE is written by Charles Mee, directed by Kim Weild and stars Michael O'Keefe (Amazon's "Sneaky Pete" Films: Michael Clayton, The Great Santini and Caddyshack; Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Broadway: Reckless, Side Man), Angelina Fiordellisi (Broadway: Zorba. National Tour: Annie. NY: Out of the Mouths of Babes) and Taylor Harvey (Regional: The Heart of Robin Hood, The Clean House, Nine). The show will feature set design by Edward Pierce (Broadway: Tony Nom, Angels in America, Wicked, Amazing Grace), Costume Design by Theresa Squire (Broadway: High Fidelity), lighting design by Paul Miller (Broadway: Amazing Grace) and sound design by Christian Frederickson (SITI Theatre's Antigone, Trojan Women), casting by Stephanie Klapper, and production stage manager is Nicole Kuker.

FIRST LOVE

Written by Charles Mee, directed by Kim Weild

Performances begin on June 7; Opening night Thursday, June 14 - July 8, 2018

Performance Schedule:

Wednesday at 2pm & 7pm; Thursday at 7pm; Friday at 7pm; Saturday at 2pm & 7pm

ADDED PERFORMANCES:

Monday, July 2 at 7pm; Tuesday, June 12 & June 19 at 7pm; Sunday, July 1 & July 8 at 3pm

NO PERFORMANCES: Wednesday, June 13 at 2pm; Wednesday, July 4 at 2pm & 7pm

Benefit Performance:

Monday, June 11 at 7pm

Followed by a post -show celebration at Casa La Femme (140 Charles Street)

Tickets for the benefit performance are $75-$300

Gold Ticket ($300 - Premium Seating/ Celebration)

Silver Ticket ($165 - General Admission Seating/ Celebration)

Performance Only ($75)

And are available at www.cherrylanetheatre.org or by calling Ovation Tix at 1.866.811.4111

Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce Street)

Tickets are $65-$95 and are available at www.cherrylanetheatre.org

or by calling Ovation Tix at 1.866.811.4111

Charles Mee (Playwright) has written Big Love and True Love and First Love, bobrauschenbergamerica and Hotel Cassiopeia, Orestes 2.0 and Trojan Women: A Love Story, and Summertime and Wintertime among other plays-- all of them available on the internet at www.charlesmee.org. His plays have been performed at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music, American Repertory Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater, Lincoln Center, the Humana Festival, Steppenwolf, and other places in the United States as well as in Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Vienna, Istanbul and elsewhere. He was honored with a full season of his plays at the Signature Theatre. Among other awards, he is the recipient of the Award of Merit in drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and of the Richard B. Fisher Award. He is also the author of a number of books of history, and the former Editor-in-Chief of Horizon magazine, a magazine of history, art, literature, and the fine arts. His work is made possible by the support of Jeanne Donovan Fisher and Richard B. Fisher.

Kim Weild (Director) is a Drama Desk Award and seven-time New York Innovative Theater Awards nominee (winning two) including Outstanding Director of the world premiere of Charles Mee's NY Times Critic's Pick Soot and Spit. Her work has been seen at Lincoln Center Theater, Carnegie Hall, Teatro alla Scala, New York Theater Workshop, Beckett Theater, Goodspeed Musicals, Primary Stages, New York Live Arts, The Mark Taper Forum, Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, The Beall Center for Art and Technology, The Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, The New Ohio Theater (NYC) and Wolf Trap Performing Arts Center. Other notable productions include: Uncle Vanya (selection of the Prague Quadrennial), The Bacchae by Euripides and Aristophanes' The Birds. Co-writer of the new "Fusion Musical" Dusty (London's West End). Broadway: Associate Director Amazing Grace, Terrence McNally's Deuce, Mark Twain's Is He Dead? and Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit; Off-Broadway: Associate Director to Tina Landau on Iphigenia 2.0 and Tarell Alvin McCraney's Wig Out!. Recent/current projects include: Indian Joe by TONY nominee Elizabeth A. Davis (Goodspeed Musicals), Harold Pinter's A Kind of Alaska in celebration of Dr. Oliver Saks (a world premiere American Sign Language translation that wove three forms of ASL into the text), Edward Beck's Sweetened Water, Keith Hamilton Cobb's AUDELCO-winning American Moor (Shakespeare's Globe in London, August 2018), world premiere of Liza Birkenmeir's The Way out West. Weild is on the directing faculty of Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, holds an MFA in directing from Columbia University School of the Arts and a BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Member SDC.

One of the most renowned theatres in the country, Cherry Lane Theatre has produced a large succession of plays by leading writers from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Gertrude Stein, Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee and Harold Pinter. Under the artistic leadership of Angelina Fiordellisi since 1996, and currently under Seri Lawrence and Janio Marrero, Cherry Lane remains devoted to developing and producing new works for the stage through its various programs including the award-winning Mentor Project, which each year pairs established playwrights with emerging writers for a season of dramaturgy, rehearsal, casting and production. Cherry Lane Mentor Project just concluded its 20th Season, where it presented Kate Cortesi's A PATRON OF THE ARTS mentored by Anne Washburn and THE OPPORTUNITIES OF EXTINCTION by Sam Chanse, mentored by Migdalia Cruz.

Angelina Fiordellisi is Founding Artistic Director of Cherry Lane Theatre; Seri Lawrence and Janio Marrero are Co-Artistic Directors, Diane Alianiello is General Manager.

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