Chloe Sevigny-Led DOWNTOWN RACE RIOT, Jerry Springer Opera Highlight The New Group's 2017-18 Season

The New Group has announced four productions for its 2017-2018 Season.

The company's new season begins in Fall 2017 with the world premiere of Seth Zvi Rosenfeld's Downtown Race Riot, directed by Scott Elliott, featuring Chloë Sevigny. The New Group's season continues in Winter 2018 with the Off-Broadway premiere of Jerry Springer - The Opera, with music by Richard Thomas, book & lyrics by Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas and choreography by Joshua Bergasse, directed by John Rando; and the New York premiere of David Rabe's Good for Otto, directed by Scott Elliott, featuring Ed Harris and Amy Madigan. In Spring 2018, the company presents the world premiere of Lily Thorne's Peace for Mary Frances, directed by Lila Neugebauer, featuring Lois Smith.

Productions in The New Group's 2017-2018 Season take place at The Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street.

Subscriptions and memberships for The New Group's 2017-2018 season are available now. For subscription purchases and season info, visit www.thenewgroup.org. Subscriptions can also be purchased by calling Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200, or in person at 416 West 42nd Street (12-8pm daily).

---

Fall 2017:

Downtown Race Riot by Seth Zvi Rosenfeld. Directed by Scott Elliott. Featuring Chloë Sevigny; additional casting to be announced. World premiere production begins previews November 2017 in The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre (480 West 42nd Street).

On a hot late summer day in 1976, a mob of young men - all white except one - descended on Washington Square Park with pipes and bats, and attacked any people of color they could find. Seth Zvi Rosenfeld takes us back to that day, to the cramped Village apartment of Mary Shannon (Chloë Sevigny), a strung-out, free-wheeling single mom, as her son Pnut and his Haitian best friend Massive wrestle with their obligation to join the riot. The boys, torn between loyalty to each other and to the neighborhood, grasp for ways to keep the violence from destroying their friendship forever. A snapshot of a time not so different than today, when a new social freedom ran smack into the forces of reaction, and when the stakes were truly life and death. Scott Elliott directs this world premiere of Downtown Race Riot for The New Group, launching the company's 2017-2018 season.

This marks a return to The New Group for Seth Zvi Rosenfeld. Previously, the company presented the world premiere productions of his works The Flatted Fifth, directed by Jo Bonney (1997) and Everythings Turning Into Beautiful, directed by Carl Forsman (2006). This production also represents the third collaboration for Chloë Sevigny and director Scott Elliott. Earlier, she appeared in The New Group's Hazelwood Jr. High (1998) and What the Butler Saw (2000), both directed by Scott Elliott.

Winter 2018:

Jerry Springer - The Opera. Music by Richard Thomas; Book & Lyrics by Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas. Choreography by Joshua Bergasse. Directed by John Rando. Casting to be announced. Off-Broadway premiere production begins previews January 2018 in TheRomulus Linney Courtyard Theatre (480 West 42nd Street).

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! It's "The Jerry Springer Show" as you've never seen it before, with passionate arias, soaring ballads, and giant production numbers. While the studio audience cheers, a parade of bickering guests fight and curse, until violence breaks out and Jerry must face his trickiest guest ever.... Deeply in tune with the chaos and unrestrained id of our times, Jerry Springer - The Opera, a gleefully profane musical by Richard Thomas (Music, Book, Lyrics) and Stewart Lee (Book) is an outrageous celebration of our national ritual of public humiliation and redemption. Jerry Springer - The Opera, winner of numerous awards including an Olivier Award for best new musical, will have its Off-Broadway premiere in this production from The New Group, directed by John Rando and choreographed by Joshua Bergasse.

Jerry Springer - The Opera premiered at the National Theatre in London directed by Stewart Lee (April 29 - September 30, 2003), and played on the West End at the Cambridge Theatre (October 14, 2003 - February 19, 2005).

Winter 2018:

Good for Otto by David Rabe. Directed by Scott Elliott. Featuring Ed Harris and Amy Madigan; additional casting to be announced. New York premiere production begins previews February 2018 in The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre (480 West 42nd Street).

Through the microcosm of a rural Connecticut mental health center, Tony Award-winning playwright David Rabe conjures a whole American community on the edge. Like their patients and their families, Dr. Michaels (Ed Harris), his colleague Evangeline (Amy Madigan) and the clinic itself teeter between breakdown and survival, wielding dedication and humanity against the cunning, inventive adversary of mental illness, to hold onto the need to fight - and to live. Inspired by a real clinic, Rabe finds humor and compassion in a raft of richly drawn characters adrift in a society and a system stretched beyond capacity. Scott Elliott directs an ensemble cast of fourteen in this New York premiere of Good for Otto for TheNew Group.

This marks a return for playwright David Rabe to The New Group. Earlier, The New Group presented widely acclaimed revivals of David Rabe's Hurlyburly and Sticks and Bones, both directed by Scott Elliott; and the world premiere of An Early History of Fire, directed by Jo Bonney. Additionally, Ed Harris and Amy Madigan return to The New Group with this production. Previously, they appeared at The New Group in theacclaimed Off-Broadway productions of Beth Henley's The Jacksonian, directed by Robert Falls, and Sam Shepard's Buried Child, directed by Scott Elliott. Ed Harris and Amy Madigan also appeared on the West End, in the London production of The New Group's Buried Child.

Good for Otto premiered at the Gift Theatre in Chicago, directed by Michael Patrick Thornton (October 5, 2015 - February 7, 2016).

Spring 2018:

Peace for Mary Frances by Lily Thorne. Directed by Lila Neugebauer. Featuring Lois Smith; additional casting to be announced. World premiere production begins previews May 2018 in The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre (480 West 42nd Street).

Mary Frances (Lois Smith) has lived a good life; she's ninety years old and ready to die. Born to refugees fleeing the Armenian genocide, her last wish is to die peacefully at home surrounded by her family. Her dream collides with reality as three generations of explosive women flood her small New England home to battle for their family's legacy. Mary Frances must navigate the volatile relationships of the children she raised -- or die trying. Lois Smith stars as a tenacious survivor, struggling to break the bonds that tie her to this life. Directed by Lila Neugebauer, Lily Thorne's Peace for Mary Frances is a wrenching and caustically funny portrait of an American family in crisis.

---

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Joshua Bergasse (Choreographer, Jerry Springer - The Opera). As a Choreographer, Broadway credits include: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, On the Town (Tony, Drama Desk, OCC nominations; Astaire Award) and Gigi. His Off-Broadway credits include: Sweet Charity (The NewGroup - Lortel nomination), Cagney (Drama Desk, OCC, Astaire nominations; Callaway Finalist); The Bomb-itty of Errors and Captain Louie. Encores!: The Golden Apple, Little Me and It's A Bird... It's A Plane... It's Superman!. Carnegie Hall: Guys and Dolls and The Sound of Music. As Dir/Choreo: Hazel (Drury Lane), West Side Story (NCT). As Co-Dir/Choreo: Bombshell on Broadway (Minskoff Theater); Television: Smash (NBC - Emmy Award), So You Think You Can Dance (FOX) and Sinatra; A Voice for a Century (PBS).

Scott Elliott (Director, Downtown Race Riot / Good for Otto) is an award-winning stage director, filmmaker and the founding Artistic Director of TheNew Group, where he most recently directed the world premiere of Hamish Linklater's The Whirligig and the U.S. premiere of Wallace Shawn's Evening at the Talk House. Other recent New Group credits include the twice-extended hit production of Sam Shepard's Buried Child, with Taissa Farmiga, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Larry Pine, Rich Sommer, Paul Sparks and Nat Wolff; the critically-acclaimed Mercury Fur by Philip Ridley and the world premiere of The Spoils by Jesse Eisenberg. Also at The New Group, he has directed works by Thomas Bradshaw, Ayub Khan Din, Francine Volpe, Erika Sheffer, Tommy Nohilly, Joe Orton, Mike Leigh, David Rabe and Wallace Shawn. Recently, he directed the acclaimed European premieres of two New Group productions at London's Trafalagar Studios: Jesse Eisenberg's The Spoils, followed by Sam Shepard's Buried Child, presented Lisa Matlin and Adam Speers for Ambassador Theatre Group.

Ed Harris ("Dr. Michaels" / Good for Otto) starred as the enigmatic 'Man in Black" in last year's HBO series sensation, Westworld, and will star in theupcoming season. In 2016, Harris completed filming on Kodachrome with Jason Sudeikis and Elizabeth Olson for director Mark Raso, Mother! for director Darren Aronofsky and Dean Devlin's sci-fi feature, Geostorm. Harris made his feature film directing debut on Pollock, receiving an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor for his performance in the title role. His co-star, Marcia Gay Harden, won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar under his direction. Harris also directed, as well as co-wrote Appaloosa, starring opposite Viggo Mortensen. His film credits include, A History of Violence (Natl. Society of Film Critics Award), The Hours (Oscar, Golden Globe, SAG and BAFTA nominations), The Truman Show (Oscar nomination, Golden Globe Award), Apollo 13 (Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, SAG Award), In Dubious Battle, Run All Night, Frontera, TheFace of Love, The Way Back, Copying Beethoven, The Right Stuff, The Abyss, The Rock, The Human Stain, A Beautiful Mind, Stepmom, The Firm, Places in the Heart, Alamo Bay, Sweet Dreams, Jacknife, State of Grace, The Third Miracle, Touching Home and Victor Nunez's A Flash of Green. Harris won a Golden Globe Award for "Best Supporting Actor," along with Emmy and SAG nominations, for his portrayal of John McCain in the Jay Roach-directed Game Change for HBO. He starred with Paul Newman in the HBO miniseries Empire Falls, for which he received Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG "Best Actor" nominations. His other television credits include The Last Innocent Man, Running Mates, Paris Trout and Riders of the Purple Sage, for which he and his wife Amy Madigan, as co-producers and co-stars, were presented with the Western Heritage Wrangler Award for "Outstanding Television Feature Film." Harris and his wife Amy Madigan made their West End debut this past November in the London production of Sam Shepard's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Buried Child. This revival production originated on stage in Manhattan at The New Group, directed by Scott Elliott. Harris received rave reviews for his performance and an Olivier nomination in the UK. In 2012, at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, Harris starred with Amy Madigan, Bill Pullman and Glenne Headley in the world premiere of playwright Beth Henley's The Jacksonian, directed by Robert Falls. He reprised that role to critical acclaim in the play's 2014 New York premiere for The New Group. Harris received both an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination ("Outstanding Solo Performance") and a Lucille Lortel Award nomination ("Outstanding Solo Show") for the Off-Broadway production of Wrecks at The Public Theater. He originated the role, with writer/director Neil LaBute, for the play's world premiere at the Everyman Palace Theatre in Cork, Ireland and won the 2010 LA Drama Critics Circle Award for "Best Solo Performance" for the production of Wrecks at the Geffen Playhouse. His theater credits include: Ronald Harwood's Taking Sides, Sam Shepard's plays Fool for Love (Obie), and Simpatico (Lucille Lortel Award for "Best Actor"), George Furth's Precious Sons (Drama Desk Award, Tony Nomination), Prairie Avenue, Scar, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Grapes of Wrath and Sweet Bird of Youth.

Stewart Lee (Bookwriter, Lyricist / Jerry Springer - The Opera) was Born in Shropshire in 1968. He began writing and performing stand-up at theage of 20, having been inspired, as an impressionable teenager, by seeing the post-punk anti-comic Ted Chippington open for The Fall in Birmingham in 1984. In 1990 he won the Hackney Empire New Act Of The Year award and for the next five years contributed to various BBC Radio comedy shows, including Fist of Fun and On The Hour, with Steve Coogan and Chris Morris. He performed as a stand-up almost nightly on theLondon Comedy Club circuit throughout the '90s, and co-created two programs for BBC2 with Richard Herring. Stewart directed the Mighty Boosh's breakthrough Edinburgh show, Arctic Boosh (1999), Simon Munnery's Golden Rose Of Montreux nominated BBC2 show, Attention Scum, (2000), and a revival of Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio (Underbelly 2007). In 2001 he was invited to help write the libretto of, and direct, the composer Richard Thomas' developing work, Jerry Springer - The Opera, at Battersea Arts Centre. The show won four Olivier awards after its National Theatre run, though its commercial future was curtailed by the right wing pressure group, Christian Voice. Stewart's subsequent three stand-up tours, 2004's Stand-Up Comedian, 2005's 90s Comedian, and 2007's 41st Best Stand-Up Ever, consolidated his live audience and critical standing and contributed to BBC2's decision to commission his 2009 series, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. This was followed by the stand-up tours If You Prefer A Milder Comedian Please Ask For One (2009) and Carpet Remnant World (2011), and three more series of Comedy Vehicle for BBC2, thefourth airing in 2016. The second series won a BAFTA and two British Comedy Awards, though the same panels overlooked the superior third series, and all the series won Chortle awards. Stewart is also the author of the stand-up studies How I Escaped My Certain Fate (Faber and Faber 2010) and If You Prefer A Milder Comedian Please Ask For One (Faber and Faber 2012), and the theater pieces Pea Green Boat (Traverse/BAC 2002), What Would Judas Do? (Bush/BAC 2007), Johnson and Boswell, Late But Live (Traverse 2007) and Interiors (Manchester International Festival 2007, with Johnny Vegas and Rob Thirtle). He has hosted radio documentaries on Native American Clowns, Satanic music, free jazz, psychedelic pagan kids' TV, Radiophonics and Morris Dancing, and was the on-screen interviewer in Antoine Prum's elegant improvised music documentary, Taking The Dog For A Walk (2014). Stewart is a patron of the arts radio station Resonance 104.4 FM, has written on music for TheWire, Bucketful Of Brains, Uncut and Mojo, and performs in an irregular trio interpreting John Cage's Indeterminacy with Steve Beresford and Tania Chen. He won Celebrity Mastermind answering questions on the guitarist Derek Bailey, pedalled a swan pedalo in Andrew Kötting and Iain Sinclair's film Swandown (2012), and recently performed a folk song on a Shirley Collins tribute album. He is also the voice of a Tarantula spider in an exhibit at London Zoo.

Amy Madigan ("Evangeline" / Good for Otto), a critically-acclaimed actress of film, television and stage, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the feature film Twice In A Lifetime. Madigan can be seen next in the independent film, Stuck, with Giancarlo Esposito. She just completed shooting The Burning Woman with Sienna Miller and AaRon Paul as well as The Last Full Measure with Samuel L. Jackson. She also starred as art patroness Peggy Guggenheim in Pollock. Additional feature film credits include Frontera, Sweetwater, TheLifeguard, Gone Baby Gone, Winter Passing, Loved, Female Perversions, The Dark Half, Uncle Buck, Field of Dreams, Nowhere to Hide, Streets Of Fire, Love Letters and Alamo Bay. On television, Madigan starred in Neil LaBute's "Ten x Ten" for DirecTV. She recurred on J.J. Abrams' "Fringe" and ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" as Seattle Grace's resident psychiatrist. In addition to starring on the HBO series "Carnivàle," Madigan received a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination for her performance in the telefilm "Roe vs. Wade." She also starred in Lifetime's telefilm "Living Proof." Additional telefilm credits include Lifetime's "And Then There Was One," "Shot in the Heart," HBO's "The Laramie Project," "Riders of thePurple Sage," Robert Altman's "The Laundromat," "Victims," "In The Name of the People," "Having Our Say," "A Bright Shining Lie," "Lucky Day," "The Revolt of Mother" and "The Day After." On stage, Madigan recently made her West End debut with Sam Shepard's Buried Child, which originated at The New Group (NY). She also starred in the critically-acclaimed productions of Beth Henley's The Jacksonian at The New Group(NY) and the Geffen Playhouse (LA). Other theater credits include Broadway's A Streetcar Named Desire, Mark Taper Forum's A Lie of the Mind, Manhattan Theatre Club's The Lucky Spot, Los Angeles Theatre Center's Stevie Wants To Play The Blues, LA's Prairie Avenue and Strasberg Theatre's production of In the Boom Boom Room. Madigan directed the West Coast premiere of Off the King's Road at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles.

Lila Neugebauer (Director, Peace for Mary Frances) is an Obie, Drama Desk and Princess Grace Award winning director. Recent directing: Annie Baker's The Antipodes; Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Everybody; Albee's The Sandbox, Fornes' Drowning, and Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro (as an evening, Signature Plays); A.R. Gurney's The Wayside Motor Inn (all at Signature Theatre); Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves (The Playwrights Realm, New York Stage & Film); Abe Koogler's Kill Floor (Lincoln Center Theater); Mike Bartlett's An Intervention (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Amy Herzog's After The Revolution, 4000 Miles (Baltimore Center Stage); Zoe Kazan's Trudy and Max in Love, Eliza Clark's Future Thinking (South Coast Rep); Lucas Hnath's Red Speedo (Studio Theatre); Dan LeFranc's Troublemaker (Berkeley Rep); Partners, O Guru Guru Guru (Humana Festival); Annie Baker's The Aliens (San Francisco Playhouse, Studio Theatre). As co-artistic director of The Mad Ones, Neugebauer conceives and directs ensemble-devised work, including Miles for Mary, Samuel & Alasdair: A Personal History of the Robot War and The Essential Straight and Narrow. Drama League alum, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, Ensemble Studio Theatre member, New Georges Affiliated Artist, New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect.

David Rabe (Playwright, Good for Otto) was born in Dubuque, Iowa, where he lived through his college years, studying creative writing under Reverend Ray Roseliep, a renowned poet. His first professionally produced plays were in New York, a Vietnam Quartet starting in 1971: The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, Sticks and Bones, The Orphan, and Streamers. All were produced by Joseph Papp. In the Boom Boom Room followed, as did Hurlyburly, Goose and Tom Tom, Those the River Keeps, A Question of Mercy, The Dog Problem, The Black Monk adapted from Chekov, Cosmologies, An Early History of Fire Good For Otto and Visiting Edna. His rewarding relationship with The New Group and Scott Elliott began with a Hurlyburly revival followed by An Early History of Fire and the recent Sticks and Bones. Four of his plays have received four Tony nominations. He has received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and an Obie award; the Drama Desk, John Gassner Outer Critics, the New York Drama Critics Circle awards, and three times won the Elizabeth Hull-Kate Warriner Drama Guild Award. His fiction includes the book of stories A Primitive Heart, and the novels Recital of the Dog, Dinosaurs on the Roof and Girl by the Road at Night. He has three children, Jason, Lily and Michael.

John Rando (Director, Jerry Springer - The Opera). Broadway credits include On the Town (Tony Nomination for Best Direction of a Musical), Penn & Teller on Broadway, A Christmas Story, The Wedding Singer, Urinetown (Tony and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Director), A Thousand Clowns and Neil Simon's The Dinner Party. His recent Off-Broadway credits include Lives of the Saints (Primary Stages), The Heir Apparent (2014 SDCF Calloway Award for Direction - Classic Stage Company), All in the Timing (Primary Stages - 2013 Obie Award for Direction) and The Toxic Avenger, among many others. Recent regional credits include Pirates of Penzance (Barrington Stage Company) and Big Sky (Geffen Playhouse). He directed the Encores! productions of The New Yorkers, Annie Get Your Gun, Little Me, It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, On the Town, Damn Yankees, Face the Music, Strike Up the Band, Do Re Mi, The Pajama Game and Of Thee I Sing. He also directed the staged performance of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel at the New York Philharmonic.

Seth Zvi Rosenfeld (Playwright, Downtown Race Riot). Seth Zvi Rosenfeld's previous collaborations with The New Group include The Flatted Fifth (1997) and Everythings Turning into Beautiful (2006). His play Downtown Race Riot received a developmental production at NYS&F. Seth credits a youth cemented to a loud corner on Amsterdam Avenue with setting his imagination afire. His plays are often his sincere attempts to recreate those sights and sounds. His plays include: The Writing on the Wall, written in 1986, produced by Westbeth Theater Company; Servy-n-Bernice 4ever (Provincetown Playhouse); A Passover Story, commissioned by the late Joseph Papp for The Public Theater; The Black Eyed Brothers, which Seth directed (winner of the Samuel French short play award); and A Brother's Kiss and After the Marching Stopped with Anastasia Traina at Intar. The tiny plays La Familia, My Starship and PS: I'm glad you sent your hair were done at Naked Angels and the Hip-Hop Theater Festival. His play Handball was developed at NYS&F and produced by UTM and Central Park Summerstage. Seth's film and TV credits include writing several episodes and acting as co-executive producer on the first two parts of Baz Luhrmann's Netflix series The Get Down. He's developed shows for most of the major networks and premium cable stations and script doctored and developed screenplays for most of the major studios. He wrote the Tri-Star film Sunset Park. He wrote and directed the films A Brother's Kiss and King of the Jungle both adaptations of his stage plays. He wrote and directed a segment of Subway Stories for HBO. He co-wrote and directed the groundbreaking internet series We Deliver for Palm Pictures and Sputnik 7 in 2000. He served as a Writer/Producer on the HBO series How to Make it in America for two seasons.

Chloë Sevigny ("Mary" / Downtown Race Riot). Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actress, will be seen in several movies in the coming months including The Dinner, Beatriz at Dinner, The Snowman, Golden Exits and Lizzie, as well as the Netflix series Bloodline. She made her directorial debut on the short film Kitty, which made an extremely successful debut in the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and has just made her second foray into directing with another short film entitled Carmen. Sevigny made her film debut in the lead role of "Jennie" in thecontroversial Kids, directed by Larry Clark and written by Harmony Korine. For her performance as "Lana Tisdel" in Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry, Sevigny received nominations for an Academy Award®, a Golden Globe®, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as winning an Independent Spirit Award, the Los Angeles Film Critics Award, the Boston Film Critics Award, Chicago Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics and a Golden Satellite Award. She makes her home in New York.

Lois Smith ("Mary Frances" / Peace for Mary Frances). This world premiere by Lily Thorne is Lois Smith's first play at The New Group. JorDan Harrison's Marjorie Prime and Annie Baker's John are her most recent times appearing on the New York stage, something she started doing decades ago. She will appear in a film version of Marjorie Prime this season, and in Ladybird, a film written and directed by Greta Gerwig. Many awards over many years - now they're starting to be called "Lifetime Achievement."

Richard Thomas (Composer, Bookwriter, Lyricist / Jerry Springer - The Opera) is an Olivier-award winning composer and writer and is best known for writing and composing Jerry Springer - The Opera, the first-ever musical to win all four British 'Best Musical' awards. The show was co-written with Stewart Lee and ran for 609 performances in London (National Theatre, Cambridge Theatre) and a UK national tour and continues to be performed regularly around the world including notable productions at Carnegie Hall, US and Sydney Opera House, Australia. He also wrote thelyrics for the musical adaptation of Made in Dagenham, which opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London's West End in 2014. The show was written for Stage Entertainment with David Arnold and Richard Bean. Richard began his career as a comedian and television composer working with comedians including Frank Skinner, David Baddiel and Harry Hill and is also known for his BBC2 television series Kombat Opera Presents... which consisted of five half-hour musicals based around existing television programmes and which won two Rose D'Or awards in 2008 for Best Comedy and Best Programme across all categories. He has also written songs for two seasons of Tracey Ullman's sketch show (BBC1/HBO). Other notable work includes the two-act dance show Shoes (Sadlers Wells/West End), the libretto for 2011 smash-hit opera Anna Nicole (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; BAM, New York), the critically-acclaimed Tourettes Diva which has been performed in the USA, Australia and Europe, a two act musical set in a British Comedy Club entitled The Ha Ha Hole, a choral piece entitled Earth, Wind and Choir, and The Anger Demon for Copenhagen Opera House. He is currently working on a new musical which he had been developing with the National Theatre and continues to write choral commissions and one-off commissions for groups around the world.

Lily Thorne (Playwright, Peace for Mary Frances) is currently a student in Brooklyn College's MFA playwriting program. Thorne was a documentary film producer for many years, working with filmmakers Ric Burns (New York: A Documentary Film, Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film), Alexandra Shiva (Bombay Eunuch, Stagedoor) and Bennett Miller. She also co-directed a music video for Bright Eyes ("Easy/Lucky/Free") and collaborated with the people's historian Howard Zinn. Peace for Mary Frances marks her playwriting debut.

The New Group (Scott Elliott, Artistic Director; Adam Bernstein, Executive Director) is an award-winning, artist-driven company with a commitment to developing and producing powerful, contemporary theater. While constantly evolving, the company strives to maintain an ensemble approach to all its work and an articulated style of emotional immediacy in its productions. In this way, The New Group seeks a theater that is adventurous, stimulating and most importantly "now," a true forum for the present culture.

The New Group's 2016-2017 season launched with Sweet Charity, choreographed by Joshua Bergasse, directed by Leigh Silverman and starring Sutton Foster, which enjoyed three extensions and received Drama Desk, Drama League and Lucille Lortel Award nominations for Outstanding Revival; and continued with the recent U.S. premiere of Wallace Shawn's Evening at the Talk House, directed by Scott Elliott, featuring Matthew Broderick, Jill Eikenberry, John Epperson, Larry Pine, Wallace Shawn, Claudia Shear, Annapurna Sriram and Michael Tucker; the world premiere of All the Fine Boys, written and directed by Erica Schmidt, with Abigail Breslin, Isabelle Fuhrman, Joe Tippett and Alex Wolff; and the world premiere of Hamish Linklater's The Whirligig, directed by Scott Elliott, with Noah Bean, Norbert Leo Butz, Jon DeVries, Alex Hurt, Zosia Mamet, Jonny Orsini, Grace Van Patten and Dolly Wells.

In summer 2016, The New Group was represented in the West End by the acclaimed production of Jesse Eisenberg's The Spoils, and more recently, by the company's hit production of Sam Shepard's Buried Child, starring Ed Harris and Amy Madigan (November 14, 2016 - March 4, 2017). For his performance, Ed Harris received a 2017 Olivier Award nomination in the Best Actor category. Director Scott Elliott helmed both productions at London's Trafalgar Studios, presented by Lisa Matlin and Adam Speers for Ambassador Theatre Group.

The New Group's 2015-2016 Season featured the Off-Broadway premiere of Philip Ridley's Mercury Fur, directed by Scott Elliott; Steve, the world premiere of a play by Mark Gerrard, directed by Cynthia Nixon; Sam Shepard's Buried Child, directed by Scott Elliott, with Taissa Farmiga, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Larry Pine, Rich Sommer, Paul Sparks and Nat Wolff; and the New York premiere of Justin Kuritzkes' The Sensuality Party, performed at college campuses across all five boroughs of New York City.

Notable productions include David Rabe's Sticks and Bones, with Holly Hunter and Bill Pullman; Joel Drake Johnson's Rasheeda Speaking, with Tonya Pinkins and Dianne Wiest, helmed by Cynthia Nixon; Jesse Eisenberg's The Spoils, with Jesse Eisenberg and Kunal Nayyar; Ecstasy, This is Our Youth, Aunt Dan and Lemon, Hurlyburly, Abigail's Party, Rafta, Rafta..., The Starry Messenger, A Lie of the Mind, Blood From a Stone, Marie and Bruce, The Jacksonian, Intimacy and many more. The company has received more than 100 awards and nominations for excellence. TheNew Group is a recipient of the 2004 Tony® Award for Best Musical (Avenue Q). In 2011, The Kid received five Drama Desk nominations and theOuter Critics Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical. That year, The New Group and Scott Elliott were honored with a Drama Desk Special Award "for presenting contemporary new voices, and for uncompromisingly raw and powerful productions."

The Pershing Square Signature Center, the permanent home of Signature Theatre, is a three-theatre facility on West 42nd Street designed by Frank Gehry Architects to host Signature's three distinct playwrights' residencies and foster a cultural community. The Center is a major contribution to New York City's cultural landscape and provides a venue for cultural organizations that supports and encourages collaboration among artists throughout the space. In addition to its three intimate theatres, the Center features a Studio Theatre, rehearsal studio, a bookstore, and theSignature Café + Bar, open to the public from noon-midnight Tuesdays-Sundays.