Corthron's 'A COOL DIP IN THE BARREN SAHARAN CRICK' Completes Playwrights Horizon's 2009/2010 Season
By: Eddie Varley Jun. 04, 2009
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Playwrights Horizons, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tim Sanford and Managing Director Leslie Marcus, proudly announces the sixth and final production of its upcoming 2009/2010 Season, as well as additional casting. Presented at the theater company's home at 416 West 42nd Street, the new production will be:
A COOL DIP IN THE BARREN SAHARAN CRICK - the World Premiere of a new play by Playwrights Horizons alumna Kia Corthron (Breath, Boom at Playwrights Horizons, Force Continuum), directed by Obie Award winner Chay Yew (Durango at The Public). A co-production with The Play Company (Kate Loewald, Founding Producer) and Culture Project (Allan Buchman, Artistic Director).
Additional Season casting has been announced for two productions:
Obie Award winner Eisa Davis (Passing Strange, seen this past season in her own play Angela's Mix Tape as part of the Hip-Hop Theater Festival), Glenn Fitzgerald (Lortel nomination for Lobby Hero at Playwrights Horizons, Brian Darling on ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money") and Louis Cancelmi (The Singing Forest, Blasted) join Parker Posey (Lortel Award for Hurlyburly and Lortel nomination for Fifth of July, over 50 films including Superman Returns, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, The House of Yes) in THIS, the World Premiere of a new play by Obie Award winner Melissa James Gibson (Suitcase, [sic]), directed by Obie Award winner Daniel Aukin ([sic], eight seasons as Artistic Director of Soho Rep).
Obie Award winner Reed Birney (last season's The Savannah Disputation at Playwrights Horizons, Blasted, "Gossip Girl"), Tony Award nominee Peter Friedman (Ragtime, Playwrights Horizons' The Heidi Chronicles, 2009 Drama Desk nomination for Body Awareness) and Obie Award winner Deirdre O'Connell (Manic Flight Reaction at Playwrights Horizons, Drama Desk nomination for Love and Anger) join the cast of CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION, the World Premiere of a new play by Annie Baker (Body Awareness at Atlantic Theater Company), directed by Sam Gold (Rag and Bone at Rattlestick, The Black Eyed at New York Theatre Workshop).
Additional casting information will be announced in the coming months. Bios and production details for all six productions of the 2009/2010 Season can be found starting on page 3 of this release.Subscriptions to Playwrights Horizons' 2009/2010 season are now available in 6-show (four Mainstage productions and two productions in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater) or 4-show (four Mainstage productions) packages. Packages include "Silver Pass" (6-show with additional benefits, $330-335), "Anytime" (6-show $260-265, 4-show $195-200), "Matinees" (6-show $240-245, 4-show $175-180), "Previews and Sunday Nights" (6-show $225-230, 4-show $160-165), "Patron" (two 6-show packages with exclusive benefits, $1250), "FlexPass" (6 tickets $270-275, 4 tickets $200-205), "30&Under FlexPass" (6 tickets $120, 4 tickets $80) and "Student FlexPass" (6 tickets, $60, 4 tickets $40). In addition to discounts on all Mainstage season attractions, subscribers receive priority seating, ticket exchange privileges, parking and dining discounts, and exclusive mailings of Playwrights Horizons Bulletins.
Playwrights Horizons, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tim Sanford and Managing Director Leslie Marcus, is a writer's theater dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American Playwrights, composers and lyricists, and to the production of their new work. In its 38 years, Playwrights Horizons has presented the work of more than 375 writers and has received numerous awards and honors, most recently being honored with a special 2008 Drama Desk Award for "ongoing support to generations of theater artists and undiminished commitment to producing new work." Notable productions include four Pulitzer Prize winners: Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife (2004 Tony Award, Best Play), Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles (1989 Tony Award, Best Play), Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George, as well as Doug Wright, Scott Frankel and Michael Korie's Grey Gardens (three 2007 Tony Awards), Craig Lucas's Prayer For My Enemy and Small Tragedy (2004 Obie Award, Best American Play), Adam Rapp's Kindness, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's Assassins, Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone, Bruce Norris's The Pain and the Itch, Lynn Nottage's Fabulation (2005 Obie Award for Playwriting), Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero, David Greenspan's She Stoops to Comedy (2003 Obie Award), Kirsten Childs's The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (2000 Obie Award), Richard Nelson and Shaun Davey's James Joyce's The Dead, William Finn's March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, Christopher Durang's Betty's Summer Vacation and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, Richard Nelson's Goodnight Children Everywhere and Franny's Way, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's Once on This Island, Jon Robin Baitz's The Substance of Fire, Scott McPherson's Marvin's Room, A.R. Gurney's Later Life, Adam Guettel and Tina Landau's Floyd Collins and Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley's Violet.
Playwrights Horizons' season productions are generously supported by The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.
Playwrights Horizons is supported in part by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate. In addition, Playwrights Horizons receives major support from Carnegie Corporation of New York, Charina Endowment Fund, The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The Shubert Foundation and Time Warner Inc.
Playwrights Horizons' 2009/2010 SEASON
THE RETRIBUTIONISTS
World Premiere of a new play by Daniel Goldfarb
Directed by Leigh Silverman
Previews begin Friday, August 21, 2009
Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theater (416 West 42nd Street)
"My love, this is more than retribution. This is idealism."
Spring 1946. The plan was simple - a German for every Jew. Its execution would be swift, clean, its impact undeniable. In this daring, new romantic thriller inspired by actual events, a band of Jewish freedom fighters attempts to avenge a society's wrongs - if only they can keep from tearing each other apart along the way.Daniel Goldfarb (Playwright). New York: Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me on Broadway; Modern Orthodox at New World Stages; Sarah, Sarah at Manhattan Theater Club; Adam Baum and the Jew Movie at Blue Light Theater Company (2000 NY Newsday Oppenheimer Award, 2003 Canadian Authors Association Award for Best Play, 2000 Dramatist's Guild Hull-Warriner Award Finalist). Regional: Party Come Here at Williamstown Theatre Festival; Jerry Christmas at New York Stage and Film; Long Wharf, CanStage, etc. He is writing the book for Radio Girl, the musical adaptation of the Shirley Temple film Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, with Henry Krieger and Susan Birkenhead. Commissions: Manhattan Theatre Club, Roundabout Theatre Company, South Coast Repertory Theatre. Grants: AT&T Onstage, Lincoln Center Lecomte du Nouy Foundation, The Jerome Foundation, NEA. Film/Television: pilots for Showtime and CBS; screenplays for HBO, Chicago Films, Bureau of Moving Pictures. Education: The Juilliard School, NYU (BFA, MFA - now teaches playwriting there). Member: The Dramatist's Guild, WGA, MCC's Playwrights Coalition.
Leigh Silverman (Director) last worked at Playwrights Horizons directing Tanya Barfield's Blue Door (Audelco nomination for Best Director). Broadway: Lisa Kron's Well. Off-Broadway credits include Stephin Merritt & David Greenspan's upcoming new musical Coraline (this May at MCC Theatre), Liz Flahive's From Up Here (Manhattan Theatre Club, Drama Desk nomination); David Henry Hwang's Yellow Face (co-production Center Theatre Group/The Public Theater); Beebo Brinker Chronicles (Hourglass Group/37 Arts); Brooke Berman's Hunting and Gathering (Primary Stages); Well (The Public Theater, The Huntington Theater and ACT, San Francisco); Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Second Stage Theatre); The Five Lesbian Brothers' Oedipus At Palm Springs (New York Theatre Workshop); Eve Ensler's The Treatment (The Culture Project); Neena Beber's Jump/Cut (Woolly Mammoth Theatre/Theater J and Women's Project); and Big Times (W.E.T.). West End: Wit (Vaudeville Theatre). Other recent regional productions include The Road to Mecca (Seattle Repertory Theatre); Tanya Barfield's Of Equal Measure (Center Theatre Group) and Blue Door (Seattle Repertory Theater). Upcoming projects include Lisa Kron's 5 Questions and Heidi Schreck's Creature.
CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION
World Premiere of a new play by Annie Baker
Featuring Reed Birney, Peter Friedman and Deirdre O'Connell
Directed by Sam Gold
Playwrights Horizons Peter Jay Sharp Theater (416 West 42nd Street)
"If. I. Wanted. To. Become. An. Actress. I. Would. Just. Go. Home."
When four lost New Englanders enrolled in Marty's (Deirdre O'Connell) community center drama class experiment with harmless games, hearts are quietly torn apart and tiny wars of epic proportions are waged and won. Annie Baker's new comedy is a beautifully crafted diorama, a petri dish in which we see, with terrific detail and clarity, the hilarious sadness of a motley quintet.
Annie Baker (Playwright) full-length plays include Body Awareness (Atlantic Theater Company, Time Out New York's Top Ten Plays of 2008, 2008 GLAAD Media Award Nomination), Nocturama, The End of the Middle Ages and The Aliens. Her work has been developed and workshopped at Soho Rep, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, MCC, the Atlantic Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Ontological-Hysteric, Ars Nova, the Wilma, the Lark, the Magic Theatre, the 2007 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the 2008 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab and the 2008 Sundance Institute Playwrights Retreat in Ucross, Wyoming. Recent projects include a workshop of Nocturama at the Cape Cod Theatre Project and summer residencies for Circle Mirror
Transformation at New York Theatre Workshop and the Sundance Theatre Lab. Annie is a member of MCC's Playwrights Coalition and Ars Nova's Play Group, a former member of EST's Youngblood and the 06/07 Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and a 2008 Time Warner Storytelling Fellow. She has an MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College.
Sam Gold (Director) most recently directed Nick Jones's Jollyship the Whizbang which, after a successful run at Ars Nova, is receiving a commercial transfer that will open in Summer 2009. Other recent credits include Anne Carson's translation of Electra (Williams College), Noah Haidle's Rag and Bone (Rattlestick), Sam Marks's The Joke (Studio Dante), Betty Shamieh's The Black Eyed (New York Theatre Workshop), Colin McKenna's The Secret Agenda of Trees (Cherry Lane), Rogelio Martinez's Fizz (The Ohio Theatre), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (The Hangar Theatre), Joanna Laurens's The Three Birds (GAle GAtes), and Betty Shamieh's Chocolate in Heat (The Tank). Sam is the Resident Director at the Juilliard School, where his credits include Beau Willimon's War Story, Twelfth Night, Suddenly Last Summer, Willimon's Farragut North, Suzan-Lori Parks's In the Blood, and Marlowe's Edward II for the Juilliard Centennial Tour (REDCAT, LA/Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago). From 2003 to 2006, Sam served as Dramaturg at The Wooster Group. He is a NYTW Usual Suspect, a Drama League Directing Fellow, a former Playwrights Horizons Directing Resident, a recipient of the Princess Grace Award and a graduate of The Juilliard Directing Program.
Reed Birney (Schultz) won a 2006 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Performance. He made his New York debut at Playwrights Horizons in 1976 in Gemini. He also appeared there in Herself As Lust (1982), An Imaginary Life (1994), The Butterfly Collection (2000), Pen (2006) and last season's The Savannah Disputation (2009). Other New York appearances include Blasted (Soho Rep); Stuff Happens (The Public, Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble); Our Leading Lady (MTC); Bug (Barrow Street); Loose Knit, The Family of Mann (Second Stage); The Common Pursuit (Promenade); Volunteer Man (Rattlestick); Bedfellows (Bat Theatre); and Minor Demons, The Exact Center of the Universe (Century Center). Regional includes The Lisbon Traviata (Seattle Rep) and the world premiere of Neil Simon's Hotel Suite (Walnut Street). TV work includes episodes of "Gossip Girl" and "Kings."
Peter Friedman (James) originated the role of Tateh in the musical Ragtime in Toronto, as well as on Broadway, receiving an Outer Critics Circle Award and Tony and Drama Desk award nominations. He last appeared at Playwrights Horizons in the original 1988 production of Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles, creating the role of Scoop. He earned a Drama Desk nomination and moved with the production to Broadway. Other original New York productions include Annie Baker's Body Awareness (Drama Desk nomination), Simon Gray's The Common Pursuit (Drama Desk nomination), Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Play, C.P. Taylor's And a Nightingale Sang and Emily Mann's Execution of Justice. He's also appeared in New York in Twelve Angry Men (Roundabout), The Tenth Man, The Loman Family Picnic, My Old Lady and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Encores!). His films include Spinning into Butter, Safe, Single White Female and Paycheck. On television he was a performer on "The Muppet Show" and a regular on "Brooklyn Bridge."
Deirdre O'Connell (Marty) was the recipient of the 2005 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Performing. She has previously appeared at Playwrights Horizons in Manic Flight Reaction, Spatter Pattern (or, How I Got Away With It) and Moe's Lucky Seven. Other New York stage credits include End Days (EST with Peter Friedman); Rag & Bone (Rattlestick for director Sam Gold); Fugue (Cherry Lane) The Dream Express (Joe's Pub); ‘Tis Pity She's a Whore (The Public); Approximating Mother, Etta Jenks (also in L.A., Drama-Logue Award), Tales of the Lost Formicans (Women's Project); The Front Page (Lincoln Center); A Lie of the Mind (Promenade); Love and Anger (NYTW, Drama Desk nomination) and Mud and Drowning (Signature). She won Drama-Logue and L.A. Critics awards for Stars in the Morning. Recent film: Synecdoche, New York; What Happened in Vegas.
THIS
World Premiere of a new play by Melissa James Gibson
Featuring Louis Cancelmi, Eisa Davis, Glenn Fitzgerald & Parker Posey
Directed by Daniel Aukin
Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theater (416 West 42nd Street)
"You know when you're in the middle of telling someone a story and mid-way through, you realize that your story isn't as good as you thought it was but it's too late to go back? I'm afraid my life is like that."
Everyone's worried about Jane (Parker Posey). Her husband's been dead a year. Her daughter is ten. Her poetry's lost its muse. Her friends aren't that happy either. Her married friends (including Eisa Davis) are struggling. Her gay friend (Glenn Fitzgerald) is lonely. And Jane's blind date with the French doctor (without borders) (Louis Cancelmi) is complicated. An unromantic comedy about the joys - and disappointments - of entering your forties.
Melissa James Gibson (Playwright). Plays include [sic] (Obie Award for playwriting, Kesselring Prize, The Best Plays of 2001-02); Suitcase or, those that resemble flies from a distance (NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, Rockefeller Foundation's Multi-Arts Production Fund); Brooklyn Bridge, with a song by Barbara Brousal (AT&T Onstage award); All Is Not (New York State Council on the Arts Theatre Artist Commission); and Current Nobody, a loose adaptation of Homer's Odyssey (2005 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist; 2006 Sundance Theatre Lab). Gibson's work has been produced at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Soho Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, and The Children's Theatre Company, as well as many other theaters, regionally and internationally. Currently, Gibson is working on commissions for Center Theatre Group and the Atlantic Theater Company. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Gibson has been a Jerome and MacDowell Colony Fellow, a recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and commissions from Playwrights Horizons, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, La Jolla Playhouse and The Children's Theatre Company/New Dramatists Playground program. [sic] and Suitcase are available through Dramatists Play Service. The complete text of Brooklyn Bridge appeared in the July/August 2005 issue of American Theatre. Gibson is a graduate of New Dramatists and the recipient of a 2006 Lucille Lortel Foundation Playwrights' Fellowship and a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship.
Daniel Aukin (Director) most recently directed the New York premiere of Back Back Back by Itamar Moses at Manhattan Theatre Club. Other recent credits include A View from the Bridge at Arena Stage, Melissa James Gibson's Current Nobody at Woolly Mammoth and Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine at La Jolla Playhouse, as well as a workshop of Rachel Axler's new play Smudge at the Eugene O'Neill Conference. As Artistic Director of Soho Rep, Daniel directed Mark Schultz's critically acclaimed Everything Will Be Done (World Premiere), Melissa James Gibson's [sic] (World Premiere, Obie Award for Direction), Quincy Long's The Year of the Baby (World Premiere), Mac Wellman's Cat's-Paw (World Premiere), Marie Irene Fornes' Molly's Dream (World Premiere), and Melissa James Gibson's Suitcase (also at La Jolla Playhouse). For other theaters: Alexandra Cunningham's No. 11 (Blue and White), Melissa James Gibson's Brooklyn Bridge at The Children's Theatre of Minneapolis and Mat Smart's The Hopper Collection at the Huntington Theatre. He is also developing a musical adaptation of the Jonathan Lethem novel The Fortress of Solitude with Michael Friedman (composer/lyricist) and Itamar Moses (book). During his tenure at Soho Rep., he strengthened the company's commitment to developing iconoclastic new plays. He commissioned over fifty new plays though the Writer/Director Lab and produced sixteen-full-length productions (including new plays by Adam Bock, The Flying Machine, Young Jean Lee, and Richard Maxwell). Accolades for this body of work include eight Obie awards, four Drama Desk Nominations, two Kesselring Prizes, and one Oppenheimer Award.
Parker Posey (Jane) last starred Off-Broadway in the acclaimed revival of Hurlyburly, for which she received a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actress and in Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July (a Lortel nomination for Lead Actress). She also starred in the Los Angeles premiere of John Patrick Shanley's Four Dogs and a Bone, directed by Lawrence Kasdan, and starred on Broadway opposite Matthew Broderick in Elaine May's Taller Than A Dwarf. Parker will next been seen in two films: Happy Tears starring opposite Demi Moore and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein and Warner Bros.' Spring Breakdown starring opposite Amy Poehler. She has appeared in over 50 films including the blockbuster Superman Returns, where she costarred as Kitty Kowalski, Lex Luthor's partner-in-crime. For her work, Parker has received numerous accolades, including Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award nominations. Films from her vast repertoire include four films with Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration), Zoe Cassavetes' Broken English (Independent Spirit Award nomination), Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity (Independent Spirit Award nomination), the CBS film Hell on Heels: The Battle of Mary Kay (Golden Globe nomination) opposite Shirley MacLaine, The Eye, The Sweetest Thing, The Anniversary Party, Scream 3,You've Got Mail, Suburbia, Dazed and Confused, Clockwatchers, The Daytrippers, The Event and four films with HAl Hartley (Amateur, Flirt, Henry Fool and Fay Grim). For her performance in The House of Yes, she received a Special Jury Prize at The Sundance Film Festival.
Louis Cancelmi (Jean-Pierre) appeared this past season in Craig Lucas's The Singing Forest at The Public. Broadway and West End: Vincent in Brixton. Other New York credits: Blasted, Philoktetes, Peninsula, Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen (Soho Rep); The Wooden Breeks (MCC); Too Much Memory (FringeNYC); Night Sings Its Songs (Culture Project); The Vortex (Innocent Theatre); Sincerity Forever (The Flea). Regional: A View from the Bridge, Death of a Salesman (Arena Stage); Love-Lies-Bleeding, UntilWeFindEachOther (Steppenwolf); The Drawer Boy (Paper Mill). Film: Kaleidoscope, Me Now You Now, Stay, Pursesnatcher, New Guy, Daughter of Arabia. Television: "Third Watch," "Law & Order."
Eisa Davis (Marell). Broadway: Passing Strange, The Violet Hour. Off-Broadway: Angela's Mix Tape (her own play based in part on the life of her aunt, activist Angela Davis, presented this past season at The Ohio Theatre by New Georges and Hip-Hop Theater Festival), Passing Strange (Obie Award), Belize, June and Jean in Concert.
Regional: Passing Strange, Intimate Apparel, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Valley Song, Sundance Theatre Lab, O'Neill. TV: "Damages," "The Wire," "Law & Order," "Soul Food." Film: Spike Lee's upcoming film adaptation of Passing Strange, Welcome to the Riley's opposite James Gandolfini, Robot Stories, The Architect, Confess, Happenstance. MFA: Actors Studio/New School, BA: Harvard. Member playwright of New Dramatists. Her album Something Else is available online and in Japan. Playwright: Bulrusher (2007 Pulitzer Prize finalist).
Glenn Fitzgerald (Alan) returns to Playwrights Horizons, where he starred in Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero (2001), which had a successful commercial transfer to The Houseman Theatre, and for which he was nominated for a Lortel Award. His other Theater credits include Jon Robin Baitz's Mizlansky/Zilinsky opposite Nathan Lane
(Manhattan Theatre Club), Tim Blake Nelson's The Grey Zone (MCC), Blue/Orange (Atlantic Theater Company), Tatjana in Color (Culture Project) and Hedda Gabler (New York Theatre Workshop). Glenn recently starred as Brian Darling in the ABC TV series "Dirty Sexy Money" during the show's two-season run. He got his first acting break in the cult classic film Flirting with Disaster by director David O. Russell. He would go on to appear in Lisa Krueger's Manny and Lo, Ang Lee's The Ice Storm, Boaz Yakin's A Price Above Rubies, M. Night Shamalyian's The Sixth Sense and Gus Van Sant's Finding Forester. Other Film credits include Series 7, The Believer, Tully, 40 Days and 40 Nights , Igby Goes Down, Buffalo Soldiers, Trust the Man and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Other Television includes "Six Feet Under," "Law & Order," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "Homicide," "New York Undercover" and "Wonderfalls."
CLYBOURNE PARK
World Premiere of a new play by Bruce Norris
Directed by Pam MacKinnon
Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theater (416 West 42nd Street)
"You can't live in a principle, can you? Gotta live in a house."
In 1958, a white family moves out. In 2008, a white family moves in. In the intervening years, Change overtakes a neighborhood, along with attitudes, inhabitants, and property values. Bruce Norris's pitch-black comedy takes on the issue of gentrification in our communities, leaving no stone unturned - and taking no prisoners - in the process.
Bruce Norris (Playwright) is an actor and writer whose plays include The Infidel (2000), Purple Heart (2002), We All Went Down to Amsterdam (2003), The Pain and the Itch (2004) and The Unmentionables (2006) all of which had their premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago. His newest play, titled A Parallelogram, will premiere there in 2010. The Pain and the Itch had its New York premiere at Playwrights Horizons in 2007. His work has also been produced at Lookingglass Theatre, Chicago (an adaptation of Joe Orton's Up Against It, 1994 and The Vanishing Twin, 1996), Philadelphia Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth Theatre (DC), The Royal Court Theatre (London) and The Galway Festival (Galway, Ireland). He is the recipient of the Whiting Foundation Prize for Drama (2006) as well as two Joseph Jefferson Awards (Chicago) for Best New Work, and the Kesselring Prize, Honorable Mention, for 2006. As an actor he can be seen in the films A Civil Action and The Sixth Sense, among others. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Pam MacKinnon (Director) recently directed Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance (Arena Stage), the World Premiere of Richard Greenberg's new play Our Mother's Brief Affair (South Coast Repertory), Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men (Intiman Theatre), Itamar Moses' The Four of Us (Manhattan Theatre Club, Old globe), Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Good Boys and True (Steppenwolf), the New York debut of Edward Albee's Peter and Jerry (Second Stage, world premiere at Second Stage), Bruce Norris' The Unmentionables (Woolly Mammoth), and the World Premieres of both John Fugelsang's All The Wrong Reasons (New York Theatre Workshop). Other credits include David Mamet's Romance and Edward Albee's The Play About the Baby (Goodman Theatre); Gina Gionfriddo's After Ashley (Philadelphia Theatre Company); Bach at Leipzig by Itamar Moses (NYTW); World Premiere productions of Alice the Magnet by Erin Courtney (Clubbed Thumb), Sheri Wilner's Father Joy (CATF and SPF) and Victor Lodato's 3F, 4F (Magic); Ann Marie Healy's Dearest Eugenia Haggis (CCTP); Yazmina Reza's LIFEx3 (Alley); Victor Lodato's Slay the Dragon (A.C.T.); Tina Howe's Water Music (EST); and the U.S. regional (Alley) and European (Vienna) premieres of Edward Albee's The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?. She works frequently with Clubbed Thumb, Inc., where she is an Affiliated Artist, and at New York Stage and Film on new play development. Pam is an alumna of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab, the Women's Project Directors' Forum, the Drama League Fall Production Fellowship and is a member of SSD&C.
A COOL DIP IN THE BARREN SAHARAN CRICK
World Premiere of a new play by Kia Corthron
Directed by Chay Yew
A co-production with The Play Company and the Culture Project
Playwrights Horizons Peter Jay Sharp Theater (416 West 42nd Street)
"Blood's thicker ‘n water."
When an African preacher-in-training is taken in by a family in the American South, he finds his calling in the broken lives around him. The town's water supply is depleted by drought, a young orphan is starved for guidance, and a mother and daughter are haunted by tragedy, but the relentlessly upbeat preacher determines to battle - however he can - the personal and political forces that threaten the ecology of his new home.
Kia Corthron's (Playwright) plays Breath, Boom; and Life By Asphyxiation were produced by Playwrights Horizons. Her plays, which also include Force Continuum, The Venus de Milo Is Armed, Slide Glide the Slippery Slope, Digging Eleven, Splash Hatch on the E Going Down, Seeking the Genesis, Light Raise the Roof, Wake Up Lou Riser and Come Down Burning, have also been produced by New York Theatre Workshop, Atlantic Theater Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, American Place Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Minneapolis's Children's Theatre Company, Mark Taper Forum, Goodman Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Baltimore's Center Stage, New York Stage and Film, Hartford Stage, Delaware Theatre Company and elsewhere. Currently she is the Playwrights Center McKnight National Resident. She's a council member of the Dramatists Guild, member of the Writers Guild and New Dramatists alumnus.
Chay Yew (Director) won an Obie Award for his direction of Julia Cho's Durango at The Public. He's also earned a Drama-Logue Award for Direction. His other Directing credits include productions at New York Theatre Workshop, Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Kennedy Center, Mark Taper Forum, Goodman Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, Huntington Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Cincinnati Playhouse, Empty Space, Portland Center Stage, Cornerstone Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, East West Players, National Asian American Theatre Company, Ma Yi Theatre Company, Gala Hispanic Theatre, Singapore Repertory Theatre, Smithsonian Institute, among others. His opera credits include the world premieres of Osvaldo Golijov and David Henry Hwang's Ainadamar (co-production with Tanglewood Music Center, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Los Angeles Philharmonic) and Rob Zuidam's Rage D'Amors (Tanglewood). An alumnus of New Dramatists, he serves on the Executive Board on the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and was the director of the Mark Taper Forum's Asian Theatre Workshop for 10 years. As a playwright, his works include Red, Porcelain, A Language of Their Own, Wonderland and A Beautiful Country.
THE BURNT PART BOYS
New York premiere of a new musical
Music by Chris Miller, Lyrics by Nathan Tysen, Book by Mariana Elder
Directed by Erica Schmidt
A co-production with Vineyard Theatre
Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theater (416 West 42nd Street)
"There's gonna be fire / There's gonna be noise / There's gonna be hell to pay."
RurAl West Virginia, 1962. Fourteen year-old Pete's fighting to claim his past. His older brother Jake's hoping to forge a future. With its soaring, elegiac score and eclectic band of youngsters teetering on the brink of adulthood, this inspirational new musical from an acclaimed new team finds both the streaks of light and the heart of darkness within us all.
THE BURNT PART BOYS will have an innovative production and development schedule on its way to an Off-Broadway premiere in the spring of 2010, when it will be presented as a co-production by Playwrights Horizons and the Vineyard Theatre. Following a developmental Lab Production (not open for review, at The Vineyard from May 26 to June 6, 2009), the musical will be presented this summer at New York Stage and Film (Artistic Director, Johanna Pfaelzer; Producing Directors Mark Linn-Baker, Max Mayer, Leslie Urdang) at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, prior to its New York City premiere. The production's unique developmental track of - which involves the collaboration of two New York City theater companies and one regional theater - comes in part under the aegis of a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to Playwrights Horizons for the development of new musicals in partnership with a regional theater, wholly within the non-profit system from start to finish.
Mariana Elder's (Book) plays, sketch comedy and musicals have been performed across the country, including Barrington Stage Co., Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Director's Lab, Theatre for a New City and Manhattan Theater Source. Theater awards include the National Endowment of the Arts Musical Theater Award for Vineyard
Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theater's Rusty Magee Music Theater Fellowship, Daryl Roth First Look Award, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts Dean's Fellowship for Musical Theatre Writing and the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center Scholarship. Her plays have been published in the Estrogenius PlaySource collection. Mariana is devoted to teaching theater through Lincoln Center Theater and in NYC public schools, and helped to create the Songwriting in Schools Program at LCT.
Erica Schmidt (Director). Credits include Humor Abuse (Manhattan Theatre Club), Rent (Tokyo); Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer and Copland's The Tender Land (all at Bard Summerscape); Carnival (Paper Mill Playhouse); People Be Heard (Playwrights Horizons); Trust (The Play Company, Callaway Award nominee); As You Like It (The Public Theater, Chashama and New York International Fringe Festival 2000 Winner for Best Direction); Debbie Does Dallas (wrote the adaptation and directed Off-Broadway at Jane Street); Spanish Girl (Second Stage Uptown); Romeo and Juliet (Outdoor Garage).
For subscription and ticket information to all Playwrights Horizons productions, call TICKET CENTRAL at (212) 279-4200, Noon to 8 pm daily, or purchase online at the Playwrights Horizons website at www.playwrightshorizons.org
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