DETROIT to Make Off-Broadway Debut at Playwrights Horizons in 2012-13 Season

Playwrights Horizons, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tim Sanford and Managing Director Leslie Marcus, is proud to announce the first production of its 2012/2013 Season: the New York premiere of the heralded new play DETROIT by Obie Award winner Lisa D’Amour. Ms. D’Amour is both a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist for this play and a 2011 Steinberg Playwright Award winner for her body of work.

Directed by Obie Award winner Anne Kauffman (the current Maple and Vine at Playwrights Horizons, The Thugs, Stunning, Naked Angels’ This Wide Night) in a completely new production, DETROIT will be presented at Playwrights Horizons’ Mainstage Theater (416 West 42nd Street) in Fall 2012 as the first production of the season.

DETROIT had its World Premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in September 2010. In his review of that production, Charles Isherwood of The New York Times called it, “A terrific new play. This scary-funny comedy speaks to the fractious, frightened American moment more perceptively than any play I’ve ever seen on a New York stage. Hilarious and disturbing, DETROIT is a powerful, funny play that betokens a potentially important new voice.” Chris Jones in The Chicago Tribune hailed it as, “A major new play. Lisa D’Amour has penned a very provocative snapshot of the perilous moment.” Steven Oxman of Variety raved, calling it “A smart and funny new play. Convincing and compelling and tartly funny. This may well be the most effective play yet produced about our current economic doldrums.” And Time Out-Chicago called it “A biting new comedy of economic anxiety.”

Somewhere in the suburbs of a mid-sized city, Ben and Mary welcome into their lives the rootless couple who move in next door. But as this foursome bonds over backyard barbecues, the neighborly connection they find threatens to unravel the lives they’ve built and change them forever. An ecstatic, dangerous new comedy, DETROIT exposes the nerves that live just under the surface of American life today.

Casting and additional details for DETROIT, as well as five additional productions for the 2012/2013 Season, will be announced in the coming months.