Elizabeth Franz Stars in Cho's 'Piano Teacher' at Vineyard

Opening the Tony Award-winning Vineyard Theatre's 2007-08 Season will be the Off-Broadway premiere of The Piano Teacher, a new play by Julia Cho, author of Durango, with previews to begin October 30, prior to its official press opening November 18 at The Vineyard Theatre (108 East 15th Street). Kate Whoriskey directs.

Elizabeth Franz, who won a Tony Award for her portrayal of Linda Loman opposite Brian Dennehy in Death of a Salesman in 1999 and received an Obie Award for her performance in the Off-Broadway play Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, stars in the title role. Franz also received Tony nominations for her work in Brighton Beach Memoirs and Morning's at Seven. Other credits include Broadway productions of The Cemetery Club, Broadway Bound, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; Buried Child at the Royal National Theatre in London; and TV's "Roseanne," "Another World" and "As the World Turns."

In The Piano Teacher, Franz portrays Mrs. K, a retired piano teacher who seeks out her former students, curious why they suddenly stopped taking lessons years before.

Joining Franz in the cast are Bethany Butler (Julia Jordan's Summer of the Swans) and John Boyd (Romania. Kiss Me!).

The Piano Teacher, has set design by Derek McLane; costume design by Ilona Somogyi; lighting design by David Weiner; and original music and sound design by Obadiah Eaves.

Julia Cho's plays include BFE (Playwrights Horizons), Durango (Public), The Winchester House (The Theatre at Boston Court), The Architecture of Loss (New York Theatre Workshop), 99 Histories (Cherry Lane) and Bay and the Spectacles of Doom (La Jolla). Her honors include the 2005 Barrie Stavis Award, the 2005 Claire Tow Award for Emerging Artists, and the 2004 L. Arnold Weissberger Award. She has also received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant and was a finalist for The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Kate Whoriskey directed the world premieres of Lynn Nottage's Intimate Apparel at South Coast Repertory and Fabulation at Playwrights Horizons.

Performances of The Piano Teacher, run October 30 through December 9; Tuesdays at 7pm; Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8pm; with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3pm. Tickets are $55. For reservations, call The Vineyard box office at 212-353-0303 or log onto www.vineyardtheatre.org.

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