Julie White To Star In New York Premiere Of Theresa Rebeck's THE UNDERSTUDY For Roundabout

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) has announced the New York premiere of Theresa Rebeck's new comedy The Understudy, directed by Scott Ellis with Tony® Award winner Julie White as "Roxanne".

The Understudy will begin performances on Friday, October 9 and open officially on Thursday, November 5, 2009 at the Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre (111 West 46th Street). This will be a limited engagement.

The design team will include Alexander Dodge (Sets), Tom Broecker (Costumes), Kenneth Posner (Lights), Obadiah Eaves (Original Music & Sound). Additional cast members will be announced shortly.

Box office heroes and washed-up has-beens take heed: the play's almost the thing. In this bitingly witty and entertaining comedy by Theresa Rebeck (Mauritius), the lights of Broadway cast an affectionate glow over this look at one of the most notorious roles in the theatre: the understudy.

The Understudy had its world premiere in July 2008 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, directed by Scott Ellis.

Roundabout Theatre Company's Associate Artistic Director Scott Ellis recently staged Roundabout's hit Tony nominated Broadway production, and subsequent two-year national tour, of Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men. Ellis returns to the Laura Pels stage following the recent productions of David Rabe's Streamers and Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane starring Alec Baldwin.

Tickets will be available beginning Wednesday, June 24th by calling Roundabout Ticket Services at (212)719-1300, online at www.roundabouttheatre.org or at the Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre box office (111 West 46 Street). Ticket prices range from $70.00-$80.00

The Understudy will play Tuesday through Saturday evening at 7:30 p.m. with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m.

Support for new plays generously provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

Julie White (Roxanne). Julie White received the Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Little Dog Laughed. She also received an Obie Award and nominations from the Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel Awards, Outer Critics Circle and the Drama League for this performance. She recently starred on stage in From Up Here (Drama Desk, Drama League nominations) at Manhattan Theatre Club. Her other New York stage appearances include Fiction at The Roundabout, The Heidi Chronicles, Dinner With Friends, Barbra's Wedding and also Bad Dates, Spike Heels, and The Family of Man all by Theresa Rebeck. Television credits include "Cavemen," guest starring as Mitzi Dalton Huntley on HBO's "Six Feet Under," a series regular on "Grace Under Fire," "The Heidi Chronicles," "Law And Order," "Law And Order: SVU," "Whoopi," "Ally McBeal," "Strong Medicine," "Touched By An Angel" and "Arli$." Film credits include the upcoming Transformers 2, The Astronaut Farmer, Michael Clayton, The Nanny Diaries, Transformers, War Of The Worlds, Slap Her, She's French, Breaking Upwards and Sunday on the Rocks.

Theresa Rebeck (Playwright). Theresa Rebeck's written works include all mediums from television, to film, theater and books. As a Pulitzer Prize nominated author, Theresa Rebeck continues to shine as a widely produced and respected literary talent in the United States and abroad. There are over 100 productions of her work performed all over the world each year. Her most recent accomplishments include her Broadway debut in 2007 with Mauritius at the Biltmore Theatre in a Manhattan Theater Club Production. The play went on to a West Coast premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse this year and continues to be performed throughout the United States. Rebeck's Our House had a limited run at Playwrights Horizons this summer. In addition Rebeck has written The Scene, The Water's Edge, Loose Knit, The Family of Mann and Spike Heels all at Second Stage; Bad Dates and The Butterfly Collection at Playwrights Horizons; and View of the Dome at New York Theatre Workshop. Omnium Gatherum (co-written, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003) was featured at the Humana Festival, and had a commercial run at the Variety Arts Theatre. All of Ms. Rebeck's past produced plays are published by Smith and Kraus as Theresa Rebeck: Complete Plays, Volumes I, II and III and in acting editions available from Samuel French. Ms. Rebeck's other publications are Free Fire Zone, a book of comedic essays about writing and show business. She has written for American Theatre Magazine and has had excerpts of her plays published in the Harvard Review. As a television writer, Ms. Rebeck has written for Dream On, Brooklyn Bridge, L.A. Law, American Dreamer, Maximum Bob, First Wave, and Third Watch. She has been a writer/producer for Canterbury's Law, Smith, Law and Order: Criminal Intent and NYPD Blue. Her produced feature films include Harriet the Spy, Gossip, and the independent feature Sunday on the Rocks. In the spring of 2008, Rebeck's first novel "Three Girls and Their Brother" was published by Shaye Areheart books. A compelling tale about "it" girls in New York City, the book received rave notices, won a 2009 Alex Award and was chosen by Booklist as one of the top ten first novels of the year. Other awards include the Mystery Writer's of America's Edgar Award, the Writer's Guild of America award for Episodic Drama, the Hispanic Images Imagen Award, and the Peabody, all for her work on NYPD Blue. She has won the National Theatre Conference Award (for The Family of Mann), and was awarded the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award in 2003 for The Bells. Mauritius was originally produced at Boston's Huntington Theatre, where it received the 2007 IRNE Award for Best New Play as well as the Eliot Norton Award. This year Ms. Rebeck was the honored playwright at the Great Plains Theatre Conference. Ms. Rebeck has collaborated with many stars of stage and screen including Tony Shalhoub, Stanley Tucci, Bobby Canavale, Patricia Heaton, Kevin Bacon, Tony Goldwyn and Julie White among others. Ms. Rebeck is originally from Cincinnati and holds an MFA in Playwrighting and a PhD. in Victorian Melodrama, both from Brandeis University. She is a proud board member of the Dramatists Guild and has taught at Brandeis University and Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Jess Lynn and two children, Cooper and Cleo.

Scott Ellis (Director) most recently directed David Rabe's Streamers at Roundabout's Laura Pels Theatre. He was recently represented on Broadway by the new Kander and Ebb musical Curtains starring David Hyde Pierce (Tony Nomination, Best Direction of a Musical). His Broadway credits include Douglas Carter Beane's Tony Nominated play, The Little Dog Laughed, the hit revival of Twelve Angry Men (Tony Award and Drama Desk nominations), The Look of Love -the songs of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Arthur Miller's The Man Who Had All the Luck starring Chris O'Donnell, The Rainmaker starring Woody Harrelson, The Boys From Syracuse, 1776 (Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Tony Award nominations), Steel Pier (which he co-conceived, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Tony Award nominations), She Loves Me (Drama Desk and Tony Award nominations, Outer Critics Circle Award, Olivier Award for Best Director London Production), Picnic starring Ashley Judd, A Month in the Country starring Helen Mirren, and the 1995 revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company. Off-Broadway credits include Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Good Boys and True, Douglas Carter Beane's The Little Dog Laughed (Lucille Lortel Award nomination & LA production), Kenneth Lonergan's The Waverly Gallery starring Eileen Heckart, David Rabe's The Dog Problem, Kander and Ebb's Flora, The Red Menace, Eric Overmyer's Dark Rapture, the 1999 revival of That Championship Season, and The World Goes ‘Round...The Songs Of Kander and Ebb (Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle nomination). Other recent credits include the national tour of Twelve Angry Men starring Richard Thomas, and Theresa Rebeck's The Understudy at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. His productions for the New York City Opera include Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones 110 in the Shade, and Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music (Drama Desk Award) which was subsequently televised on PBS Network's "Live from Lincoln Center" (Emmy Nomination), and later re-staged with Jeremy Irons and Juliet Stephenson. MR. Ellis also re-staged A Little Night Music for the Los Angeles Opera (L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award Nomination) starring Victor Garber. MR. Ellis co-conceived and directed Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall as well as The Leading Ladies of Broadway, which were each televised on "Great Performances". For television, he has directed Showtime's "Weeds," NBC's "30 Rock"(Emmy Nomination, Outstanding Directing For A Comedy Series) and "Frasier," ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and "Hope & Faith," FOX's "Stacked," CBS's "Charlie Lawrence" and "Out of Practice," and TNT's "The Closer." A graduate of Chicago Goodman School of Drama, he is the recipient of their 1999 Distinguished Artist Award. MR. Ellis is the Associate Artistic Director of the Roundabout Theatre Company.

Roundabout Theatre Company is one of the country's leading not-for-profit theatres. The company contributes invaluably to New York's cultural life by staging the highest quality revivals of classic plays and musicals as well as new plays by established writers. Roundabout consistently partners great artists with great works to bring a fresh and exciting interpretation that makes each production relevant and important to today's audiences.

Roundabout Theatre Company currently produces at three permanent homes each of which is designed specifically to enhance the needs of the Roundabout's mission. Off-Broadway, the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, which houses the Laura Pels Theatre and Black Box Theatre, with its simple sophisticated design is perfectly suited to showcasing intimate plays and musicals. The grandeur of its Broadway home on 42nd Street, American Airlines Theatre, sets the ideal stage for the classics. Roundabout's Studio 54 provides an exciting and intimate Broadway venue for its musical and special event productions. Together these three distinctive venues serve to enhance the work on each of its stages.

American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company. Roundabout productions are made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts; and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

Roundabout Theatre Company's 2008-2009 season includes Christopher Hampton's The Philanthropist, starring Matthew Broderick, directed by David Grindley; Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, starring (in order of speaking) Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin, John Goodman, John Glover, directed by Anthony Page. Roundabout's sold out production of The 39 Steps made its second Broadway transfer to the Helen Hayes Theatre on January 21, 2009.

Roundabout Theatre Company's 2009-2010 season includes Mark Saltzman, Irving Berlin & Scott Joplin's The Tin Pan Alley Rag, directed by Stafford Arima; Patrick Marber's After Miss Julie, starring Sienna Miller & Jonny Lee Miller, directed by Mark Brokaw; Michael Stewart, Lee Adams and Charles Strouse's Bye Bye Birdie, starring John Stamos, Gina Gershon, Bill Irwin & Nolan Gerard Funk, directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom; Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking, directed by Tony Taccone; Theresa Rebeck's The Understudy, directed by Scott Ellis and Noël Coward's Present Laughter starring Victor Garber, directed by Nicholas Martin.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.

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