New York Theatre Workshop's AN ILIAD Opens 3/6 & 7

New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director William Russo have announced that the New York premiere of An Iliad, by Denis O'Hare and Lisa Peterson, based on Homer's Iliad translated by Robert Fagles, directed by Ms. Peterson, will open this week at NYTW, 79 East 4 Street, between Bowery and Second Avenue. Denis O'Hare and Stephen Spinella alternate performances of the play. Mr. O'Hare opens Tuesday, March 6; Mr. Spinella Wednesday, March 7.

Described as "a sprawling yarn based on Homer's epic poem, An Iliad spins the familiar tale of gods and goddesses, undying love and endless battles told through an original and immediate voice." Tony Award-winning actors Denis O'Hare (Assassins, Take Me Out) and Stephen Spinella (Angels in America) will alternate as performers in this account of humanity's unshakeable attraction to violence, destruction, and chaos. Has anything really changed since the Trojan War?

Denis O'Hare currently plays Larry Harvey on the new hit television show, "American Horror
Story"and most recently appeared as Vampire King Russell Edgington on HBO's "True Blood."
O'Hare has received numerous honors for his work including a Tony Award, an OBIE and a
Drama Desk Award for Take Me Out, a Drama Desk Award for Sweet Charity, and a Tony
nomination for the musical Assassins. Last seen at New York Theatre Workshop in Vienna:
Lusthaus, O'Hare returns and makes his theatre writing debut as the co-creator and alternating
performer of An Iliad.

Award-winning actor, Stephen Spinella won consecutive Tony Awards for Best Featured
Actor and Best Actor for his performance as Prior Walter in Angels in America: Millennium
Approaches and Angels in America: Perestroika, respectively. Spinella also performed on
Broadway in Spring Awakening, Electra, A View from the Bridge and James Joyce's The Dead, for which he earned a Drama Desk Award and Tony nomination. Last season Spinella received rave reviews for his performance in The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures by Tony Kushner at The Public Theater.

At NYTW Lisa Peterson has directed numerous productions, including Light Shining in Buckinghamshire for which she won an OBIE award, and The Waves, which she adapted from Virginia Woolf's novel of the same title with David Bucknam and which received two Drama Desk Award nominations. Ms. Peterson has directed productions at The Public Theater, Primary Stages, Vineyard Theater, MTC, and MCC. She is a graduate of Yale College.

The set design for An Iliad is by Rachel Hauck; costume design is by Marina Draghici; lighting design is by Scott Zielinski; sound design and original music are by Mark Bennett; the bassist is Brian Ellingsen; production stage manager is Donald Fried. An Iliad was originally developed as part of the New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspects Program.

Double Bassist Brian Ellingsen has been a soloist featured at the Spoleto Festival USA, New Music Hartford, and placed in many competitions such as the International Society of Bassists competition, and the Van Rooy competition. As a chamber musician he is a standing member of Ensemble ACJW, Le Train Bleu, and the Heavy Hands bass quartet. He has also performed with Ensemble Intercontemporain, the New York Chamber Soloists, the NOW Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble, and Transit. As an orchestral musician Brian has performed as principle of the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, under the direction of Pierre Boulez, as well as principle of the Spoleto Festival Orchestra. As an advocate for multimedia and experimental music, Brian has collaborated with visual artists, dancers, and actors to bring their work to life through music and his own improvisations. Brian holds a Bachelors degree from the Hartt School, and a Masters from Yale.

"In the beginning Denis and I were making An Iliad to be performed by him-but as things turned out, Denis wasn't able to play earlier productions of the work," said director Lisa Peterson. "At the McCarter Theatre we were blessed with the amazing Stephen Spinella who was so stunning that Denis and I decided it would be right to share the New York premiere with him."

Peterson continued, "Since then, we've become interested in rhapsodes that existed in ancient Greece. These were actors who learned portions of the Iliad and the Odyssey and recited them in turns as part of festivals. This tickled us, because it seemed to describe our own experience of rehearsing side by side and celebrating what's the same-and what isn't-in two remarkable actors telling a profound and ancient story night after night."

New York Theatre Workshop, now celebrating its 29th season, is a leading voice in the world
of Off-Broadway and within the theatre community in New York and around the world. NYTW has emerged as a premiere incubator of important new theatre, honoring its mission to explore perspectives on our collective history and respond to the events and institutions that shape our lives. In addition, NYTW is known for its innovative adaptations of classic repertory. Each season, from its home in New York's East Village neighborhood, NYTW presents three to five new productions, over 80 readings, and numerous workshop productions, for over 45,000 audience members. Over the past 28 years, NYTW has developed and produced over 100 new, fully staged works, including Jonathan Larson's Rent, Tony Kushner's Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul, Doug Wright's Quills, Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde, Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla, Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, Far Away, and A Number, Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's Aftermath, and Rick Elice's Peter and the Starcatcher. The 2002 remounting of Martha Clarke's seminal work, Vienna: Lusthaus and subsequent American tour was one of the longest-running productions in NYTW's history. NYTW's acclaimed production of Once opens at Broadway's Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on March 18, 2012. NYTW supports artists in all stages of their careers by maintaining a series of workshop programs including work-in-progress readings, summer residencies, and minority artist fellowships. In 1991, NYTW received an OBIE Award for Sustained Achievement and in 2000 was designated to be part of the Leading National Theatres Program by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

An Iliad plays at New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East 4th Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery. The regular performance schedule is Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:00pm; Thursday and Friday at 8:00pm; Saturday at 3pm and 8pm; Sunday at 2pm and 7pm. There will also be special student matinees on Wednesday, March 14, and Wednesday, March 21, both at 1pm. An Iliad runs through Sunday, March 25, 2012. Tickets start at $70 with a special ticket price of $100 to receive one ticket to a performance featuring Denis O'Hare and one ticket to a performance featuring Stephen Spinella. Tickets may be purchased online at www.ticketcentral.com, 24 hours a day, seven days a week or by phoning Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200. For exact dates and times of performance, visit www.nytw.org. The running time for An Iliad is 100 minutes with no intermission.

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