Photo Flash: INKED BABY At Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Directed by Kate Whoriskey (Fabulation at Playwrights Horizons, the current hit Ruined), INKED BABY will have its official opening on Monday, March 23 at 7:00 PM and continue through Sunday, April 5.

The cast is lead by Tony and Obie award winner LaChanze (both Once on This Island and The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin at Playwrights Horizons, Dessa Rose), who is making her return to the stage for the first time since winning the 2006 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for The Color Purple. The cast also features Che Ayende (Oroonoko), Michael Genet (Off-Broadway's A Soldier's Play and The Colored Museum, TBS' "Tyler Perry's House of Payne"), Damon Gupton (Off-Broadway's The Story, True History and Real Adventures and Treason), 2-time Audelco Award nominee Angela Lewis (Hoodoo Love, Caligula), Nana Mensah (365 Days/365 Plays) and Obie Award winner Nikkole Salter (In the Continuum).

In INKED BABY, stuck for money and unable to conceive, Gloria (LaChanze) enlists the aid of her sister (Angela Lewis) to make the child that she and her husband (Damon Gupton) can't. As they uneasily await the baby's arrival, a mysterious contamination spreads outside. But consumed by their own struggles, is anyone paying attention? In this imaginative, other-worldly new drama, one family fights to find its place in a neglected neighborhood.Playwrights Horizons' 2008/2009 Season is generously supported by The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

Playwrights Horizons' production of INKED BABY has received generous support from The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, Time Warner Inc., The Carter Fund and the Tiger Baron Foundation. Playwrights Horizons is also 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 and The Shubert Foundation.

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 Craig Lucas's PRAYER FOR MY Enemy and Small Tragedy (2004 Obie Award, Best American Play), Doug Wright, Scott Frankel and Michael Korie's Grey Gardens (3 2007 Tony Awards), Adam Rapp's Kindness, John Dempsey, Michael Friedman and Rinne Groff's Saved, 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, Kirsten Childs's The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, 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, 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.

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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