Radio Interview Features STOREFRONT CHURCH Playwright John Patrick Shanley

Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning playwright and director John Patrick Shanley sat down with WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer today, June 1, to discuss the world premiere production of his latest play STOREFRONT CHURCH, now in previews at Atlantic Theater Company.

Listen to the broadcast here.

STOREFRONT CHURCH features the celebrated ensemble cast of Bob Dishy, Giancarlo Esposito, Zach Grenier, Ron Cephas Jones, Jordan Lage and Tonya Pinkins.

The show began previews May 16, officially opens June 11 and plays a limited engagement through June 24Off-Broadway as the first production to return to Atlantic’s main stage Linda Gross Theater in Chelsea following completion of a historic $8.3M renovation.

STOREFRONT CHURCH is the final installment of John Patrick Shanley’s trilogy called Church and State, which began with Doubt. The story concerns a Bronx borough President (Esposito) who is forced, by the mortgage crisis into a confrontation with a local minister (Cephas Jones). The question they confront is one that faces us all. What is the relationship between spiritual experience and social action?

“The Brian Lehrer Show” is WNYC Radio’s Peabody Award-winning live news talk program, broadcast in New York on FM and AM from 10 a.m. to noon weekdays, and worldwide at www.wnyc.org. The show serves as a town square for New York and beyond, with newsmakers and agenda-setters, journalists and listeners conversing at length on the local, national and international news and cultural and social trends of the day. WNYC is the nation's largest public radio station.

Atlantic Theater Company AT THE LINDA GROSS THEATER is located at 336 West 20th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues).

STOREFRONT CHURCH will play Tuesday – Saturday at 8pm, Wednesday and Saturday at 2pm, Sunday at 3pm. There will be a Sunday evening performances at 7pm on Sunday, June 3. There is no evening performance on June 12.

All tickets are $65.00 and available by calling Ticket Central at 212-279-4200 (www.ticketcentral.com) or at the Atlantic Stage 2 box office at 330 West 16th Street.

For more, visit www.atlantictheater.org.

Photo credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.