Roundabout Theatre Announces ORDINARY DAYS As First Musical In Black Box Theatre

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) announces Ordinary Days, a new musical with Music & Lyrics by Adam Gwon, directed by Marc Bruni. This production marks the first musical presented in the Black Box Theatre.

Ordinary Days is the third production of Roundabout Underground, an initiative launched in 2007 to introduce and cultivate artists in Roundabout's 62-seat Black Box Theatre, at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre (111 West 46th Street, NYC, NY, 10036). Prior productions include Speech & Debate (2007) and The Language of Trees (2008).

Roundabout is proud to welcome back two artists who have previously worked at the theatrical institution: Adam Gwon & Marc Bruni.

Ordinary Days will begin previews performances on Friday, October 2, 2009 and will officially open on Sunday, October 25. This will be a limited engagement through Sunday, December 13, 2009.

All tickets for Roundabout Underground productions are $20.

Additional cast and design team members will be announced shortly.

From the bustling streets to the quiet rooftops, Ordinary Days tells the story of four young New Yorkers whose lives are unexpectedly interconnected by circumstance. The series of funny and fortuitous events in this intimate, fast-paced musical proves that ordinary days can be simply extraordinary.

Out of college in 2001, Adam Gwon began an internship at Roundabout Theatre Company and went on to become an Associate in the development office. He continued to write musicals while working at Roundabout and he is currently a teaching artist with the company. Adam is the winner of the 2008 Fred Ebb Award for Excellence in Musical Theater Songwriting. Roundabout welcomes back Marc Bruni following his work as an Associate Director on the Tony Award winning production of The Pajama Game and The Man Who Came to Dinner.

Roundabout Underground is an initiative to showcase new plays that will either allow an experienced director to go back to his/her creative roots or give a debut production to an emerging writer or director. Robyn Goodman (Artistic Consultant to the Roundabout), who has significant artistic development experience, is curating the initiative that continues to be a creative breeding ground for nurturing new talent.
The 62-seat Black Box Theatre, below the Laura Pels Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre allows Roundabout to take artistic risks that are better suited for a more intimate space.

Support for Roundabout Underground provided by Jodi and Daniel Glucksman, The Educational Foundation of America, Laura S. Rodgers/The Honorable Ann W. Brown & Donald A. Brown, Stephen and Ruth Hendel, and The Barbara Bell Cumming Foundation. Support for new plays provided by The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and The Laura Pels Foundation."

Adam Gwon (Music & Lyrics) is a composer and lyricist named one of "50 to Watch" by The Dramatist magazine, and winner of the 2008 Fred Ebb award for excellence in musical theater songwriting. His musical Ordinary Days recently enjoyed a sold-out run at the Finborough Theatre in London, after making its world premiere at Pennsylvania Centre Stage and appearing in the 2008 NAMT Festival of New Musicals and the 2008 ASCAP/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop. His other musicals include Bernice Bobs Her Hair (with librettist Julia Jordan) and Ethan Frome. His work has been seen at Primary Stages, the York Theatre, New Dramatists, The Flea Theater, American Music Theatre Project, NYMF, Symphony Space, and many others. He's currently at work on an original musical with playwright Sarah Hammond, commissioned by Broadway Across America; a musical commission from South Coast Rep for a project with Octavio Solis; and an adaptation of Joe Meno's "The Boy Detective Fails," commissioned by Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA, as part of its American Musical Voices Project: The Next Generation. Adam and his work were presented in concert at the Kennedy Center as part of their series "Broadway: The Third Generation" and you can watch the concert on their website. Adam was a 2006-07 musical theater fellow at the Dramatists Guild and is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Upcoming productions of Ordinary Days include The Human Race Theater, the Adirondack Theater Company, South Coast Rep and it's in New York premiere, the Roundabout Theatre Company. Visit www.adamgwon.com.

Marc Bruni (Director). won the New York Musical Theatre Festival Directing Award for his production of Such Good Friends, and his production of Glimpses of the Moon just concluded a sold out run at the Algonquin Hotel Oak Room. He is currently the Associate Director of Legally Blonde (Tour/London) and appeared on MTV's "Search for Elle Woods". Additional directing credits include Rob Fisher's Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein concerts for Lincoln Center Songbook, St. Louis MUNY productions of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, My One and Only, and The Music Man (upcoming). He has been associated with Walter Bobbie, Kathleen Marshall, Jerry Mitchell, and Jerry Zaks on thirteen Broadway shows including Roundabout's revivals of The Pajama Game and The Man Who Came to Dinner, Irving Berlin's White Christmas (10 Productions Internationally), Grease, Wonderful Town, High Fidelity, Sweet Charity, La Cage Aux Folles, and Little Shop of Horrors (Bway/Tour) as well as on Two Gentlemen of Verona (NYSF), South Pacific (Carnegie Hall/PBS), and City Center Encores! productions of Finian's Rainbow, No, No, Nanette, Applause, 70, Girls, 70, and Bye Bye Birdie. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College
TICKET INFORMATION:

Tickets will be available in August 2009 by calling Roundabout Ticket Services at (212)719-1300, online at www.roundaboutunderground.org or at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre box office (111 West 46 Street). The ticket price is $20.00 for all seats. All tickets for Ordinary Days will be issued as General Admission passes for first-come, first-served seating on the show date. 

Ordinary Days will play Tuesday through Sunday evenings at 7:00PM with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 1:30PM. 

The Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre opened on March 17th, 2004 allowing Roundabout to continue its mission to produce new plays by established writers and lesser-known classic plays in the 425-seat Laura Pels Theatre. The inaugural production at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre was Intimate Apparel, a new play by Lynn Nottage, directed by Daniel Sullivan (2004 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award Best Play, Outer Critics Circle Award Best Play, Outer Critics Circle Award John Gassner Award Best Play, PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for Lynn Nottage, American Theatre Critic's Association's Francesca Primus Award Best Play, Steinberg New Play Award, Audelco Dramatic Production of the Year). Prior to the launch of Roundabout Underground in October 2007, the 62-seat Black Box Theatre has been used by Roundabout's education department for its activities including student productions and professional development workshops.
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 new plays. 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.

Roundabout Theatre Company productions are made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation; New York State Council on the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts; and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company. The Westin Hotel is the official hotel of the Roundabout Theatre Company.
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 Patrick Marber's After Miss Julie, starring Sienna Miller, directed by Mark Brokaw; Michael Stewart, Lee Adams and Charles Strouse's Bye Bye Birdie, starring John Stamos, Gina Gershon & Bill Irwin, directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom; Mark Saltzman, Irving Berlin & Scott Joplin's The Tin Pan Alley Rag, directed by Stafford Arima; Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking, directed by Tony Taccone; and Noël Coward's Present Laughter starring Victor Garber, directed by Nicholas Martin.

www.roundaboutunderground.org

 

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