Sam Redford's THE BELLE OF BELFAST Set For Cherry Lane Theater, Begins 4/27

Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce St. in Greenwich Village) will present Nate Rufus Edelman's play THE BELLE OF BELFAST - the second of three plays staged this spring as part of Cherry Lane's award-winning 12th annual MENTOR PROJECT playwriting series - with performances starting April 27. Directed by Eric Tucker and mentored by Charles Fuller, THE BELLE OF BELFAST will perform through May 8, 2010.

THE BELLE OF BELFAST will perform Apr 27 at 7pm, Apr 28 at 7pm, Apr 29 at 7pm, Apr 30 at 7pm, May 1 at 3pm and 7pm, May 4 at 7pm, May 5 at 7pm, May 6 at 7pm, May 7 at 7pm and May 8 at 3pm and 7pm.

THE BELLE OF BELFAST is Nate Rufus Edelman's sharp and darkly witty play about 17-year-old Anne Malloy, who is lost and angry after the tragic killing of her parents by a terrorist's bomb. Like many who suffered and survived during Ireland's "Troubles," she turns to the comforts of her local parish. However, her passion is not for the Church, but for her confessor and confidant Father Reilly, forcing both to re-evaluate where one finds solace and faith during a time of conflict.

Directed by Eric Tucker, THE BELLE OF BELFAST has a cast which includes Evan Thompson (CITY OF ANGELS, 1776), Elvy Yost ("Bandslam" with Lisa Kudrow and Vanessa Hudgens), Katie Fabel (The Irish Rep's ERNEST IN LOVE), Sam Redford (who portrays Contractor Jimmy in the Academy Award-winning THE HURT LOCKER), and Terry Donnelly (THE YEATS PROJECT). Mr. Edelman and BELFAST are mentored by Charles Fuller, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his work A SOLDIER'S PLAY and is the author of the plays ZOOMAN AND THE SIGN and THE BROWNSVILLE RAID.

Winner of an American Theatre Wing Award, a Village Voice Obie Award and the Dramatist Guild's James Kirkwood Award for fostering new work by contemporary playwrights, Cherry Lane Theatre's MENTOR PROJECT each year pairs a new writer with an established playwright for a season of script development, casting, rehearsal and professional productions of their works for the stage. Mentor Project has become an important national launching pad for new writers and their plays: later this year, Mentor Project playwright Sheila Callaghan's play LASCIVIOUS SOMETHING will be presented Off-Broadway in a co-production between Cherry Lane Theatre and the Women's Project, and just last year Cherry Lane presented an Off-Broadway engagement of Deidre O'Connor's critically-acclaimed play JAILBAIT at The Cherry Pit in Greenwich Village.
THE BELLE OF BELFAST follows the production of Ruth McKee's Mentor Project play STRAY, presented by Cherry Lane Theatre in March of this year. The third play in the 2010 Mentor Project series, PATERNITY by Winter Miller, directed and mentored by Craig Lucas, will debut at Cherry Lane in May.

The design team for all three mentor project plays is: Kina Park and John McDermott (Set Design); Rebecca Bernstein (Costume Design); Pat Dignan (Lighting Design) and Daniel Kluger (Sound Design).

ABOUT MENTOR PROJECT
Chosen annually from scripts submitted by the Cherry Lane National Nominating Committee, and selected by the 2010 Mentor playwrights themselves, the Mentor Project fellows work one-on-one with their advisers, have private and public readings of their plays, attend workshops and receive 12 performance showcase runs at Cherry Lane Theatre each spring.
Previous Mentor Project playwrights whose work has been produced subsequent to their tenure at Cherry Lane: Rajiv Joseph, "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" (Center Theater Group); David Adjmi, "Stunning" (Lincoln Center Theater 3); Katori Hall, "The Mountaintop" (London's Battersea, West End); Jakob Holder, "Bedtime Solos" (Old Red Lion Theater, England); Colin McKenna, "The Secret Agenda of Trees" (Wild Project, NYC); Allison Moore, "Slasher" (Humana Festival); Christopher Shinn and Sam Forman.

The Mentor Project continues Cherry Lane Theatre's long and rich history of presenting works by both emerging and seasoned playwrights that reveal the social consciousness of our ever-changing world. Now 86 years old, and New York's longest, continuously-running Off-Broadway theatre, Cherry Lane is known as "the birthplace of Off-Broadway," and since the 1920's has been home to such iconoclastic writers as O'Neill, Saroyan, Auden, Albee, Odets, Orton, Mamet, Lanford Wilson, and many others.

Angelina Fiordellisi is Founder and Artistic Director of Cherry Lane Theatre; James King is Executive Director..

Tickets to Mentor Project performances are $18 ($10 with valid student ID), and are available by calling TeleCharge at 212-239-6200 or visiting www.TeleCharge.com, at The Cherry Lane Theatre box office (38 Commerce Street) in New York or online at www.cherrylanetheatre.org

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