Sarah Treem's THE HOW AND THE WHY Receives NYC Premiere, Directed By Austin Pendleton

Good Egg (the producers behind the critically acclaimed Gidion's Knot at 59E59 Theaters) is thrilled to present the New York City premiere of THE HOW AND THE WHY, written by Sarah Treem (The Affair, In Treatment) and directed by Austin Pendleton. THE HOW AND THE WHY begins performances on Thursday, October 20 for a limited engagement through Sunday, November 6. Press Opening is Sunday, October 23 at 3:00 p.m. The performance schedule is Wednesday - Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Performances are at The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture (18 Bleeker Street, on the corner of Bleeker and Elizabeth).

Single tickets are $25. Tickets are available via Ovation Tix and GoodEggTheater.com. The running time is 90 minutes, with no intermission.

American theater treasure Austin Pendleton helms the NYC premiere of Sarah Treem's rapid-fire joust between two women scientists with a complicated history. Their scholarly debate on the purposes - not the how but the why - of female reproductive processes escalates into an all-in, life-changing clash around power and age, sex and gender, and the hard choices faced by women of every generation.

A Golden Globe Award-winning writer, Treem turns a domestic drama into biological warfare as a pair of academics - one at the beginning of her career, the other at the end - face off in this compelling, intellectually searing play about science, family, and survival of the fittest.

In this prescient play, science and emotion collide, adding a unique - and often ignored - perspective to the current cultural conversation centered around women's bodies. What does bodily autonomy look like; and who has a right to it?

For The How and the Why, Treem was inspired by the work of two evolutionary biologists: Margie Profet, who espoused a controversial theory that menstruation cleansed the reproductive canal, calling sperm "vectors of disease;" and Kristen Hawkes, who advanced the "grandmother hypothesis" and theorized that menopause allowed women to focus on the raising of their children's children, slowing maturation, increasing the size of their brains and, in the process, "inventing humanity." These two competing ideas formed the basis for Treem's emotionally blistering and profound play, where even the possibility of redemption hangs in the balance until the play's final moments.

The cast features Karen Leiner (Gidion's Knot at 59E59; The Birthday Party at CSC) and Arielle Goldman (Plano with Clubbed Thumb; recurring on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel).

The design team includes Anya Klepikov (set design); Ryan Metzler (lighting design); and Kathleen Doyle (costume design); Mona Damian (prop design); and Andrew Lynch (sound design).

Austin Pendleton (director) is an actor, director, playwright and, at HB Studio in New York, a teacher of acting. He directed Good Egg's New York premiere of Gidion's Knot at 59E59 Theaters. He is currently appearing in This Beautiful Future and earlier this year was seen in the Tony-nominated The Minutes by Tracy Letts. He directed Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Adly Guirgis at Atlantic Theater and Second Stage, and will direct it again this fall at the Broadway home of Second Stage, the Helen Hayes. He was nominated for a Tony Award for directing Elizabeth Taylor in The Little Foxes. He is a member of the ensemble at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater. He is a husband, a father, and a grandfather.

Sarah Treem (playwright) is an American playwright and TV writer-producer. Her most recent play, When We Were Young and Unafraid premiered in the summer of 2014, and starred Cherry Jones with direction by Pam MacKinnon. A Feminine Ending premiered at Playwrights Horizons. Treem's other plays include Empty Sky (Bloomington Playwrights Project), Island (Sundance Theater Lab), Human Voices, (New York Stage and Film), and Mirror Mirror. Treem is the co-creator of the Showtime drama The Affair, which won a Golden Globe Award for Outstanding Drama Series and was a writer and co-executive producer on the inaugural season of House of Cards, which was nominated for nine Golden Globes, including Outstanding Drama Series. She wrote on the first three seasons of the acclaimed HBO Series, In Treatment. In addition, Treem has earned nominations for the Humanitas Prize, Primetime Emmy Awards and four Writers Guild of America Awards, including two wins for New Series for House of Cards and In Treatment.

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