Soho Rep Extends BORN BAD Thru 5/7

Due to critical and popular demand, Off-Broadway's eleven-time Obie Award-winning Soho Rep will extend the U.S. premiere of debbie tucker green's BORN BAD by two weeks, now through May 7th, 2011 at Soho Rep (46 Walker Street), it has been announced by Soho Rep Artistic Director Sarah Benson. Leah C. Gardiner directs.

When BORN BAD opened at Soho Rep on April 7th Charles Isherwood of The New York Times said, "Soho Rep regularly outclasses the work done on many of the city's larger stages," and "Acted with fiery feeling by a superb cast... directed with incisive clarity by Leah C. Gardiner... this intense, stylized drama about poisonous family secrets hits you like a triple shot of espresso... excited by the play's formal invention, moved by its coiled emotional power." Joe Dziemianowicz of the New York Daily News said, "The work is exhilarating and disturbing all at once...lives up to considerable hype...Tucker Green's brief and pungent 14 scenes come to vivid life in director Leah C. Gardiner's fast-paced and impeccably acted production. Playing a fractured and fractious family, the six ace actors are in perfect harmony." Alexis Soloski of The Village Voice said, "you're unlikely to see anything as emotionally searing onstage this season." Erik Haagensen of Backstage said, "Critics Pick! It's essential and stunning theater. [Born Bad] rings with the clarion force of the trumpet calls that brought down the walls of Jericho." Scott Brown of New York Magazine called BORN BAD "a deeply unsettling, upsettingly funny family portrait, slashed with box cutters and stuck back together with guilt, hurt, and blood...a remarkably smooth 60-minute ride...a tragedy of almost Grecian size." Benjamin Sutton of L Magazine called it "perversely enjoyable [with] a phenomenally stacked cast." And Amy Witting of NYTheatre.com called it "a disturbingly beautiful play...kept me on my toes for its entire jam-packed lyrical sixty minutes."

Just as it has done with theatre artists such as: Jomama Jones, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Dan LaFranc, Young Jean Lee, and Sarah Kane's BLASTED in 2008, Soho Rep presents the US premiere of the acclaimed British play BORN BAD, and gives voice - for the first time in the US to its playwright debbie tucker green.

In debbie tucker green's Olivier Award winning BORN BAD for best newcomer "Dawta says it's the truth, but other family members remember differently." At once epic and domestic, laced with humor and told with inventive form, tucker green's explosive drama follows one family trying to make sense of their past.

Directed by Leah C. Gardiner, the cast of BORN BAD features Crystal A. Dickinson (RUINED, CLYBOURNE PARK), Heather Alicia Simms (GEM OF THE OCEAN, A RAISIN IN THE SUN), LeRoy McClain (CYMBELINE, THE HISTORY BOYS), Obie Award-winner Quincy Tyler Bernstine (RUINED, IN THE NEXT ROOM), Michael Rogers (JOE TURNER'S COME AND GONE, BREAKFAST WITH MUGABE), and Elaine R. Graham (Julie Taymor's "Across the Universe," PLAYBOY OF THE WEST INDIES).

Design team for BORN BAD is Michael Chybowski (Lighting Designer), Mimi Lien (Set Designer), and Paul Tazewell (Costume Designer).

debbie tucker green arrived with a bang in 2003 with DIRTY BUTTERFLY, which she quickly followed up with BORN BAD. Her other plays include: STONING MARY and RANDOM, both produced by the Royal Court. She recently completed a movie of RANDOM for Channel 4 and is working on a new play for The Royal Court.

Leah C. Gardiner has directed FENCES for Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the world premieres of BULRUSHER by Eisa Davis at Urban Stages (Pulitzer finalist), BLUE DOOR by Tanya Barfield at South Coast Rep (Pulitzer finalist), and ORANGE FLOWER WATER by Craig Wright at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival. Other notable New York credits include WIT at Union Square Theater (the installation of the 2nd & 3rd casts), Molly Smith Metzler's TRAINING WISTERIA at the Cherry Lane Theatre; John Augustine's KENT, CT at the Zipper Theater; EARTHQUAKE CHICA by Anne García- Romero as part of the Summer Play Festival, Cheri Magid's THE GHOST OF ENOCH CARLTON for the Keen Company's Keen Teens Program; and, Karen Hartman's THE MOTHER OF MODERN CENSORSHIP at the Tiny Mythic Theater for Lincoln Center Director's Lab.

BORN BAD is made possible by major support from John A. Selzer.

On Monday, May 2nd Soho Rep will honor theatre legend Marian Seldes for her long and illustrious career at their Soho Rep SPRING GALA 2011. Set to perform at this year's gala - which will be held at the Highline Ballroom (431 West 16th Street) - are Emmy Award winner Blythe Danner, Golden Globe winner Ted Danson, Parker Posey, Peter Dinklage, Lili Taylor, Michael Stuhlbarg and more. The evening will begin with cocktails and hors d' oeuvres at 6:30pm, followed by dinner at 7:30pm and honoree presentation and stage performance at 8:30pm. For tickets to the Soho Rep SPRING GALA 2011 please visit the Soho Rep website at www.SohoRep.org or call 212-647-1828.

Now in its 34th year, Soho Rep's 2010-11 season is the fourth under the leadership of Artistic Director, Sarah Benson, and the third for Executive Director, Tania Camargo. Soho Rep is dedicated to cultivating and producing visionary, uncompromising, and exuberant new plays. They perform to one of the youngest adult audiences in New York City, with over three-quarters of its audience aged 18-40.

Critics continue to herald Soho Rep as the go-to theatre destination for new and original works. New York Magazine states, "this indispensable theater offers more excitement per chair than any space in town," Time Out New York says, "Soho Rep is the best theater in NYC (official)," Variety exclaims "[Soho Rep] has claimed an increasingly vital spot...the venue has suddenly become one to watch for Manhattan theatergoers starved for new work," and the New York Times declares Soho Rep to be "one of the most daring companies."

Dan Le Franc was recently awarded the New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award for the Soho Rep production of his play SIXTY MILES TO SILVER LAKE in 2009. Over the last decade, Soho Rep productions have garnered eleven OBIE Awards -- most recently for Sarah Benson (director) and Louisa Thompson (set designer) for the critically acclaimed New York premiere of Sarah Kane's BLASTED and Nature Theater of Oklahoma's NO DICE; six Drama Desk nominations, two for BLASTED (Outstanding Director of a Play - Sarah Benson and Outstanding Actor in a Play - Reed Birney) and four for their critically acclaimed production of FRANKENSTEIN, the Oppenheimer Award for EVERYTHING WILL BE DIFFERENT, and two Kesselring Awards for Melissa James Gibson and Mark Schultz. In recent years, Soho Rep has presented plays by established and emerging theatre artists such as Richard Maxwell, Mac Wellman, Dan LeFranc, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Young Jean Lee and The Flying Machine.

Now scheduled through May 7th, performances of BORN BAD run Tuesdays - Sundays at 7:30pm at Soho Rep - additionally there will be 3:00pm matinee performances of BORN BAD on Saturday April, 30 and Saturday, May 7. (46 Walker Street - between Broadway & Church, 2 blocks south of Canal Street). Tickets are 99 cents for all Sunday performances, $30 for general admission and $40 for premium reserved seating and can be reserved by calling TheaterMania at 212-352-3101 or online atwww.sohorep.org.

For additional information about Soho Rep., call 212-941-8632 or visit www.sohorep.org

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